1) Bring back the classics with some sort of twist - upscale, different decals, larger motor mount, etc. I love the Cherokee E with the different color decals, E motor mount and longer body tube.
The recently released Multi-Roc is cool but I would be running out to get one right away if they upscaled it to a BT55 body tube size. It would be so much cooler in a slightly larger size. Same with the Citation Patriot, if they did it in a BT80 size, more people would be excited. These kits are still cool but how about getting a little crazy and brings us something that gets us all excited.
Lots of people are saying upscale, upscale, upscale. I say bigger isn't always better. Bring-backs are, in general, just fine in their original sizes, with laser cut fins of course.
The entire Atlas, Delta, and Titan fleets with all booster configurations available, and made in BT60 to BT80 tubes. Just imagine...a Delta IV Heavy about 4 1/2 feet tall or an Atlas V 551 with all its external boosters loaded with 18mm motors and a core 29mm. I will sell my organs for a fleet like that.
Even better, IMO, would be to have this whole line in the same scale, not all with the same tube size.
Unless Estes can greatly improve their current starters/ignitors...
Clusters or no clusters they need to improve their starters/igniters. I've seen lots of Estes igniters smoke out, but never a Q2G2. It's not rock... Well, OK, it is rocket science, but it's not brain surgery.
One take away from the forum at NARAM is that whatever it is you’d like to see from Estes the suggestions are more likely to be considered if you post on either Estes official FB page or the Estes fan FB page.
OK, then, one thing they should do is
use the real web! A FB page is not a substitute for a web page. They show the catalog and take orders on the real web; they should operate a forum and suggestion box there; screw FB. (Quite a number of businesses make this mistake and, perhaps you can tell, it's a pet peeve.)
I'd love to see reissues of the great Centuri kits. They own the rights, so why not bring them back? Twister, Groove Tube, Fireflash, etc...etc...
There are so many great Estes and Centuri designs from 60s/70s/80s!
In the '70s I thought that Century had lots more really cool kits than Estes. The Centuri catalog was a thrill, and the Estes catalog was meh. I've recently looked at scanned catalogs on the web, and I wasn't wrong; the Centuri designers had it all over Estes. So, do lots of Centuri bring-backs. I want a Flutter-by.
Also, bring back the Bigfoot Launch system.
Bring back and improve the Centuri Power Pad launch system. Improve it with a relay (or JFET circuit) at the pad, which makes it a bunch better for clusters. I know those batteries are hard to find these days (Duracell and Ray-O-Vac, at least, do still make them) so Estes could put them in the catalog for users' convenience.
EDIT: And another thing: more engine choices in 18 and 24 mm. I'm sure there are reasons that B motors and 18 mm C motors only come in B6 and C6, but work them out. Bring back the B14. Use the same idea (a partial depth core hole) to make a high thrust A, maybe A10ish* and a 24 mm higher thrust C, somewhere in the neighborhood of a C16**.
And put in a wider variety of parts. (Yes, another thing from the '70s Centuri catalogs.) We can get that from places like BMS and eRockets, but if Estes wants my money they should do it too. When you want to kitbash the fins from this and the nose cone from that, why not just order the fins from this and the nose cone from that?
Yes, I know, there's a 13 mm A10, but it's really not. According to Thrust Curve, the average thrust is only 2.5 N. I'm talking about full 2.5 Ns and average thrust that really is somewhere around 10 N.
EDIT AGAIN: Thinking more on it, C20 and A9 are better WAGs.
