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Estes Rockets Model Scale 1:100 Replica of SpaceX Falcon 9
- ortusdux 4y agoI'm quite tempted to buy three and try and hack together a Heavy.
- mulmen 4y agoPlease do. It would be a great project. Model rocket engines can’t be throttled so your ignition has to be perfect and your engines identical. If you do it please share the results with us.
- haliskerbas 4y agoCheck out BPS.space who spent 7(?) years exploring exactly this!
- mulmen 4y agoYes! I agree, a great series. But what about weekend projects? Looking at the Estes and other model rocket sites it looks like cluster rockets are already a thing.
- askvictor 4y agoCould you hold it back on the launch pad for a second to ensure all engines are lit up prior to lift off?
- ceejayoz 4y agoThe C6-3 engines sold with this kit generate thrust for 1.6 seconds total. https://estesrockets.com/product/001613-c6-3-engines/ https://estesrockets.com/product/001613-c6-3-engines/
- LorenPechtel 4y agoI was the first in our group to launch a two-stage. Minimal motors for the first launch, it staged barely clear of the launch rail.
- LorenPechtel 4y agoNot even the Shuttle tried that. If they didn't both light within a very narrow time window the whole thing would go boom on the pad.
- hughw 4y agoCan it land on a spot though.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThis one can: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cgm7QPJAplX/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cgm7QPJAplX/ Full vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0
- jamiek88 4y agoUgh not only does instagram go straight to login page nowadays, it hijacks my back button. Thanks for the youtube link!
- intrasight 4y agoIt can land on a spot. Probably not the one you intended.
- askvictor 4y agoI remember seeing one such project that had flip-out drone rotors for the landing. Not quite the same as rockets, but much more achievable.
- gleenn 4y agoThis is awesome. Definitely miss building and launching these as a kid. Hope young people are inspired to be builders and have interest in space and flight!
- bombcar 4y agoI remember having fun with them, but also having less luck than I would have liked with building them (though it improved after I started letting the glue fully dry before launching). Launching without a nosecone after a failed recovery was instructional, too.
- m463 4y agoI loved estes model rockets as a kid. I remember they had a model for "rich folks" that could launch an egg inside. Really rich folks could get the one with the 8mm camera. I was poor and could only launch a few times. My go-to rocket was a "park toy rocket" I could fill with water, pump up manually, and launch over and over.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoI found a nice rocketry booklet from Estes from 1964 in an antique store in Martinez, CA several years ago. I scanned it and uploaded it: https://archive.org/details/model-rocketry-booklet/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/model-rocketry-booklet/mode/2up Pretty cool, I think. You can pull down the PDF if you like. Covers the physics of model rocketry, shows you how to build a wind tunnel, talks about recovery, lifting capabilities, rocket-powered gliders, multi-staging, clustering, determining altitude.... (Stereotype humor on 2nd to last page depicting a Chinese man - near Peiping - holding an American model rocket.)
- ceejayoz 4y agoMan, they're hosing folks on the price here. Twice the cost of their Saturn V; most of the rockets are $20-40. It's a cardboard tube with some plastic molding.
- bombcar 4y agoIt's a "collaboration" with SpaceX vs a direct copy of a freely available Saturn V. They know what they're milking - as it is, that thing costs more than the Lego Saturn V did at launch, and almost as much as you can get it now after-market.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoIt’s the Tesquila premium! https://teslatequila.tesla.com https://teslatequila.tesla.com
- bitwize 4y agoI'm a Tres Comas man myself.
- ceejayoz 4y agoYou can get a Blue Origin New Shepard for $35. https://estesrockets.com/product/007315-blue-origin-new-shepard/ https://estesrockets.com/product/007315-blue-origin-new-shep... (Even if it looks like it belongs in a bedside drawer...)
- ortusdux 4y agoI like the twist-lock engine holder design!
- lordnacho 4y agoIt costs a lot of money to develop a toy rocket that can also land itself.
- 4y ago
- dougmwne 4y agoWhat are the regulations around flying these? I remember doing it as a kid, but I could also walk to the store as a kid and play unsupervised with fireworks.
- bombcar 4y agoYou can start here: https://www.nar.org/find-a-local-club/section-guidebook/laws-regulations/ https://www.nar.org/find-a-local-club/section-guidebook/laws... but basically, don't launch into the flightpath of an airport. (Many model rockets don't get above 500 feet, so they never can even get into controlled airspace (usually 1200 ft above ground level) unless you're launching at an airport, which can be totally legal depending on where you are - most places have model rocket clubs and you can find where you can launch)
- mwcremer 4y agoIf you are in CA, the real challenge is getting a permit from the county Fire Marshal. Please do find a local club instead.
- mrandish 4y agoBeing in California, I'm going to assume that county permit to launch a $20 toy 300 feet will be harder to get than FAA permits are for SpaceX to launch rockets the size of buildings to orbit.
- rationalist 4y ago
- sgtnoodle 4y agoI remember getting one a decade ago for like $30. It wasn't as detailed, though.
- bombcar 4y ago> This scale model rocket can lift payloads to LEO and geosynchronous orbits, or even to Mars. Someone needs to do some copy editing hehe, as they seem to be confusing the scale model for the real thing.
- smcnally 4y agoWhat’s 1:100 of Low Earth Orbit?
- aceazzameen 4y agoI'm not sure. But 1:100 of the distance to Mars should definitely be beyond LEO!
- djaychela 4y agoA lot more than the 300 feet this can reach, alas! A 120-mile circular orbit would equate to around 6300 feet at 1:100 scale. I'd love to know if it will ever be possible to build tiny liquid-fueled rockets (with 3d-printing of the a model rocket engine being possible at some point).
- bvm 4y agoif hypergols are allowable then some existing RCS thrusters would fit on a model rocket. Or rocketlab's curie is pretty small IIRC. but...liquid propellents are either pretty dangerous (hydrazine et al), or impossible for an amateur to work with (cryo requirements, pressures required, complex starting sequence etc). The plumbing, extra parts, materials required, tolerances mean that what you might consider as a "classic" liquid design ends up being pretty heavy at a small scale, so you have to build a bigger engine to cope with the extra weight. So you would end up with an engine not really that analogous to what you would consider "classic" liquid designs (gas generators/tap-offs/staged combustions). However.... Frank Malina and Jack Parsons essentially did what you're proposing in the 1930s without any new fangled 3d printing technology, so it's possible! Just don't end up like Jack Parsons.
- 4y ago
- hcurtiss 4y agoI loved Estes rockets as a kid. I grew up poor in a rural area in the late eighties/early nineties, and kids could show up with rockets in strangers' fields. You usually knew if you needed permission, and it was always freely granted. While I still live in a small town (not my hometown), I find the culture has changed a lot, and it's much more difficult to find somebody with adequate space who will give you permission to light off rockets. And that's with parental supervision. In my experience, the days of eleven year old boys with rocket kits are largely over. Just another sad facet of a changing America. I'm old.
- SoftTalker 4y agoYeah I was into it as a 10-12 year old. We would just go to the park or a school football field on a Sunday and fire them off. Usually lost the rockets as the wind would carry them and they'd hang up in a tree or something. Got tired of firing my allowance money into the air so lost interest after a while.
- hunter2_ 4y agoYou just brought back a memory I haven't thought about in decades. After the wind took my rockets away and all I had left was some engines and the igniter, we decided to just let them rip in the porta-john at the local park. Safe enough being that we were outside with the wire fed thru the shut door. The sound it made as it ricocheted off those plastic walls... Not much later, we got into the way less safe potato+hairspray+pipe project!
- perilunar 4y agoJust glue or tape the bare engines to a long stick. The stick is enough for stability, and without the extra weight of the rocket body they go much higher.
- tssva 4y agoWhen I was 10 or 11 I set the field next to the elementary school on fire launching my Estes R2-D2 rocket. Good news is I was able to recover the rocket.
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoI just got my kids their first model rocket. This might have to be their second.
- galleywest200 4y agoOh man, my father and I used to shoot model rockets off as a kid. I recall losing one on the roof of the local Middle School once and I thought it was the coolest ever. This price is a little steep, in my opinion.
- acomjean 4y agoI remember lst century learning that the "c" rocket engines although the same size go way way higher and watching the rocket and parachute drip over the trees never to be found again. That and "Hobby Wick" which ensured takeoff because those electric fired ignitors hardly ever worked right..
- SoftTalker 4y agoYou had to use the expensive "solar igniters." The ones that came in the engine packs never worked.
- titzer 4y agoI had made a few after getting into it from Boy Scouts, and when my time came to engage in the yearly tradition of high school physics kids launching rockets in the football field, instead of making a new one, I just brought my Big Bertha from home. I hadn't launched it yet. It used one massive "E" engine. First launch, dwarfing the launchpad, it exploded. AFAIK its battered fuselage was hung in the physics room until the teacher retired. Good times.
- kjs3 4y agoYeah...Estes rockets were one of the few things my dad and I shared in the 70s. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.
- mawise 4y ago2015~2016 I spent some time with model rocketry, and SpaceX was very exciting to me at that time. I scratch-built a model Falcon 9 with the primary goal of actually using a cluster of 9 motors[1]. I had access to a friend's 3d printer for the nose and landing legs. I ordered laser-cut parts for the motor mounts and other details like the grid-fins. I even printed out custom decals and spent some time on the paint job. The timing worked out that I got to enter it in the local model rocketry club's "sport scale" contest, and the judge dinged me for having windows--at that time there was no crew dragon that had flown. (I still won the contest). The rocket has only flown once, but I still have it. Eight of the nine A10-3T motors lit, and the chute deployed just before hitting the ground. It really could use a shorter delay time but you don't have many options with motors of that size. I had ambitions of building a falcon heavy, but I really wanted the boosters to fall off and have the central core continue under thrust. Then I had kids and haven't had time for rockets, but I still have hopes of doing that build--probably with high-power motors--at some point in the future. [1]: https://imgur.com/PBdyEmA https://imgur.com/PBdyEmA
- mustacheemperor 4y agoThat is so cool. Thank you for sharing. Model rocketry is maybe the one thing I miss the most after moving to California. Between airspace regulations and wildfire risk, I don't think it's something I can really do without a long drive to the desert. I guess it probably wasn't really allowed for us to go do it in fields in rural New England either, but that felt different.
- unixhero 4y agoNevada isn't that far away is it?
- mawise 4y agoCheck out Lunar[1], they used to do low power launches at Moffett, and high power ~2 hours east of there. I'm not sure what they do these days. Wherever you are, there is probably an NAR club [2] which will be a great resource! [1]: http://lunar.org/ http://lunar.org/ [2]: https://www.nar.org/find-a-local-club/ https://www.nar.org/find-a-local-club/
- logicallee 4y agoThis looks great and is at a reasonable price. I tried to buy it but it only ships to Guam, Puerto Rico and U.S. whereas I'm abroad now. I got as far as the checkout though. Nice homage and looks fun to play with.
- graupel 4y agoI love launching rockets with my 11 year old but it's so hard to find a good spot these days where you don't end up with a police visit (that happened, worked out fine) or a risk of starting a wildfire, etc.
- rcurry 4y agoCops were different when I was a kid, lol. I remember me and some buddies getting set up to rappel off a bridge over the Minnesota river and some cops rolled up. After questioning us (14 year olds who were clearly at risk of accidentally killing themselves) the one officer says “Well, I don’t really know if this is legal or not, but it sounds like you guys are being pretty safe and you know your gear so, uh, my partner and I are going to go investigate some things and when we get back, cough, cough, in about half an hour I’m guessing you kids won’t be here, right?” I miss those days.
- Aeolun 4y agoI’m not sure if kids did less stupid things those day, whether they were more prepared for doing stupid things, or if it’s all just my memory. But it certainly feels like today’s 14 year olds couldn’t be trusted to do that since they’d do it with zero experience and only for the Youtube/Twitch fame.
- rcurry 4y agoI just miss the balance - between some kids having fun and some angry Karen calling the cops. And the cops were sort of like “Yeah, kids do stupid shit and it might go south, but let’s let them have the adventure.” And we all lived and had that adventure, thanks to a couple of MPD officers who let us go play and have fun. and yeah, we cleared out of there right quick after abseiling off the Minnesota river bridge. But the officers were the real heroes, they just let us be kids.
- hondo77 4y agoThey don't have the strength to do it, anymore. Tapping on a keyboard/phone all day.
- fpdavis 4y agoAt that price it should land too (shout out to BPS)! I am shocked it took them this long to release a Falcon model. And no Falcon Heavy either.
- joshuahaglund 4y agoThat's what I was thinking! For those who don't know BPS landing model rockets vertically, with legs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0
- jlbooker 4y agoSpaceX used to sell a version of this in their online store. I bought one for my son. I'm not sure what company manufactured it, but it doesn't seem to have an Estes branding. You can pick them up on eBay now, with a significantly inflated price (they were originally ~$50 from SpaceX): https://www.ebay.com/p/1600662998 https://www.ebay.com/p/1600662998
- williamDafoe 4y agoI would love to load a D12 into this baby and see how high it would go!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LorenPechtel 4y agoWon't fit--D motors are bigger than C motors. IIRC you can go as high as F before you get into restricted territory, but they're not the same size. (And the field has so far managed to successfully self-regulate. Government licenses are not required for the motors, although in the high power realm you may need licenses for some of the pyrotechnics. You do, however, have to content with storage requirements that effectively mean most people can't possess high power motors. You have to buy them at the launch site. Many high power launches also require pre-arranged FAA clearance--they don't want rockets sharing the skies with airplanes.)
- Yhippa 4y agoJust to chime in among all the other nostalgia stories, I think I remember getting started with these in Boy Scouts and had an absolute blast with them. I enjoyed assembling, painting, and then launching these things. The ones I started with didn't go that high and were easy to retrieve. I just hope it's still possible to do these things with my child one day.
- gcheong 4y agoIf you want to try your hand at building one yourself Apogee has downloadable plans and a parts list: https://www.apogeerockets.com/Falcon-9-Crew-Dragon-Plan https://www.apogeerockets.com/Falcon-9-Crew-Dragon-Plan
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- quartz 4y agoI built and launched countless model rockets as a kid and a month ago took my son out with my dad to relive the experience and it was downright magical. Beyond that I'm really happy to see this model simply because it's REALLY HARD to find toy or model SpaceX rockets. Science stores and museums are still packed full of the same old space shuttle and rocket models and toys that were there in the 90s which is kind of ridiculous considering we have way cooler rockets now and the space shuttle has been retired for over a decade. The official SpaceX store only sells t-shirts and hoodies.
- ecpottinger 4y agoMost impressive to me was the model rocket that lands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0
- greesil 4y agoI feel like any of us with a 3d printer will only have need of the rocket engines, some igniters, and a fast car to stay ahead of the law.
- tlrobinson 4y agoI loved model rocketry as a kid. They even did it at my school (I won a contest in my class!) until a kid’s rocket landed on a neighboring house’s roof and burned it down.
- nibbleshifter 4y agoMan, I miss model rocketry. Around 2010 in Ireland the motors became virtually unobtainable - there were a handful of shops importing them, and one day they stopped as customs had seized their stock. Apparently what was a growing hobby with puff pieces in national media was now gone because someone decided to classify the motors as fireworks (illegal, under the same laws that ban importing your own Semtex). There was a national rocketry club that managed to import motors for a few more years for club launches, but that seems to have fizzled out a few years back with the loss of their launch site. So many good memories of trying to build my own rocket bodies, trying to get fins cut from balsa wood aligned, doing math, painting the things, etc. Estes have a whole guide on building em yourself. Then going down to some field and launching it, seeing if it worked, etc...
- M_bara 4y agoAnyone know what’s the fuel combination of Estes? I live in a country where shipping this is probably impossible. As a high schooler I was very keen on rocketry, we ended up cobbling one using a deodorant can as the body, a slurry of potassium permanganate and sulphur or sugar as the fuel (which was hypergolic at the wrong times) and an igniter which was a trail of the same fuel about 30 cm long. They’d take off and explode about 3m up (burn rate?). It was stupid and fun but the chemistry teacher killed it as soon as they became aware of it. Good times though.
- TylerE 4y agoJust standard black powder. Same as the lift charge used for fireworks.
- mbfg 4y agobummer, it doesn't land itself.
- dotancohen 4y agoThe page states: > The SpaceX Falcon 9 is the world’s first human-rated reusable launch vehicle. Was not the Space Shuttle a human-rated reusable launch vehicle?