Another rookie Bertha question.

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Thanks John. I had never seen a real rocket quite like it, although I would have thought the general design would have been a great workhorse(I'm no engineer, so that's probably only true in the Model rocket world), but I was thinking I read a post somewhere quite a while back that mentioned it was based on some real ship.
I do know the Bertha series has become one of my favorites.
Sturdy, easy to build, fun to watch, reliable performers, & cheap to fly. How do you beat it?
Vance in AK.
 
Nope, the Big Bertha was based on the ESTES Ranger, a very similar design with with a triple 18mm cluster that seperated in the middle upon ejection with seperate fin/engine and payload sections coming down on different chutes. Legend has it that Vern ESTES wanted a large, slow impressive modroc for demos, and asked the Design staff to come up with something real quick. So they built a bird with one engine, and deleted the payload section.. The result was the Bertha. Vern has also been quoted as saying that the rocket was named for 'Big Betty' who was a, ummm.. well... a 'dancer' in Texas. They changed the name to protect the not so innocent.....

Here is a link to a catalog picture of the ranger:


https://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/rockets/nostalgia/68estp28.html
 
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