What is the rocket you've had the least amount of luck with?

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That's easy. It was the only rocket I've ever had that flew only once...

It was my first payloader back when I was a kid. I should have known because of Greek Mythology that the rocket was doomed to fall from the sky. My Estes Icarus didn't fall into the sea, but it did suffer a recovery failure and core sampled the earth.

It's been almost thirty years, but IIRC, the ejection charge was either weak or nonexistant and the rocket didn't eject the nosecone at all.
 
My 1970 vintage Estes Astron Sprite.

I flew it several times on 1/4A & 1/2A 'S' motors and every time the motor ejected. No 'tumble recovery' for this model.

The nose cone now has a very 'blunt' tip. :(
 
Originally posted by Initiator001
My 1970 vintage Estes Astron Sprite.

I flew it several times on 1/4A & 1/2A 'S' motors and every time the motor ejected. No 'tumble recovery' for this model.

The nose cone now has a very 'blunt' tip. :(

That's funny, mine works perfectly. I bent the right angle hook end upward slightly so it's probably about 85 degrees and I bent the engine retainer inward slightly where it meets the body tube. The engine caught the hook every time after I made those mods.

It was the first rocket I ever built and the first one I flew since becoming a BAR.

I only have 5 of those 'S' motors left and will probably fly it once at the beginning of each flying season.
 
"What is the rocket you've had the least amount of luck with?"

Estes
 
Originally posted by BobH48
I only have 5 of those 'S' motors left and will probably fly it once at the beginning of each flying season.

Cut a used 18 mm motor case to 1 3/4" long. Press an A10-3 in it and keep flying your Sprite :)
 
I think I've lofted maybe, hrm.. a dozen or so of the things. And I've recovered [in relaunchable condition] around... three.. maybe four tops.

Harm none,

ResearchWorm
 
quests DC-Y Space Clipper or as they call it at the launch site now DC-Why space Disaster. Has flown 11 times and has lawndarted, gone horizontal or something always falls off ( usually those stupid pads on thre bottom). It has now be rebuilt for a 29mm one way flight :). not ot mention the dual chute deployment in that thing is stupid one 12" is plenty when it opens that is LOL!!
 
first in line had to be the arv condor, what a piece of junk.

second is the estes heatseeker, my son has lost 2 of them and i finaly upscaled it to a bt-70 and the thing fly's great.
numerous launches with no problems.
 
Estes Outlander

Everytime it flies, it breaks on landing. Pretty sad consifering it only goes up about 300'
 
Originally posted by Hospital_Rocket
Estes Outlander

Everytime it flies, it breaks on landing. Pretty sad consifering it only goes up about 300'

I can attend to that. Mine tends to pop a leg housing loose too. I guess the trick is to launch it on a day with zero, zilch wind so it comes down with very little to no forward momentum.

BTW, mine reaches about 125-150 feet on the C6-3.
 
Originally posted by Hospital_Rocket
Estes Outlander

Everytime it flies, it breaks on landing. Pretty sad consifering it only goes up about 300'

I've flown mine three times. The first and last were on calm days and it was ok. The other time it was windy and I broke one leg and another one got ripped off when the tubing holding the leg ripped.

EDIT: I replaced the silicone tubing supplied with the kit with silicone fuel tubing that the R/C crowd uses. It has a much thicker wall so should hold up better.
 
I'm surprised that no one yet has mentioned...

The Mosquito?

This little beasty obviously incorporates some sort of quantum teleportation technology, because I'll be @#!$@#$'ed if I can explain any other reason how one of these can disappear on a 1/2A motor and elude a 3-person search for over half an hour, on a reasonably-well-mowed school soccer field.

I strongly suspect that many of those thousands of "space junk" radar targets that NORAD tracks in low orbit are, in fact, lost mosquitos.
 
Originally posted by vjp
I'm surprised that no one yet has mentioned...

The Mosquito?

This little beasty obviously incorporates some sort of quantum teleportation technology, because I'll be @#!$@#$'ed if I can explain any other reason how one of these can disappear on a 1/2A motor and elude a 3-person search for over half an hour, on a reasonably-well-mowed school soccer field.

I strongly suspect that many of those thousands of "space junk" radar targets that NORAD tracks in low orbit are, in fact, lost mosquitos.

It has never happen to me, but I did hear of someone actually getting one back after flying it on an A motor..... OR ... maybe it's one of those "Urban Legends".
 
I've only flown Mosquitos on 1/4 A's and still have a tough time with recovery! It's been a mixed bag at best, we're now on our second one and it's only flown once, we did recover, but it took a long time to find....

Glenn
 
We had a launch as CMASS this past summer where someone launched their mosquito with an A motor and, as expected, it vanished in a puff of *warp drive* never to be seen again...

...the owner then returned to his blanket, with all of his rockets, and there on the grass along side his blanket was his mosquito...

go figure! LOL
 
Originally posted by jflis
...the owner then returned to his blanket, with all of his rockets, and there on the grass along side his blanket was his mosquito...

At the Fliskit's anniversary launch in September, I launched my cardstock Mercury Redstone on an A10-3T and when I retrieved it, the escape tower was gone. It was windy that day so no telling where it went to.

Later that day, I was returning from a long walk to retrieve my Goblin when I happened to look down and there in the grass, at least 300ft from the launch site, was the escape tower!

I never would have believed it possible. The tower is less than half the size of a mosquito.
 
When we did our mosquito "swarm" at Plaster Blaster last year (500 at once), we recovered most of them. Granted, it was set up as a contest and there were prizes awarded for each one found, based upon the colors that they were painted (blue got prize "A", red got prize "B", etc), so the kids were scouring the desert like locusts looking for every last one they could find!

WW
 
My first Astrobee D. First flight with a F40... the main chute did not eject. Splat. $40 bucks later, new booster. F52-5T. Again, no chute. SPLAT!

And I did pack the chute right :(

My Second Astrobee D had no bad luck.
 
1) Estes SR-X - Found it at Hungates on sale, spent a month getting it put together, and looked great when I finished with it. First flight on a C6-3, the glider turned downward at the end of the boost. The ejection charge shoved the glider into the ground. The thin styro shell just wasn't up to the abuse. OUCH!

2) Mean Machine - First flight was great. Second flight, some observing bozo stepped on the fins, and thus was grounded. Second flight into the trees, and then it warped itself into uselessness.

3) Estes Outlaw Mighty Mite - Plastic rocket melted a bit in its only flight.
 
BTW, I have a Mosquito with 7 flights logged, with two of them being the A10-3T. I assure you ladies and gentlemen, Mosquito recovery IS possible!
 
Originally posted by jflis
what? Do you have a lanyard on it attached to a spool of monofiliment??? :D

Mo he flies it indoors at the superdome...

or...

The geographic center of the Bonnevile salt flat.
 
Nope! But I am VERY picky about which days I fly it. If there is a cloud in the sky, there will be no full-A engine for the Mosquito. It's a good one to burn ¼A with though!
 
Estes Big Daddy, always seems to not want to ignite on AP and then BP it always (because of me) screams in and deploys the chute 10ft off the deck or deploys after darting in. Last week it flew perfect to about 700' and was impressive and out of nowhere the wind carried the rocket straight to the only trees near me. I had a 10" spill hole in the chute and it floated like it was a 36" chute, WTF!!!! Got it back today along with the RMS. I got about 20 flights on it all D impulse of BP and AP. This rocket was build when my daughter was about 12 and she is 25 now...............

LG~
 
Estes comanche of course. Easy to lose. Stages break easy enough when free falling. Had a Cato once on the second stage which was pretty awesome. And the tubing just doesn't hold up to the amount of BP in the ejection charge after a few flights.

Madcow aerobee-hi.
Just bad luck I guess. Flew it on a full "I" for the first flight with a tracker but the ejection charge never went off. When I looked at the motor, it was warped near the last grain. Looked fine beforehand though. Totalled a T3 transmitter.
 
Mosquito. I think I've built 5 of them. One and done each and every time, no matter how small the motor. The first three, I painted high-visibility colors, and lost all of them. Fourth I painted green - I figured if the high-vis paints couldn't be found, maybe I could find a green one in the grass. Last one didn't get paint, it's gone too.

G
 
Estes Wizard. Dang thing popped a fin on every flight. I built a slightly upscaled one with airfoiled plywood fins glued on with epoxy, still popped a fin every time. Finally, I put a D21 in it and it was last seen at about 1500 feet headed south...
 
A thread resurrected from 16 years ago! Gotta be a record.

For me, it's a 4" Patriot. Got one from my mentor, fixed a cracked front end, painted it oh so carefully and so pretty. First flight: lost it, a 6-grain homemade motor case, nice chute, and G-Wiz altimeter.

Years later I bought another 4" Patriot. Painted it oh so carefully and so pretty. Lost it, an 8-grain AT motor case, nice chute, and Perfectflight altimeter.

I wonder if anyone has a reasonably-priced 4" Patriot? 🤪
 
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