Mac Performance Hyper54

Just a quick review/plug for Mike over at mac performance.

I had recently picked up one of his Hyper54 kits - 54mm minimum diameter with the aluminum fin can. Kit went together super smooth - everything perfectly cut and square! I decided that this would be a good bird to fly at BALLS since i could shove the biggest motor i had a case for in there.. In this case, a CTI 6GXL L935 IMAX.. Hey . go big or go home right? I had bought the canvas kit instead of carbon - figured this would be a good test of the strength. I had known that the canvas was pretty strong as i had used it for couplers in a carbon fiber minimum diameter bird that went over mach 3 in the past.

anyway.. suffice it to say the flight was perfect! it soared to 19,897 AGL and approx Mach 2.45 (i had originality thought it went closer to mach 2.8 but i read the data wrong)..

what was really cool is the heat burn on the paint.. completely melted the vinyl decals and bubbled the paint. The urethane clear was fine (i have used that on mach 3 birds before), but in this case i used an lacquer undercoat / base coat and i think that is what bubbled.. i am trying to decide to sand it down and repaint it or just leave it as a badge of honor!!!

Kudos to mike for a bad ass kit!!!! i don't think you need to spend the $ for carbon on this kit, the canvas holds up just fine to extreme speeds!!


attaching some pics of the post flight !

This is the first minimum diameter kit that seriously interests me. Its tempting!

Great photos and review. I fell in love with MAC this summer and look forward to building more of their kits.

Wow! I recently bought a Hyper54 and have been trying to figure out what to expect from it as I work through the build process. I had already decided to omit any decals, go simple on paint, and leave the fins bare, but this makes me think I should use high-heat primer and paint. And now I'm worried that my Additive Aerospace 3D printed plastic camera shroud will melt. Anyone have experience with those shrouds past Mach 2?

Of course, with all the added drag from the shroud, I may never hit those velocities with the Hyper54--so maybe this is moot. My only other minimum diameter rocket is a Giant Leap Firestorm54, which hit Mach 1.17 and 10,268ft on a K828 and had layers of paint stripped off the nose cone, but the camera shroud was fine. I'm expecting this to go a lot faster/higher though...

I’m a long time fan of Mike’s kits. I haven’t started building his Hyper 54 kit yet.

After seeing the paint melted off of Mike’s prototype I ordered high heat epoxy paint from Eastwood. Eastwood sells paints for the automotive industry. Their high heat epoxy paint comes in a unique aerosol can. You press a plunger in the bottom of the can to mix the two paint components before use.

I’ll let you know how well it works out.

All the best,
Bob

Received mine today. My first MAC kit. Blown away at the fit and finish. And he thanks you in the packaging as a nice touch.