Useful model rocketry links
Most recent liftoff: May 31, 2008; recently added or modified items are now marked as 
.
In the course of fooling with model rockets recently, I came across tons of good information. Following are some links that other hobbyists might find useful. This is an informally organized list (translation: I throw useful links into ill-defined buckets). I add stuff to it as I come across things that look like they might be useful.
Model rocket plans, vintage Estes kit info
Historical reference
- When was that Estes kit in production? Estes Kit Directory, 1961-2000
- Vintage catalogs from Estes, Centuri, North Coast Rocketry, others (near bottom of page)
- Compendium of classic spacecraft and X-plane models (plastic models, flying models)
- Fantastic Plastic Models -- compendium of old kits, some reissued.
- Hobbyspace.com -- tons of links to space model resources. Plastic models, paper models, vintage decals, much more. Unfortunately many dead links.
- Field Guide to American Spacecraft
Rocket plans -- general
- Estes rocket plans
- Plans for vintage Estes rockets, in .pdf and/or html format
- Another source of vintage Estes plans
- And yet another: oldrocketplans.com allows you to search several databases of old rocket plans
- A. Shasta's Estes rocket plans
- More brands: Centuri, Quest, many others.
- JimZ's compendium of rocket plans
- JimZ's new plans and documents
- National Association of Rocketry plans on CD-ROM
- "BARCLONE" custom designs using Estes components; Rocsim files
- European rocket plans from Rakety Planky
- Czech rocket plans; lots of scale info
- Tons of paper model plans, including lots of paper rocket models, X-planes, aircraft in general
- More paper plans from the Philippus Lansbergen Public Observatory in Holland -- Mercury Redstone, Pegasus, lots more. Downloadable PDF instructions and templates.
Water rockets
- Water bottle rockets -- don't laugh, they claim 1000 ft with two stage. Very clever; no pyrotechnics; clockwork timers.
- Plans for water rocket
- Tomy timers here and here
- Water rocket FAQ
- www.waterrockets.org (membership required, but it's free)
Tubes and sizes
- Estes paper and plastic body tubes, fin stock, code numbers
- The most common Estes body tube sizes
- Estes body tube and kit reference What tubes do you need to re-create your favorite out-of-print Estes kit? It's probably here.
- Oddball non-Estes body tube chart
Nose cones
- Can you still get the one called for in the plans? Try here. Estes and Semroc nose cone cross-reference
- Which Estes cones go with which which kit?
- Lay out your own ogive nose cones
- Balsa Machining -- lots of repro Estes balsa cones
Need decals for that vintage kit? Try
Want to make your own custom decals?
- Low-cost source of decal paper for laser and inkjet printers.
- Another decal paper source.
- Fonts for military, aircraft, and spacecraft lettering
- Vintage decals-- print them out on decal paper
- Bare-Metal Foil makes decal paper too
- Everybody needs to believe in something. I believe I'll get this iron-on.
(from BARCLONE)
Transistion sections
- Transition generator -- print out your own paper or cardstock body tube transitions
- A Powerpoint-based transition generator Even does shrouds for clusters!
- Balsa transitions from Aerospace Specialty Products
- Thrustline transitions-- no longer shipping but useful for standard dimensions (make your own)
Parts sources
- Aerospace Specialty Products
- Apogee
- Belleville Hobby -- kits, parts
- Balsa Machining Service has lots of cones, transitions, fins, tubes, building supplies, etc.
- Discount Rocketry Complete kits, or parts and building supplies
- Jonrocket -- body tubes, couplers, nosecones, parachutes, complete kits
- Tower Hobbies (Rocketfun.com) -- they often run specials, for $10 or $15 off per order. Get on mailing list.
- Uncle Mike's Rocket Shack -- odd and hard to find parts, such as bulkheads for cluster engines, motor mount sets, strange tube diameters, etc.
- Great Hobbies -- Estes engines
- AC Supply -- Estes engines
- Semroc -- parts and repro kits
- Thrustline -- no longer filling orders at this writing, but stay tuned
- Red Arrow -- large selection of complete kits from many manufacturers; parts
- engines from several manufacturers -- Aerotech, Quest, Estes
- Sigma Rockets -- in Canada
- Deep Sky Rocket Shop -- in the UK
- Rebel Rocketry -- a shop Somewhere in Occupied Europe. They're rather secretive about their location. Since they charge 19% tax, it must be... Germany. The original home of secretive rocket manufacturing!
Kit manufacturers besides Estes
- Apogee
- Dr. Zooch
- Dr. Zooch scale models
- They even have a Saturn V, as big as the Estes but not at collector prices!
- You want a model launch pad with that Saturn V? Sold on ebay by seller d-condave
- Hawks Hobby -- "upscale classic" kits
- The Launch Pad -- military mid-power rocket models
- Mad Cow Rocketry
- Noris Raketen (Germany)
- Noris scale flying models (appear to be Estes, Dr. Zooch, or Apogee models)
- North Coast Rocketry -- looks like they're back! But web site is still in a parking orbit... (Oh, boy, I hope they bring back the Bomarc...)
- Polecat -- BIG kits, including military models
- Qmodeling -- upscale retro kits ("Retro Mega Series")
- Upscale Viper (larger version of an original design by David Beers in the 1970s for the "Estes Aerospace Club.")
- (And for comparison, here's the original EAC Viper)
- Upscale Bullpup -- if you thought the Bullpup looks cool but the Estes kit is just too small...
- Nike-X -- neat looking fantasy/military rocket
- Upscale Viper (larger version of an original design by David Beers in the 1970s for the "Estes Aerospace Club.")
- Red River Rocketry
- Sirius
- A huge, and hugely expensive, Saturn V
- Some neat fantasy kits
Plans for specific model rockets
V2
- Paper model of V2 includes plans for launch pad. Print out on cardstock to make paper model.
- Detailed drawings of the V2
- V2 Camouflage and markings
- And in general lots more V2 stuff
Saturn V
- The Saturn V Clinic -- want to improve your Revell static display model? So do lots of folks.
- Saturn V detail kits Also kits, detail sets for other models.
Estes Astron Beta -- my first rocket, fall of 1969
- Estes Astron Beta plans (using short, standard-diameter1/2 A motors, no longer available)
More than any sane person wants to know about the Boeing Bomarc
- The Story of Miss Bomarc Where is she now?
- Say, is that an Estes Mini-Bomarc, or are you just glad to see me?
- Trailer for a DVD of actual Bomarc launch and flight footage from the 1950s. Includes footage of the X-10 pilotless drone being used as a chase plane. The X-10 was the predecessor of the very cool looking Navajo cruise missile. (The full-length DVD is sold here).
- Bomarc missile sites
- Marquardt ramjet engine
- Photo of Marquardt RJ43 ramjet engine as used in Bomarc
- Photo of a similar Marquardt ramjet under test. Says 850 lbs, 100,000 horsepower. That'll beat the neighbor kid's hot-rod Honda with the coffee-can exhaust!
- Report on Empire Rockets Bomarc
- Report on clone of Estes Bomarc (includes downloadable Rocksim files)
- Parts list for clone of Estes Bomarc
- Plans for Estes parachute-recovery Bomarc (html) (same in PDF)
- Plans for Estes glide-recovery Bomarc (html)
- Rocksim file for Estes or clone Bomarc
- A guy who makes upsized Bomarc ramjet inlets out of balsa
- And Excelsior Rocketry makes decals for an upsized model using BT-60 body tube
- Modify North Coast Rocketry Bomarc for H engines (long out of print kit)
- Madcow Rocketry's new issue large-scale Bomarc Nearly as big as North Coast's, but without the fussy vac-formed wings.
- Madcow's assembly instructions
- Hawks Hobby promises they're working on a large scale version, a "Super Bomarc."
- NAR (National Association of Rocketry) has Bomarc plans on CD-ROM
- Plans for ancient Jetex-powered, classical rib-and-spar construction Bomarc (from Model Airplane News, Oct. 1958)
- Jetex lives!!! Doesn't have the thrust of rocket engines, but useful for jet-powered gliders
- Jetex.org (proving that there's an .org for every .aberration)
- The newly available Rapier motors to replace long-gone Jetex
- And you can get them from Shorty's Basement. Mostly, I'd like to get the wicks and launch my rockets like in the old days...
- More Jetex plans
- Jetex lives!!! Doesn't have the thrust of rocket engines, but useful for jet-powered gliders
Tech info, building tips
Tubes
- Estes paper and plastic body tubes, fin stock, code numbers
- The most common Estes body tube sizes
- Estes body tube and kit reference
- Centuri and Quest tube sizes
Engine mounts
- How to build motor mounts
- Estes Tech Report TR-6, engine clustering (for example, how to have a single first stage booster engine fire three second stage engines)
How to finish balsa surfaces -- ever wonder how some folks get that glasslike finish?
- How to apply Aero Gloss Balsa Fillercoat Primer
- How to apply Aero Gloss Balsa Sealer
- Finishing techniques -- how to get smooth balsa
- also this thread
- Tired of overpaying for tiny little jars of sanding sealer or dope? Try this source; sealer in pint cans.
- Another source, less extensive selection
- Yet another brand: Brodak. And they have a book on finishing and painting, for a measly $5.
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- Primer in big cans
- Sealer in big cans
- Colors in big cans
- Found as a result of this thread. Interesting, I have shrinkage problems on thin balsa too, never heard of adding castor oil. (Now I suppose I need to find castor oil. Pharmacy! What's a pharmacy?)
Epoxy clay
- Fixit Epoxy Clay from Apogee Components
- Manufacturer's web site, including Fixit clay in colors, and other neat concoctions like Fixit Sculpt
Fins
- A slick way to make fin root fillets
- How about a different way to make fins? Spadtothebone has lots of airplane plans using Coroplast corrugated plastic sign material. (What's Coroplast? It's this stuff).
Nose cones
- Estes nose cones
- Balsa Machining Service nose cones
Building tips
- Excellent illustrated step-by-step guide to building high performance rockets
- Lots of great building tips at ninfinger.org
Links to lots of different parts resources, plans (lots of dead links though)
Compendia of tech stuff
- Estes Tech Manual (very elementary)
- Stribling's tech info (stability, altitude, Centuri technical reports)
- Stribling's general home page, with more links
- Centuri, TIR-30, "Stability of a Model Rocket in Flight"
- Centuri, TIR-33, "Calculating the Center of Pressure"
- More Estes publications Tons of great info. Alternative link here.
- Out-of-print NAR publications. How to roll your own tubes, plans for V2 and others.
Periodicals
- A few back issues of the classic Estes Model Rocket News
- Lots more back issues of Estes Model Rocket News, plus other publications, Estes Technical Reports, etc.
- Back issues of Model Rocketry magazine
Engines
- Estes engines. Some discontinued / obsolete
- Dr. Rocket reloadable engines
- Aerotech reloadable engines
- Thrustcurve.org -- specs for model rocket engines. Search for, click on engine name, get official NAR spec sheets.
- NAR rocket engine spec sheets -- the last word. Includes RASP file data for use in simulation programs
Brew your own rocket fuel. What if McGiver were stuck out in the woods with nothing but a campfire, a bag of saltpeter, and some sugar, and the script calls for him to make a rocket? No problem... (Frankly, not recommended. Ready-made engines are tons safer, easier and better; don't be like the Radioactive Boy Scout).
Igniters
- Igniters -- make your own, and Copperhead
- Wanna make your own igniters? (Why? They're free, with the engines). Anyway, here's a link to Vern Estes' 1968 patent for electrical igniters, complete with the recipe.
Launching methods -- what's a launch tower compared to a rod, or rail?
How to build a launch tower
Rocket math
- Rocket Equations
- Multistage rocket equations
- Estes Altitude Prediction Charts
- How high did it go? Well, you could make a simple theodolite and do the trigonometry -- better yet, get two friends, each with a theodolite. Get a long tape measure for baseline. But then the trig gets messy. Fortunately, your tax dollars hired some real rocket scientists at NASA to write a little explanation on how to crunch the numbers.
- You can download the Java applet here and keep it on your "field computer."
Stability -- it won't fly for squat if it's not stable. Can use simulation software during the design process. Or, go old school: swing test.
- Rocket Stability -- written by Vern Estes himself.
- Excellent exposition of the Barrowman equations
- Centuri TIR-30, "Stability of a Model Rocket in Flight." By Jim Barrowman.
- Centuri TIR-33, "Calculating Center of Pressure". By Jim Barrowman. 34 pages of raw meat.
- Lots of tidbits of rocket stability information
Rocket design rules of thumb
Simulation software, calculators
- Village Forge Software (not freeware)
- ALTPRED (model rocket altitude prediction) and
- MRCPCAL (model rocket center of pressure calculator
- Virtual Center of Pressure (freeware)
- Thrustcurve.org's compendium of rocket simulation software
- RockSim from Apogee Components, Colorado Springs -- arguably the best simulation, design, and center of mass / center of pressure calculation package. Check rocket designs for CG, stability. Trial version available. Nominally $100 after that.
- Winroc -- free. Check rocket designs for stability. Not as versatile, nor as complex, as Rocksim.
- Winsim -- trial version, after that, $.
- WRASP -- free, rocket trajectory simulation
- SpaceCad 3.1
- Compendium of rocketry software, and online calculators
- Compendium of model rocketry tech info -- including cluster ignition, lifting bodies, multi-staging.
- Another list of Windows rocketry simulation and software (lots of freeware)
Electronics for model rockets
- Some neat electronic projects
- More neat model rocket electronic projects -- tracking transmitters and receivers, locators, altimeters
- Ramsay Electronics telemetry kit
- Circuit Cellar data acquisition device
- Rocket altimeter
- Perfectflite altimeters, timers, flight data loggers (Also available from Apogee)
- Missile Works altimeter and timer
- Magnetic apogee detector
- A simple ejection charge timer
- A cheap, simple, already-made beeper for locating your rocket (sold for tracking your kids)
- Discussion of this device, and alternative sources
- Another similar device
- For what it's worth, a comparison table of various altimeters. Most links are dead.
Online forums, blogs, etc.
- Info Central -- info on design, construction, finishing, motors, recovery systems, etc.
- Ye Olde Rocket Forum
- Rocketry Planet
- Dick's Rocket Dungeon -- an interesting blog of real-world rocketry.
- Vern Estes' own home page. Vern Estes, founder of the model rocket company that bears his name, maintains a blog and would like to hear recollections of hobbyists from the early days, for his upcoming book.
- Links to articles by or about Vern Estes, including Smithsonina Air and Space and Launch.
- Video of the early days, showing Estes' rocket engine machine, the core of the business, in operation.
Print resources
- Launch Magazine (model and full-scale rocketry history) (also see here).
This is supposed to be a page of useful links, but I needed some place to put the absolutely useless.
Crikey. These people actually made a huge -- as in, 21 feet long -- flying Star Wars X-Wing Fighter!
Did that thing fly? Well, no, not really... Witness the disaster. Use the farce, Fluke! These guys claim that it "actually flies." Well, yes, if chucking stuff with a catapult qualifies as "flight." (All the CAD-CAM programs on the planet, all the CNC routers and laser cutters in the world, won't help if you have a fundamentally Bad Design. And the Y-Wing didn't fly for diddlysquat either). But, it appears in this case, to paraphrase the bear's question to the hunter, "You didn't come here to fly rockets, did you?"
Is anybody else out there in Rocketland as annoyed as I am by the kooky doings portrayed in a "reality TV" series called "Master Blasters"? The scenario: each week's episode features a buildoff between two teams of "rocketeers", one headed by a father-and-son duo who look like nothing so much as a pair of billygoats with a grooming problem. There's the usual trash talk between teams, and stilted, scripted issuance and acceptance of "challenges." These people, on all the teams, are not masters of anything. My favorite example of this is one week's challenge, to shoot a rocket-propelled Mini Cooper off an inclined ramp and through goalposts 100 yards downrange. The losing team had two things to guarantee failure: first, absolutely no consideration of whether their contraption would be stable or not. But first, during the pre-launch festivities, the visiting team managed to light one rocket while the crew was still rigging it to its launcher. Guy had to be taken away in an ambulance. And then, one of the two rocket motors failed to light, turning the Mini into a large steel pinwheel. The Billygoat Family at least added some long booms and tailfins to ensure that the center of aerodynamic pressure was way behind the center of mass. Theirs worked. Here's a YouTube clip showing the launches.
