Anyone flown an Estes Big Daddy on 38MM hardware?

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That's an idea! I could maybe even use a larger eye bolt as part of the ballast weight. That should leave plenty of room, as well as help bring the CG forward a bit. I just need to figure out the AltimeterThree mounting then, as I was going to mount it to the bulkhead.
Trying to remember how much weight I put in the nose cone of my BD with a 54mm. It flew once at Argonia - Beautiful flight right into the ☀️ where everyone lost it. My advice is but some sort of Sonic locator in there. But yes, nose cone base removed and everything snug. Building another one.
 
Depending on how you build it, you may have somewhere between 6 and 9 oz of weight that needs to be added in the nose to fly a full 38mm H or small I.

My 38mm has 9 oz of nose weight . My 54 has a little less than 10 oz. They are heavy in the back. Both have flown and been recovered on high power motors.
The 54mm actually has enough room in the nose for a chute release.....
 
Been playing with his for about a year, off and on. I cut my fins from 1/8 birch ply, rings modified LOC, 38mm phenolic mount, Aeropack retainer, MAC Performance nose cone bay kit will hold a Missileworks tracker.
 

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Even with a 38mm G, this thing is going to boogie. When I get my Level 1, it's going to go out of sight on H and I motors. I'm going to have to make sure I have a VERY large farm to launch at. I worked medical at Burning Man in 2014 and saw why Black Rock is one of the favorite places to launch...miles and miles of NOTHING! One of these years, I'll have to take off the entire month of September and hit up Burning Man again, followed by a couple of rocketry events.
 
Even with a 38mm G, this thing is going to boogie. When I get my Level 1, it's going to go out of sight on H and I motors. I'm going to have to make sure I have a VERY large farm to launch at. I worked medical at Burning Man in 2014 and saw why Black Rock is one of the favorite places to launch...miles and miles of NOTHING! One of these years, I'll have to take off the entire month of September and hit up Burning Man again, followed by a couple of rocketry events.

My experience is a 38mm H-550 will put a well built Big Daddy around 3000 ft, if it survives transonic.
 
The L'Padre....you can figure out the motor...lol. That's my son Tom's...he can fill you in on the details...

(PS: It is "obviously" not a stock Estes as a 75 will not fit in the airframe, nor would one be long enough for the small L's, but it's close enough. Certainly pushing the envelope and the retro paint scheme, just kinda does it...lol...)
 

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I flew my 38mm Big Daddy (Gone Daddy Gone, part of the Cool Dads series) on an H100 at TCC's Dairy Aire this spring. Motor eject and a chute release.

Because of an improperly tied line, the nose cone was lost and is now impaled somewhere in a rice field outside of Fresno. The rest of the rocket was fine, and Estes was very kind to sell me a replacement nose cone.

I used the Vanderburn plywood upgrade and built the fin can outside of the airframe, securing everything using West Systems long cure with silica filler. I secured an eyebolt with epoxy and wire in the nose. With the H100 and and the weight in the nose I had .6 caliber stability.

I need to do a blog post on the Cool Dads series. Next up is building Neutron95's dual G80 version.
 

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I flew mine finally at airfest28 (built this about a year ago haha) on a Aerotech I175WS DMS, she ripped! Flour yellow chute at apogee with no electronics\tracking, was able to eyeball it all the way back down (teeny yellow speck, about a 6min descent-ish)

vanderfins, soller sleeved, and 2x 2mm sheer pins
 

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