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A few of you serious LTV Scout fans might have heard about this unique scale rocket project back around 1999-2001.
Richard Ng, my longtime friend and flying buddy (both RC aircraft and rockets) decided he simply had to do a nice large-ish and light mid power model of the LTV Scout-D....from scratch. He decided to do it at 1/11.4 so that the max diameter of the first stage would be correct when using BT-101 airframe laminated with .015" white styrene plastic. This makes the model a fraction under 80" tall.
He began a correspondence with Mike Dorffler in the late 1990s about this project and Mike was soon helping Richard with his vast store of knowledge and reference materials concerning the Scout-D.
Richards goal was to build a large version of the Scout-D and keep it at or under 3.3 lbs to avoid needing a high power cert and waivered launch to be able to fly it.
Currently the model weighs 33.8 oz without the motor mount, recovery system and the wire tunnels and a few other small scale details. Looks like it would have made weight and flown on a G40 or G80.
The model is a mix of commercial tubes, CNC centering rings and styrene skins and transitions. The front of the payload fairing is CNC-ed Ren-shape tooling board. The fins are cast resin with G10 fiberglass core elements and root tabs.
It helps that Richard is a seriously talented professional model builder with mad skills in tooling and model design.
Richard got about as far along on the model as the picture shows in 2000 and took the model to NARAM in CO that summer and showed it to Mike Dorffler.
The model has hibernated as you see it in the picture since 2001. Over the last couple of weeks, we decided to team up to get this model complete and flying by next year. Richard will complete the wire tunnels and other minor exterior details and I will body work, prime and paint the model (with the styrene skin, no spirals to fill!) install the lower stage motor mount and recovery system.
Notice I said lower stage... This model has some seriously unique hidden features.
More details and future plans forthcoming in the next few posts.
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