I’m envious. I’ve looked at Estes’ website on many occasions, but I’m never in the USA long enough to get back into the hobby.
My last flight was a Mean Machine that got lost on the descent. It landed in a woods that’s now a shopping mall.
I really need to have some children so I can find excuses to force myself to do what I really, really want to do!
Looks like the closest club in in Skagit County. That’s about an hour’s drive from here.
Found an even better tube at work for my first home brew rocket…
27" long
1.835" outside diameter
1.5" inside diameter
0.19" wall thickness
This tube is rugged!
My idea for this rocket will be an overbuilt, ruggedized beast, and I want a slow liftof, and a low to mid altitude flight, for recovery, maybe a heavy duty oversized streamer
The fins will be some 0.19 basswood, possibly using body-through construction, maybe mounting on the engine mount, and I’m going to go simple with the engine mount, it’ll be some PVC tubing cut to fit the engine, nose cone will be a sturdy (and ideally pointy) wooden nose cone, maybe I can whittle and sand one out of a pine branch from out in the yard
I want this rocket to be sturdy enough to survive a landing intact even if the Re-entry system fails…
I want this beast to be overbuilt
Search YouTube for “sugar rockets”
Homemade rocket motors using sugar and Potassium nitrate
Watch your total weight of this model, and choose an engine wisely. Streamer recovery will probably not cut it for an overbuild model like this. It will come down way, way too fast.
Here is a handy chart for engines “E” and lower:
Max liftoff weight for an E12-4 is 17 oz (482 g) which INCLUDES the engine weight of 2.16 Oz, 61g).
So, if your rocket is going to weigh more than 14.8 oz, or 420g, you’re going to need something with more total impulse than an E12-4
One of these ought to work.
The latest video, Sage’s Amazon on a B4-6, a nearly perfect launch and landing
We launched 4 times, she launched them all, she used up all my low power engines, she’s hooked…
She looked through the Estes online brochure, really liked the Sky Writer, an E2X rocket, so I stopped at Michaels hobby and craft store, and picked one up for her, we built it together this afternoon and she’s eagerly awaiting launch day tomorrow
Time to move up the the C motors.
Three more videos;
Sage launches her SkyWriter on an A series motor
And another one of Sage’s ideas, a night launch of the Amazon, we attached a Photon squeeze light to the nose cone to aid tracking and retrieval
And just for fun, she wondered what would happen if we launched the Amazon on an A class motor, deliberately under powering it, so of course, we had to find out (no slo-mo needed here… 
)
My Big Bertha build is complete, and I’m just getting the paint job completed, she should be ready to fly tomorrow at the latest…
Sage is beyond hooked on rocketry, when not perusing the Estes website, or searching Amazon for kits, she’s watching the videos we made, as well as other YouTube model rocketry video
She is eagerly awaiting the launch of BB
I also found an inexpensive solution to those nice, but hard to find and slightly pricier Quest igniters…
1; take cheap crappy (but free with every pack of motors) Estes igniters
2; put a dollop of super glue on the pyrogen (that’s a fun word, pyrogen!) tip
3; dip the tip in some black powder, tap off excess
4; let dry
I’ve tested two igniters outside of an engine, and they work perfectly, the Quest igniters are still faster, but the upgraded igniters are faster and hotter than the stock igniters
Plus, the upgraded igniter can be re-used until the nichrome wire breaks
Maiden voyage of my Big Bertha, Logan on countdown and launch control, Sage trying to capture the liftoff on my old Pentax K-1000, her first experience with a fully mechanical 35mm SLR…
Sweeeeeettttt!!!
That had that slow lift-off & acceleration you were looking for. No bottle rocket there.
Good job hooking the kids.
All my rocketry videos are shot in 240 FPS Slomo on my iPhone 6, Slomo for the launch, then I go to real time at apogee before the chute deploys or just after
I’ll upload a couple vids with the Slomo off too
Review time!
Estes Amazon vs. Estes Big Bertha
Factory specs;
EA;
29.4" tall
1.33" outside diameter
3 oz of weight
600 ft. max. Altitude on C6-5
EBB;
24" tall
1.64" outside diameter
2.5 oz of weight
550 ft. max. Altitude on C6-5
so, the Amazon is taller, and heavier than the Bertha, and flies slightly higher…
on paper, it would seem that the Amazon is the superior rocket from the raw factory numbers.
i wanted to hate the Amazon, really I did, I’m an old school traditional rocketeer, model rockets should be constructed of cardboard and balsa, no plastic fins, and ideally no plastic nose cone…
…that said, it wouldn’t explain why I like the Alpha series either, as the Alpha violates the Balsa/cardboard rule, but that’s a tangent on its own… Back to the review
like I said, I wanted to hate the Amazon, another big factor in my initial dislike was the fact that it was an E2X kit, no challenge to build, a trained chimp could build one (my dislike of the E2X kits was reinforced by the SkyWriter I bought for Sage, too simple to build, no challenge), and there was no real need to paint or customize the rocket
thats the main reason I gave the Amazon to Sage without even flying it once, I just don’t like the E2X kits, no challenge, I was looking forward to the Crossfire build anyway
however, once Sage and I launched the Amazon, and saw its slow, majestic liftoff, graceful, stable flight with a minimum of rotation, and perfect parachute deployment every time, I’m starting to warm to the thing, it’s big, low and slow, the kind of model rocket I like, Sky rippers are fun too, but there’s just something about a rocket that you can see through the whole flight and not need to search for a tiny speck with a trail of tracking smoke behind it, besides no matter how big of a spill hole you cut in the chute, the higher it is, the more chances there are for the Sky Gods to snatch it away from you
give me Big, Low, and Slow any day…
so, I just can’t bring myself to hate the Amazon, in fact, I’m looking for another couple of them, I have a plan to build an extended length Amazon, as close to the 6’ tall Mean Machine as possible, two Amazon kits should do it…
On on a scale of 1-10, I give the Amazon an 8.5, E2X construction aside, I can’t bring myself to truly hate this one, there’s no technical reason to hate this one, it’s a competent rocket, technically good, just missing the “soul” that comes with traditional balsa construction.
Estes Big Bertha
one of the rockets I had coveted as a younger rocketeer, one I never got around to getting, but admired from afar, well, I own one now!
admittedly, after building the slightly taller Amazon, I was disappointed with the slightly shorter height of the Bertha, but it has that special something that the Amazon doesn’t have…
Presence…
Presence, and Soul!, Admittedly it’d have more soul with a traditional balsa nose cone, which is why I’m already planning my next Bertha, a taller Bertha (either a Bertha and Baby Bertha body tube linked together to get it to 3’ tall, or two Bertha tubes to bring it to 4’, and then the inevitable Mean Bertha 6 footer…) with a balsa nose cone.
once I had the Bertha on the pad, and launched it, I was amazed by the performance, rock solid stable flight, no rotation, and a graceful arcing apogee before a perfect chute deployment and graceful descent back to earth, wind drift was minimal, and I could swear it went slightly higher than the Amazon on the same B6-4, I’m actually hesitant to launch it on a C6-5, I don’t want to lose this one to the Sky Gods or the Wind Gods
I absolutely love the Bertha, and I am definitely going to add more Berthas to the fleet, I love the customizability of the Bertha platform…
I’d rate the Bertha a 11.5 out of 10, sure it might be shorter than the Amazon, but the Amazon is a plain generic rocket, mundane and nothing special, an excellent technical performer, but nothing more, whereas the Bertha is a timeless, classic design with a soul and presence that makes up for the slight height discrepancy, and the height issue is easily solved.
if I had to chose only one to keep? The Bertha, no contest.
to use a handgun analogy…
the Amazon is a Glock, functional, efficient, and reliable, but no soul, no personality
the Big Bertha is a classic Smith and Wesson or Colt revolver, or 1911 semiauto, timeless, beautiful, and oozing with soul
hmm, one last question…
if if I was to take a Big Bertha, a Baby Bertha, combine the body tubes to get it 3’ tall’ AND put all 8 fins on the rear, how would it perform? Would the additional fins destabilize the rocket, or make it more stable? I’m sure it’d reduce the apogee height, due to the increased drag and weight though…
it’d definitely look look unique though.
As for the 8 finned BB. Sim it up and see.
The D engine variant of the BB is called a Broadsword.
The multi-engine variant is called the Ranger. It launched on 3 engines.
I also built an E x 4 engine BB that i called Super Ranger and a G powered one that I called Morningstar.
I had a Super Baby Bertha but I forgot what engine combo it used. Probably totally inappropriate as it doesn’t seem to have survived.
Here are a few YouTube vids at normal speed
First, the two fast-mover “sky ripper” style launches
Estes Seqoyia on an A10-3T mini engine
Estes SkyWriter on an A8-3 engine
Next, the “slower” (but still fast) launches, both on B6-4 engines
Estes Amazon
Estes Big Bertha
The sky ripper engines were noticeably smaller and less powerful, yet the rockets screamed up to altitude far faster, notice how much easier the Big and Slow rockets were to follow, I find that launch style far more enjoyable
That RockSim program is cool, playing with the demo, and I found out the following…
On an Estes C6-5
3 fin Bertha; 671 ft max altitude, 152 MPH top speed
Stock 4 fin Bertha; 635 ft, 147 MPH
5 fin; 605 ft, 143 MPH
6 fin; 579 ft, 139 MPH
7 fin; 555 ft, 135 MPH
8 fin; 532 ft, 132 MPH
all setups are slightly overstable
And my 8 fin 6 foot tall “Mean Bertha” on an Aerotech D21
719 ft, 194 MPH
From L-R;
Baby Bertha
Sequoyia
Big Bertha
Amazon
Super-Crossfire (Estes Crossfire with additional 18" body tube, need to repaint this one)
Ultra-Crossfire (Crossfire with two 18" body tubes added, needs paint, and a first flight)
I’ve seen only one body tube made of turned balsa (split in two and then glued back.) It was a V-2 rocket model and the shape was nicely cigar-like.
When I was a kid I had the Big Bertha and found, to my delight, that the upper nose cone from a crashed and burned Marauder fit the body of the BB perfectly. That long, pointy nose cone made the BB look a lot meaner.
I think it was the coolest looking rocket I ever built and I launched and recovered it over a dozen times, which was a record for me by far.
Actually, I doubt the ‘adult male at a school’ would really be a problem. Adults go to school grounds all the time on weekends (usually to play pick-up basketball or soccer, but I bet there are kite-flyers, etc. fairly regularly).
Now, depending on your timing and other circumstances, the ‘explosives at a school’ part could maybe upset some people…
