Has anyone built the Astro-X Wasserfall sold by Hobby Time? If so, any info you have as to quality of components, build, and flight would be appreciated.
I haven't built this kit, but $27.50 seems a little steep. For that price you might be better served buying Pete Alway's In the Shadow of the V2 and scratch building one.
I built one that flew reasonably well--a little squirrely some times because my fins were not precisely lined up. If you've ever launched the Estes Sidewinder with the fins askew, you know what I mean.
I'd like to do another but this time I will design the rocket to break in half below the forward fin set so I can align the fins.
I agree. $27.50 seems pretty pricey, especially considering how wasy the parts are to come by from BMS and Totally Tubular. I found an old Estes V-2 in a forgotten hobby shop a few years ago and had planned to use it to build a Wasserfall using the Scale Bash book, also by Pete Alway. In the end I decided on a Blossom V-2 instead. It seemed a little more stable. I still like the Wasserfall and one of these days I'll make the parts order from BMS for the nose and tail cone.
It does appear this would be cheaper to build with BMS parts. I was just curious because the Wasserfall is apparently the only rocket produced by the Astro-X company, and Hobby Time is the only place that sells the kit (hmmm...).
The only other company producing a Wasserfall kit is Das Model / Physicis of Flight, and the quality of their kits seems to be substandard per other posts on this forum.
I guess scratch-build is the way to go on this one.
Actually hobby time makes 2 kits .the bt60 wasserfall
and the bt80 Black Zombie 1b
they contain estes parts ,precut fins and adequate instructions
heres a review I did on the Black Zombie ,although I didn't build it stock from the package
It made me realize what a slacker I've been, so I just ordered my own copy of Peter Alway's book, as well as a few others I've been wanting, from NARTS.
Since we're talking about Wasserfall conversions, has anyone got a BT80 Wasserfall Rocksim file? I'm thinking of doing a Silver Comet conversion with a 24mm motor mount but i'm afraid that after I add nose weight, I'll wish I'd done a 29 mm.
Thanks, sandman, I've got scalebash too--what a great piece of work!
Reason I wanted a rocksim file was to get a weight estimate on the finished bird. My BT-60 Wasserfall weighed in at over 6 oz. I suppose I could scale that up and guess that the finished BT-80 version would be about 12 then, right? Not bad on a D12 but not overly impressive....
I'll try my hand at a Waserfall rocksim file and post it...
If I get V-2 parts (tail cone and nose) from BMS, will those parts be what I need to get started on a Wasserfall? I think a BT 60 version would be cool.