Black Brant III missing from 2021 Estes Catalog?

[ewomack]

Hello, I made a trip to the local hobby shop yesterday and they had a free stack of 2021 Estes catalogs. I arrived home and paged through it, but saw a pretty shocking gap: no Black Brant III. I see it in the 2020 catalog, right next to the Black Brant II, but the 2021 only includes the Black Brant II. Has this model been discontinued? Does anyone know? I've built and flown one already, but I always liked the model and hope it would remain available.

 

[MidOH]

Well, I guess I got mine just in time.

The Black Brant 2 is better anyways. Maybe they discontinue them, so that we'll be excited to see them back in a couple years.

 

[Scott_650]

Hello, I made a trip to the local hobby shop yesterday and they had a free stack of 2021 Estes catalogs. I arrived home and paged through it, but saw a pretty shocking gap: no Black Brant III. I see it in the 2020 catalog, right next to the Black Brant II, but the 2021 only includes the Black Brant II. Has this model been discontinued? Does anyone know? I've built and flown one already, but I always liked the model and hope it would remain available.

If it’s not in the catalog and not on the website I’d say it’s discontinued. Odd how some fairly simple scale kits become “standards” like the M104 Patriot and the Honest and Little Johns but some seem to fade in and out - like the Black Brants. If you get a hankering for more BB varieties there’s always ASP and Rocketarium - between them they cover a bunch of versions of the BB.

 

[user 35280]

Cosmodrome Rocketry has a great Black Brant II

 

[K'Tesh]

Cloning it shouldn't be too much trouble... Of course you won't have the laser cut fins, but the NC is easy to find, and other than the decals it's not made up of rare parts. Another option would be to try a place like AC Supply... They probably have a stack of them. I just checked... They've got em for ~$9 USD.

 

[Back_at_it]

The Black Brant III is still available at pretty much any dealer. Interestingly, it just wasn't very popular which I find odd as I really like the kit.

I think the down fall of this rocket was its big brother the Black Brant II being available at the same time and being a larger rocket for only a coupe of dollars more. At one point I picked up a number of the BBII for $12ea. and tucked them away for future builds. The BBII is my most lost rocket. Seems like every time I put a "D" in that thing it vaporizes I built a heavier version a few months back in hopes that I can get it back.

The Nose Cone is available from Estes and I have scans of the fins and decals if anyone needs them. Would make a nice upscale to BT55 using the BBII nose cone.

 

[MidOH]

I went down to a 15" Top Flight chute on my BB2, from the stock 18" Estes. Hopefully it'll float less. 12" might be a bit small. That's what I use in the BB3.

I bought the BB3 while reminiscing about all of the fun I had with Alphas and Alpha 3's. But the Alphas were too short. Not enough room for easy packing of the chute. The BB3 is a nicer rocket IMO.

 

[Back_at_it]

I went down to a 15" Top Flight chute on my BB2, from the stock 18" Estes. Hopefully it'll float less. 12" might be a bit small. That's what I use in the BB3.

I bought the BB3 while reminiscing about all of the fun I had with Alphas and Alpha 3's. But the Alphas were too short. Not enough room for easy packing of the chute. The BB3 is a nicer rocket IMO.

I've gone down to a 12" chute and a 36" Mylar streamer on my BBII. The streamer is more for tracking than slowing it down. It flickers in the sun and makes it easy to see.

I've had 3 successful flights on C11's and will be putting a D12 in it later this summer. The new one is about 1.5oz heavier than any of my old ones so hopefully it comes home. Otherwise there will be another build thread.

 

[MidOH]

The BB2 is only $15. The High Flyer XL is a nice rocket at $13. BB3 is only $9.

Fiberglass will never make paper obsolete. There's fields that I only dare to fly paper rockets with no electronics, due to trees, lines, etc.

 

[billeblurzz]

My Black Brant III