Finished! Re-paint of my Maxi Brute V2

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super nice job!! mine used to look a little like that... lotsa dings now. still flies best on AT RMS F12-3, E9s are just too lame.
 
Awesome looking build and paint job!

Back in the 80s I lusted after this kit for the longest time because it was discontinued and I loved the D powered maxi brutes. Finally one day in 1988 I came across a dusty old box containing the prized kit in a dark corner of some obscure hobby shop and excitedly took it home and built it. Alas, when it came to flying, it was the biggest disappointment of a rocket ever, as with a D12 it would always veer off to one side and make it up to about 75 feet in cruise missile mode before popping the chute right before impact. Figuring it was underpowered, I ordered my first composite motor ever, an Aerotech E28-4 single use 24mm motor. It was the same size as a D12, sported a whopping full 40 Newton seconds of total impulse, and had a graphite nozzle. Surely this beast of a motor would push the V-2 into the air fast enough to make for a perfect flight, I thought with anticipation while prepping it at the athletic field behind my high school. With a mighty roar it leapt into the air, veered horizontal, and did the same cruise missile flight path only much faster. I never figured out why the dang thing wouldn't fly straight but I guess it was a combination of those cheesy vacuum formed fins and my less than stellar building techniques of the day. The only way I could get it to go straight was by adding small balsa "spinnerons" to the fins. I finally gave up and ended up throwing it in the garbage. If only I still had that nose and tail cone today! I'd rebuild it with Boyce fins and a 29mm motor mount.
 
Awesome looking build and paint job!

Back in the 80s I lusted after this kit for the longest time because it was discontinued and I loved the D powered maxi brutes. Finally one day in 1988 I came across a dusty old box containing the prized kit in a dark corner of some obscure hobby shop and excitedly took it home and built it. Alas, when it came to flying, it was the biggest disappointment of a rocket ever, as with a D12 it would always veer off to one side and make it up to about 75 feet in cruise missile mode before popping the chute right before impact. Figuring it was underpowered, I ordered my first composite motor ever, an Aerotech E28-4 single use 24mm motor. It was the same size as a D12, sported a whopping full 40 Newton seconds of total impulse, and had a graphite nozzle. Surely this beast of a motor would push the V-2 into the air fast enough to make for a perfect flight, I thought with anticipation while prepping it at the athletic field behind my high school. With a mighty roar it leapt into the air, veered horizontal, and did the same cruise missile flight path only much faster. I never figured out why the dang thing wouldn't fly straight but I guess it was a combination of those cheesy vacuum formed fins and my less than stellar building techniques of the day. The only way I could get it to go straight was by adding small balsa "spinnerons" to the fins. I finally gave up and ended up throwing it in the garbage. If only I still had that nose and tail cone today! I'd rebuild it with Boyce fins and a 29mm motor mount.
I have had 2 successful D12 flights with good deployment altitude.
 
Awesome looking build and paint job!

Back in the 80s I lusted after this kit for the longest time because it was discontinued and I loved the D powered maxi brutes. Finally one day in 1988 I came across a dusty old box containing the prized kit in a dark corner of some obscure hobby shop and excitedly took it home and built it. Alas, when it came to flying, it was the biggest disappointment of a rocket ever, as with a D12 it would always veer off to one side and make it up to about 75 feet in cruise missile mode before popping the chute right before impact. Figuring it was underpowered, I ordered my first composite motor ever, an Aerotech E28-4 single use 24mm motor. It was the same size as a D12, sported a whopping full 40 Newton seconds of total impulse, and had a graphite nozzle. Surely this beast of a motor would push the V-2 into the air fast enough to make for a perfect flight, I thought with anticipation while prepping it at the athletic field behind my high school. With a mighty roar it leapt into the air, veered horizontal, and did the same cruise missile flight path only much faster. I never figured out why the dang thing wouldn't fly straight but I guess it was a combination of those cheesy vacuum formed fins and my less than stellar building techniques of the day. The only way I could get it to go straight was by adding small balsa "spinnerons" to the fins. I finally gave up and ended up throwing it in the garbage. If only I still had that nose and tail cone today! I'd rebuild it with Boyce fins and a 29mm motor mount.

In the mid-late 1970's, FSI ( Flight Systems, Inc. ) started offering "Maxi-Brute Conversion Kits" . . . Using an FSI E60 or F100, they were no longer "under-powered" - LOL !

A "converted" Estes HONEST JOHN Maxi-Brute, flying on an F100 motor, in 1975 ( I am just to the right of the exhaust plume, in the white shirt, I was 14 ).

CAPCOM was the newsletter of our club B.C.M.R.A ( Broward County Model Rocketry Association ), NAR Section #217 . . .

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Dave F.
 
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In the mid-late 1970's, FSI ( Flight Systems, Inc. ) started offering "Maxi-Brute Conversion Kits" . . . Using an FSI E60 or F100, they were no longer "under-powered" - LOL !

A "converted" Estes HONEST JOHN Maxi-Brute, flying on an F100 motor, in 1975 ( I am just to the right of the exhaust plume, in the white shirt, I was 14 ).

View attachment 584727


Dave F.

I did that also in 1975. FSI Visited our 1975 Regional Meet that featured Mercury Dual Egg Loft. They sold a lot of stuff there.
 
Nice job on that V 2.

The Estes Maxi V2 was my first venture into D power...back at college in 1974.
The first fight saw the D motor CATO and shoot flaming BP into the airframe.
It settled back on the pad in a shriveled up mess.

I gutted it and replaced the bulkheads and motor tube.....got one good flight ("minimum" altitude - of like 75 feet) before the next one CATOed again.

Liking the larger size rockets ("large" back then) I acquired a Maxi Honest John NIB kit years later.....still have it.

I recall Darrel Mobley had a really nice "how to" article on how to upgrade the Maxi HoJO to High Power his old Rocketry Planet website....wish I had saved that article.
 
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I recall Darrel Mobley had a really nice "how to" article on how to upgrade the Maxi HoJO to High Power his old Rocketry Planet website....wish I had saved that article.
Here is the article, minus images, unfortunately . . . 8 pages total.

https://web.archive.org/web/20101221051808/http://www.rocketryplanet.com/content/view/2584/38/

Here is ANOTHER article about "Beefing Up" a Maxi-Brute HONEST JOHN .

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...sdGRvbWFpbnxodXZhcnN8Z3g6OWM1ZTBhOWQ1NDk5ZDEy


Dave F.
 
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