The Eagle Claw 4 does look SIMILAR to the Talon 4, however, if you place the pictures side by side comparison you will see there are some differences. Very slight, but they are there. Mainly in the fins size and placement. It appears that the Eagle 4's rear fins are placed closer to the aft end and are slightly smaller them the Talon 4. It also appears as if there is more spacing between the two sets of fins on the Talon 4 then on the Eagle Claw 4..And if the Eagle Claw 4 is 'over 8 feet tall', or more then 96" then it is longer by at least 4" then the Talon 4 which is 92"..
Very similar, but to my eye they don't look
exactly alike.
I bought a GLR Talon 4 and eventually built it into a pretty close to scratch built 2 -stage. Tim did not have the Eagle Claw out at that time. I significantly stretched the airframe between the fore and aft fins. I built the sustainer (with significantly reinforced g-10 fins (a sheet of 5/32" birch plywood on each side just to the root - so a nice step at the body tube) and fin tip to fin tip cf/kevlar cloth). Since the fins were nearly 1/2" thick I was able to get 1-3/4" bevel on all edges - had to dull them up at the end because I kept cutting myself. I used a boat tail on both the booster- with the stock 1/8" g-10 only fins and the sustainer.
The first flight on this rocket was at LDRS 27 with a AT/Kosdon K828 blackjack to an AMW K1000 skid. It was pretty cool seeing the skid light way up there. I set the rocket up to fly in several configurations, but so far have only had the chance to fly it once as a 2 stage and several times with just the booster and nose cone with apogee deployment. I have not yet flown it with the sustainer and nose cone (but on paper it is stable) nor with the sustainer, forward payload section and nose cone as a dual deploy.
I love the look of this rocket. The 2 stage really stretched it out and took away some of the looks of the relatively close fore / aft fins, but drag separated well. As someone else said, this thing flies very straight with no weather cock with all the fins.
I like the sound of Tim's 2 stage version of the Eagle Claw - similar to how I did mine. GLR has a 2 stage upgrade for the Talons. It involves leaving the ass end alone and putting on a transition to a smaller front end with conical nose cone and smaller motor mount.
I have been contemplating making a 6" version of this and making it a 3 stage rocket. The booster would have a 4" (yes 4" not 98mm - can make a sleeve to adapt down) motor mount, the booster a 3" motor mount, then I would do a transition like GLR's 2 -stage to a 4" body with 54mm (call it 2" for style). Most importantly, I already have a name picked out - Countdown to Extinction. (Countdown - 4", 3", 2" - Extinction - not really a fatalist, but this will be a tough one to pull off and Megadeth has a song by that name.)
