In Praise of LPR

[TigerHawk]

I am so sorry. What is a spool?

Get a two stage Too Cool for Spool at,

Two Cool for Spool - Flying Model Rocket Kit

squirrel-works.com

 

[TigerHawk]

Pic of Avatar please!
I love sci-fi looking rockets, especially "Dieselpunk" ("Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers") type rockets.

I have begged the new owners of Estes to bring back the "Galactic Pirates" rockets from the early 1980's. I hope they consider my request!

I love the Galactic Pirate "Patrol Cruiser Excalibur".View attachment 474037

Don’t forget the More Rockets repro of the Dragon Ship 7,

The Dragon Ship 7

DS7

morerockets.com

 

[kuririn]

While you wait for Estes to bring it back, you can currently get a reproduction of the kit at,

Or save some money and clone it:
Space Cruiser Excalibur (spacemodeling.org)
Don't forget the companion:
Dragon Ship 7 (spacemodeling.org)
Fins (if you're lazy like me and don't want to trace from templates):
Semroc Laser-Cut Fins Patrol Cruiser™ 3/32 Balsa Sheet SEM-FES-1339 * (erockets.biz)
Semroc Laser-Cut Fins Dragon Ship™ (Sheet A/B) 3/32 Balsa SEM-FES-1345 * (erockets.biz)

 

[TigerHawk]

Depends on who you talk to, it seems! ;-) So, @TigerHawk and @neil_w is my Executioner flying on an Estes E9 a really powerful LPR rocket or a not very powerful MPR rocket?

I just go by the page/chart on the NAR website that designates the classification of low, mid, L1, L2 and L3, power motors.

Rocket Motor Information - National Association of Rocketry

How To Interpret Rocket Motor Codes Sport rocket motors approved for sale in the United States are stamped with a three-part code that gives the modeler some basic information about the motor's power and behavior: A letter specifying the total impulse ("C"); A number specifying the average...

www.nar.org

So an E motor, to me, is mid power.

 

[Sandy H.]

I've been flying all three for a while. I tend to oscillate between focusing on one of the three size categories every few years. Recently, I've been mostly LPR, but have been helping a good friend who is currently mostly HPR.

I have seen, at times, HPR guys look down on the rest of the fliers, but most often those individuals are fairly new to HPR and seem to think that it has to be their way or nothing. Most often, they either crash a bunch of HPR's and give up on the hobby or they fly a good bit and then go back to flying everything and respecting everything. Not 100% true all the time, but it seems to be typical from what I've seen.

The downside is that the very-very few HPR-only guys that do 'make fun of' LPR and MPR guys tend to be loud and intimidating to new people and that is a bad look for all of us.

Sandy.

 

[kuririn]

I am a born-again-rocketeer (BAR) loving me some LPR right now!

 

[brockrwood]

Or save some money and clone it:
Space Cruiser Excalibur (spacemodeling.org)
Don't forget the companion:
Dragon Ship 7 (spacemodeling.org)
Fins (if you're lazy like me and don't want to trace from templates):
Semroc Laser-Cut Fins Patrol Cruiser™ 3/32 Balsa Sheet SEM-FES-1339 * (erockets.biz)
Semroc Laser-Cut Fins Dragon Ship™ (Sheet A/B) 3/32 Balsa SEM-FES-1345 * (erockets.biz)

This is AWESOME! Pre-cut fin sets (the fins are the hard part) to make my own Galactic Pirates clones!

Thanks!

 

[Dotini]

(This is adapted from a post I made in a different forum.)

I think people being into mid-power rocketry (MPR) and high-power rocketry (HPR) is great! That is awesome! Go for it!

I am just saying that, there is no shame in having lots of fun, and learning lots of stuff, easily and affordably, in low power rocketry (LPR).

I am a born-again-rocketeer (BAR) loving me some LPR right now!

I haven’t really gotten into MPR or HPR. The cost and time barriers are a little big for me right now.

Also, I enjoy the rocketry hobby from a math and science standpoint, which can all be done with inexpensive, LPR rockets. I enjoy helping young people get into the hobby and teaching them math and science along the way. Again, that works fine with LPR. When a kid asks how high the rocket will go and you say, "hey, we can use this protractor, a drinking straw, a piece of string, an eraser, and a little basic trigonometry, to find out", and the kid gets excited, that is way cool.

I am also enjoying the modeling aspect of the hobby, which works fine with LPR rockets.

I enjoy clustering and staging, which, again, works fine with LPR rockets.

When I say I am a BAR, I mean it literally. I am a kid again, in a grown up’s body, enjoying building and flying the Estes-type rockets that I loved as a kid.

I enjoy kit bashing - easy to do with LPR.

I still haven’t mastered LPR. I need to build my Estes Executioner and my Double D Squared. Once I do that, I will assess whether I want to try MPR. I am having a lot of fun just being a kid again!

Yes, I am still mastering LPR and I am not even close to done. There is lots of fun to have, and things to learn, in LPR. You don't have to feel like you are not "measuring up", or anything like that, just because you are in your late 50's and still into LPR.

Besides, as anyone in their late 50's will tell you, dignity is highly overrated.

I appreciate this post greatly. Though I enjoy experimenting with exotic recoveries and ring fins, every one of your paragraphs rings true to me (although I'm in my 70's).

Today I will go to Dahl Playfield and launch a few rockets with my very old friend Harvey, who sadly can no longer drive. The rockets will go up to a modest altitude, we will recover them, then go have a beer.


From left to right, scratch built Bigamist, kit bashed Big Bertha, the Monogamist, and kit bashed Generic E2X with payload bay.

 

[BABAR]

I appreciate this post greatly. Though I enjoy experimenting with exotic recoveries and ring fins, every one of your paragraphs rings true to me (although I'm in my 70's).

Today I will go to Dahl Playfield and launch a few rockets with my very old friend Harvey, who sadly can no longer drive. The rockets will go up to a modest altitude, we will recover them, then go have a beer.

View attachment 474815
From left to right, scratch built Bigamist, kit bashed Big Bertha, the Monogamist, and kit bashed Generic E2X with payload bay.

So when can we expect the cluster, aka Polygamist?

somewhere I remember reading that a man, when asked what the opposite of polygamy was, his reply was “monotony.”

 

[Dotini]

So when can we expect the cluster, aka Polygamist?

somewhere I remember reading that a man, when asked what the opposite of polygamy was, his reply was “monotony.”

I built but never launched an insane model called the Prontosuarus for a cluster of E's. I still have all the parts for it. But I've moved on since my misspent youth. I strictly limit myself to what can be safely recovered in a 500' x 500' play field.


Prontosaurus fin can, circa 1982

 

[Grog6]

Reminds me of the 4x E engine Nike Herc I built.
Man that's a lot of fin, and a lot of engine.
It's in its second revision now, with plywood fins.