Was the Citation Patriot *always* a BT-60 tube???

[techrat]

I am assembling a Citation Patriot -- and modifying it for 24mm engines instead of 18mm engines. When I was a 12-yr old kid, I flew this rocket with a friend named Roy who was a few years older than me, and got me into this hobby. This was the late 1970's, maybe 1976.... Anyhow Roy had this particular rocket, but I remember it being wider, like a BT-80 tube. I don't remember it being this skinny, but perhaps my memory has fogged over time. Was this kit always a BT-60 tube, or did Estes scale it down to make it cheaper? The old joke about things looking bigger when you're a kid can apply here perhaps.

 

[samb]

Yes, things did look bigger when you were a kid.

 

[techrat]

Wow, scale matters when you are smaller. That's hilarious. I guess my hands were smaller, so the tube "felt" bigger. Damn.

 

[tjkopena]

I think some of it is also just a recalibration after seeing the bigger tubes. When I got back into rockets the BT60 looked and felt just as big and chunky as I remembered it being as a kid. But I'd never really experienced anything bigger, and experiencing is definitely different from just "knowing" such things exist. Now, having built a bunch of my own larger diameter rockets and seeing lots of stuff up close & personal at launches, the BT60 doesn't seem nearly as hefty.

 

[Back_at_it]

I totally agree. When I built the Big Bertha kit as a kid I thought it was huge. The a few years later came Maxi Alpha III and I thought that was huge. Then the Optima and I'm thinking, WOW, how much bigger can these things get.

When I got my rockets out of Storage this time around I grabbed the Big Bertha and was thinking, Wow, this is a lot smaller than I remember. Then I put together all of the parts for an Optima clone (coming soon btw) and looked at the tubes and somehow remembered it much larger than it was.

Thinking back, I think I was maybe 8 yrs. old when I build my first Bertha so it kinda makes sense

 

[techrat]

I know there's an upscale kit where you buy the Big Der Red Maxx, and then the kit provides a coupler, an extra tube, fins and centering rings, and you get a "big" Citation Patriot. Maybe that's my next move after building the "stock" kit (even though I'm modding it to 24mm motors). That kit deserves to be bigger so it feels as big to me now as it did to me as a kid. It's a glorious rocket, simple and effective. And I need to have at least one in my collection.

 

[Initiator001]

The Estes Citation Patriot is one of my favorite rockets.

I built an original Citation Patriot in 1972 which became my biggest rocket at the time (My K-6 Ranger was the biggest before that but the CP was 2" taller. WOW!).

When the kit was re-released in 2018 I bought three of them and built one.

At NARAM-60 there was an Old Rocketeers Reunion and I built a special display about the Citation Patriot incorporating my original 1972 model, the current model and a very special Transpo72 airshow CP with a 24mm motor mount.




However, the comment about the Citation Patriot appearing to be 'smaller' now than it was fifty years ago holds true if one has recently built an upscale version:

 

[BEC]

Gee, Bob, look like you're having a good time....

 

[techrat]

That photo shows exactly how big it is supposed to be!! Need to get me one of those.

 

[gldknght]

I actually still have my first Citation Patriot that I built in the early 80's and one I built just a couple years ago. They are the same size:

 

[gldknght]

The Estes Citation Patriot is one of my favorite rockets.

I built an original Citation Patriot in 1972 which became my biggest rocket at the time (My K-6 Ranger was the biggest before that but the CP was 2" taller. WOW!).

When the kit was re-released in 2018 I bought three of them and built one.

At NARAM-60 there was an Old Rocketeers Reunion and I built a special display about the Citation Patriot incorporating my original 1972 model, the current model and a very special Transpo72 airshow CP with a 24mm motor mount.



However, the comment about the Citation Patriot appearing to be 'smaller' now than it was fifty years ago holds true if one has recently built an upscale version:
View attachment 537456

Is that a kit? If so, where did you get it?
If scratch built, can you provide some dimensional detals? Diameter, length, motor mount size, etc?

 

[techrat]

Well, a funny thing happened. When it was just the tube, it looked wrong. Now that I've got the fins on it, it's starting to look more like what I remembered. Yeah, it was always I BT-60, but the fins make all the difference and now the rocket looks right. I still want to make the Big One -- all I need is for Amazon to discount Der Big Red Max to $21, and then I get the upgrade kit, and then I'll have a 3", 29mm MM version of the Patriot.

 

[techrat]

Is that a kit? If so, where did you get it?

It's a Kit-bash. You take a Der Big Red Max and add a kit.
https://galacticmanufacturing.com/p...ter-citation-patriot-upgrade-deluxe-parts-kit

 

[user 35280]

You can kit bash a PSII Star Orbiter into a citation patriot,

 

[Alan15578]

I was never a big fan of the Estes Patriot. The original release had a stout plastic molded nose cone, came in a box, and they had patriiot rocket motors with thier own NAR certification. Boxed kits sell better as gifts, since you cant easily gift wrap a bagged kit. There must be an interesting story behind the "Patriot" motors, but I could only speculate.

 

[Scott_650]

I was never a big fan of the Estes Patriot. The original release had a stout plastic molded nose cone, came in a box, and they had patriiot rocket motors with thier own NAR certification. Boxed kits sell better as gifts, since you cant easily gift wrap a bagged kit. There must be an interesting story behind the "Patriot" motors, but I could only speculate.

You mean “Citation” - the upscale boxed kits that Estes pitched in the early 70s to mainstream retailers. The Citation motors were differently labeled, very minor variations of the regular Estes motors. http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/publications/estes_1971-c_catalog.pdf

 

[Alan15578]

You mean “Citation” - the upscale boxed kits that Estes pitched in the early 70s to mainstream retailers. The Citation motors were differently labeled, very minor variations of the regular Estes motors. http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/publications/estes_1971-c_catalog.pdf

Yes, thanks. I did mean "Citation", and Citation Patriot.