Big Bertha??

My guess? It was one of the "big" kits from the early days of Estes, and because of that, it gained popularity. Now, it's a nostalgia thing.

At least, that's my take on it. Personally, it has never done much of anything for me, either -- I've never owned one.

-Kevin (who is a Goony Bird junky, for pure nostalgia reasons)

Large simple cheap. You reach a point where you want a bigger rocket and the BB fills the bill. Little kids really like this rocket due to the slower liftoffs and lower altitudes so the ejection event is more visible.

I don't have a Big Bertha but I have a Flis Rhino, a similar design. I also have several scratch versions that have the same flight profile. I like low and slow, too

I love the Big Bertha because of it's flight characteristics. It is just so smooth. On a C it can go fairly high but you can still see everything happening and it usually comes down near the pad due to it's tendency to weathercock into the wind. I built mine a bit on the heavy side (with a baffle too) so it is nearly "indestructible". I have nick named it "The Beat Stick". It might not be the prettiest rocket in the fleet, but it is the most reliable (Almost 20 launches) and it has survived many chute failures with minimal damage.

The ORIGINAL Big Bertha, the first one that Mr. Estes built all those years ago, is still airworthy!

All of the above and more! It is super stable. You can hang all manner of stuff on it, cameras, gliders, etc. and it will fly straight. You can chad stage it with a C6-0 or a D12-0 with no added weight and have complete stability. The fins are large and easy to sight in straight, but the Bertha design is so stable that kids could get a couple fins out of whack and the thing would still fly great!

The Ranger came first (3x18mm), so the Bertha was simpler to fly and more economical back when kids ordered one pack of motors and only got to place one or two orders a year. Early in the hobby, motors were sold not only in 3 packs, but also individually. I know of some kids who ordered just one or two motors at a time. That combination of big rocket (relative to the Scout, Mark, Apogee, Spaceplane, etc), economical single motor flights, and great stability make it a rocket that is dear to many hearts.

they kinda grow on you after a while. easy to build with parts that big enough for unpracticed hands to hold and guide into place. the design lends itself to trying new things.
rex

Nostalgia for one thing. Pretty rock-solid design for the other. Vern Estes STILL flies the original Big Bertha from 50 years ago. I doubt he ever flies it with a C6-5, though!

I love my BB. I launch my paratrooper in it all the time. Lots-O-Fun.

The Big Bertha is certainly a classic kit for all the reasons that others in this thread have posted. But I'll add one more thing: Almost every other LPR company has its own version of the Big Bertha. As the saying goes, "Immitation is the best form of flattery."

RoyAtl said:

Nostalgia for one thing.

Click to expand...

Yep. For many of us, the Big Bertha was the first "big" rocket we saw. I was introduced to model rocketry when we built and flew Mark IIs in the sixth grade. I remember when the science teacher launched his Big Bertha. It was so large!

And, I think the Bertha is just cool. Because of it's swept-back fins, the Big Bertha is a perfect "big and slow" rocket. It's able to make those majestic, slow lift-offs that look realistic.

-- Roger

-Simple.
-Reliable as hell.
-Great showy lift-offs with a "C".
-Kids love the "big" rockets
-Never lost one yet (only owned one, still have it).
-Flies great on a 18mm "D". :wink:

I have the later version in all black. I find that at high altitudes all colours look black.

The BB is just a great flyer! I had some fun and modified it to fly on an "F" and it was one heck of a ride! Modifying some spare body tubes, o-rings and some wraps of tape to snug the new engine mount in the BB body tube and it was a perfect fit for an EconoJet F23-7FJ. The ejection charge was a bit strong though, it blew the nose cone off and we never found it, (decent kevlar shock cord used, not enough I guess), but the body came down under the chute. :y:

skyviper73 said:

The BB is just a great flyer! I had some fun and modified it to fly on an "F" and it was one heck of a ride! Modifying some spare body tubes, o-rings and some wraps of tape to snug the new engine mount in the BB body tube and it was a perfect fit for an EconoJet F23-7FJ. The ejection charge was a bit strong though, it blew the nose cone off and we never found it, (decent kevlar shock cord used, not enough I guess), but the body came down under the chute. :y:

View attachment 112550

Click to expand...

Hmm.....I have enough parts to build this.......Hmmmm.....

I've never really liked the design, but I love the rocket. It was my second ever rocket, and at the time I thought it was huge! It was also my first balsa fins. I don't currently own a Big Bertha, but I have built a few kinda sorta clones.

We did demos for Scout troops years ago. both boys and girls, using a Bertha. We would load and ready it with the kids gathered around. We would put an A in it for the first flight. Low, slow and the whole flight in 50 feet. The next flight would be the same process except with a C6. We also used a Redliner and the infamous Phoenix among others.

The kids LOVED it.

Me, too!

Just bought some BT-80 tubes and an NC80-B nose cone. Whatever will I do with those???

As a kid, Big Bertha was my first LARGE rocket. I knew enough by then to build it well enough, and to say the least, it was always a great flyer. Lost it down the road somehow but I always thought I should have one in my fleet. It was a fave of course. Back in the mid 80's I won a $150 gift certificate from Estes and acquired a butt load of parts and a new BB kit. I put the kit together and shelved it. I really have no interest in flying it but I felt the need to have it nonetheless. OK, so I have a shelf queen! But a reputable one. It's the nose cone. It only looks good on a Bertha and the Goonies, other than that, I really don't like it much. My Big Bertha is just a reminder of a time spent long ago and the thrill it gave me. It stands at the end of the shelf it's on like a favorite photo.

closet astronaut said:

Wow..alot of great replies here. So I see it is quite the nostalgia thing. The designer's kit didn't really have the BB fin template, but it didn't matter, she saw another fin shape that struck he fancy and we went with that. It wasn't exactly the same but pretty close. The BT was extended to 27".

Click to expand...

That will work just fine.

closet astronaut said:

I've noticed on this forum that the Big Bertha is quite a popular design. I've been really curious as to why. I don't really find it aesthetically pleasing, but I do think the 1948 paint sceem is by far the best looking.

Is this some nostalgia thing? Is there something about the flight chacteristics. I recently recieved the designers kit and it has the Bertha nose cone, and deffinantly all thing's needed for this build. I'm planning to do a complete theme build with my youngest daughter and this cone shape will be ideal. I'm going to supervise and direct her doing the whole build herself but the fin shape, I don't think would fit the theme. On the other hand I don't want to miss out an a popular design just because I don't think it looks cool.

I also noticed in the 1971 estes catalog a kit called the Taser, it's actually the same as the now ever so popular Vagabond, although I didn't check the spec's on it, it may be smaller.

Anyway I was just curious to the popularity of this kit.

Click to expand...

You touched upon many of the reasons...

Nostalgia is a big one... the Big Bertha, and it's clustered form, the Ranger, have been around basically since the 60's... seems like pretty much everybody has had a Big Bertha or a Ranger or both at some point in their rocketry hobby activities, either as kids or as adults or both.

The flight characteristics is another thing that makes the kit popular... BB tends to have a fairly slow, realistic takeoff, while still having good performance once it gets up and goes... BB always turns in nice flights and is big enough to be seen easily throughout the flight.

While it's not the sleekest or sexiest design out there (as the moniker "Big Bertha" tends to reinforce). The BT-60 tube, the pudgy rounded nosecone, and the retro "stretched and swept V-2-like" fins make it a rather classical looking rocket, borrowing aesthetic leanings from many of the "Buck Rogers" and "Flash Gordon" serials and comics... that classical "retro" rocket look, adapted into a good flying and pretty straightforward to build rocket design.

I think these factors really make it a popular kit across a range of rocketry demographics... some love it because they had one as a kid, or it was one of the first rockets they built as a BAR when they got back into rocketry... or because it was big and flies well, or because it's been around for a very long time and it's easy to get one's hands on one...

Later! OL JR

closet astronaut said:

Wow..alot of great replies here. So I see it is quite the nostalgia thing. The designer's kit didn't really have the BB fin template, but it didn't matter, she saw another fin shape that struck he fancy and we went with that. It wasn't exactly the same but pretty close. The BT was extended to 27".

Click to expand...

I got the fin outline from the ninfinger site... in scale... printed it off and used to make the fins for my night flight "Warp Drive" model... (essentially a "D" powered elongated BB type design using four BB fins and paper towel tubes, with an LED "whirlygig" toy fixed so that the button could be "locked down" to keep the whirlygig with the LED's spinning during liftoff and flight and recovery, with the shock cord attached to it along with a big freebie chute I got from Apogee... works and flies great!

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?26580-Looky-what-I-found-for-night-launches

Later! OL JR

You have to think about the state of the world when Vern designed the Bertha. Those were the days when a B.8-x motor (avg thrust was originally rated in pounds) was the most power available without clustering. When it was introduced, the BB was about the largest single engine model rocket possible! The stubby nose cone was a lot lighter than a longer one, and the big fins are conservative design from before the time when the Barrowman CP equations were widely used in model rocketry.

I remember being totally impressed by the BB when I was a 10 year old Cub Scout and somebody came to our pack meeting and pulled a Bertha out of a large paper bag. Many, many years later I was even more impressed when Vern came to NARAM with the original...and flew it.

I'm considering Polecat's Big Bubba, an upscale Big Bertha, my Aunt sent me some things from my uncle and a Big Bertha was one of them, made me a BAR.

When I came back to the hobby last year, I had never owned a 'Bertha. A lot of friends had them when I was a kid. I figure it to be a classic model rocket and my fleet would not be complete without one—so I bought and built it. I consider it essential.

The Semroc/Centuri Centurion is basically the same rocket with an updated look. It was Centuri's answer to the Big Bertha and I consider it a "must have" rocket to fly in the fleet as well.

Also, the Semroc Vega (at some point, I intend to build that one) and the Quest Big Betty share the 'Bertha's characteristics. I'm sure there are others.

caveduck said:

You have to think about the state of the world when Vern designed the Bertha. Those were the days when a B.8-x motor (avg thrust was originally rated in pounds) was the most power available without clustering. (snip)

Click to expand...

Hi, Dave,

Keep in mind, it wasn't really a designed rocket, but more of a bash. Vern had wanted a rocket for a demo, and had someone at Penrose whip up a Ranger with a single 18mm mount in place of the standard 3x18mm cluster mount. That's how the Bertha came to be (as I understand it).

I remember being totally impressed by the BB when I was a 10 year old Cub Scout and somebody came to our pack meeting and pulled a Bertha out of a large paper bag.

Click to expand...

As others have stated herein, I think that was the appeal - it was a large rocket compared to my Alpha, Sky Hook, Mark II, Streak, Sprite and Scout - but didn't cost a whole lot nor have a high skill level. So I had to have one. It was very appealing to a young enthusiast.

Doug

.

My 11yo daughter was in Hobby Lobby with me a while back, she saw the BB and 'had to have it'. Still in her build que, but she'll get to it one of these days.

This is the earliest documentation of the Big Bertha I know of - from the spring of 1963: https://www.spacemodeling.org/JimZ/mrn/mrn0302.pdf

I've not (yet) owned one, though I have one in the kit stash. I have a much flown Semroc Vega (very similar) on As to Aerotech D10s, and a Quest Big Betty (set up for their D5s....that sorta works). I also have a FlisKits Rhino in the kit stash...and I cloned the Ranger before Semroc released the new kit and that's my "here's how a cluster works, kids" rocket.

You can have my Big Bertha when you pry it from my cold dead hands...

I love my BB! First model rocket I built, first one I flew.

As I've said elsewhere, BB was my first rocket - bought at the NASM gift shop in '74. When #2son wanted to get into rocketry, his first real kit was a BB.

My oldest son's first rocket was also the BB, the more recent all-black version. Dead-nuts stable, and that majestic push off the pad on a C6 is a beautiful thing to watch.