Estes ALCM Cruise Missile Details

[caveduck]

Posting some details and measurements of the vintage Estes ALCM Cruise Missile wing swing mechanism by request. From a built model made in the 1980s.

CAVEAT: the cover plate was rebuilt a very long time ago -- I recall the original was warped or ill-fitting - so the cover plate dimensions may not be exact. Estes did tend to use "round" fractional dimensions though, so I'm fairly confident.

First some measured dimensions.

• Wings are 0.049" sheet styrene
• Wing chord perpendicular to leading edge is 0.69" at the pivot cover plate and 0.62" out by the tip
• Wing LE length is 3 7/8", including the part that is glued onto the wing pivot piece
• Wing TE length is 3.5" from the notch by the pivot plate out to the tip
• The cover plate is 1.5" wide, 1.25" long at the outside edge, and 1 5/8" long down the center, with a 0.5" hole for the pivot plate nested bushings. The center of this hole is 1.8" back from the front of the cover plate. The short section at the aft edge is 3/8" wide. Thickness of the original cover plate is unknown - mine is a replacement made by laminating two layers of styrene cut from a vacu-formed food container. 0.060 to 0.080 styrene should work fine.
• The wing pivots are injection molded pieces that have a flat area to which the wings are cemented, and nesting central bushings. Each bushing has a ~5/32 hole positioned so that when the wings are in the folded position, the holes align to form the forward launch lug. The pivot pieces are mostly hidden by the cover plate.
• The ID of the larger cover plate bushing is about 5/16", and the ID of the larger one is 3/8". The larger bushing goes with the starboard wing.
• It's completely hidden but there is a 0.25" wide x about 0.5" boss molded into the main body extending forward from the aft short edge of the cover plate up to the pivot bushings. The wings are notched to allow them the close. It is about 1/16" high or maybe a bit more (hard to measure accurately without disassembly).

Overall views of the bottom

Showing the wing TE length

View showing how the bushings line up to form the forward launch lug.

Width of folded wings, and length of the cover plate.

Width of the cover plate

Wings open to maximum. The stops are created by the wing pivot piece contacting a ridge on the underside of the main body.

This last photo shows how the wing overlaps and is glued to the pivot piece under the cover plate.

 

[bibbster]

Thanks, Dave! Here is what I have come up with so far...two new wings, two new fins, and a new support plate!