Rocketry Planet

High Power Rocketry's Top 10 Biggest Regional Launches

I have a friend who has the goal of watching a baseball game in every big league stadium in America. He's been to Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium, to Fenway Park and Chavez Ravine, and a dozen other parks scattered throughout the land. Every year he makes it to a new field, sometimes even two, and returns home with great memories—and enough hats and shirts—to last a lifetime.His most recent journey—to Progressive Field in Cleveland—got me thinking about high power rocketry's biggest venues and how this hobby has continued to grow in the last ten years. Some impressive traditions are alive and well out there at the biggest regional events in America.

DREG101: Building the Estes D-Region Tomahawk

The Estes D-Region Tomahawk is back for its final segment in this How-To Classroom Series. Sporting a traditional white paint job with black, red and brown trim, the D-Region Tomahawk makes a great statement in scale model rocket kits. Follow along as we finish out this final lesson.In this edition of the How-To Classroom, we are focusing on building a hardened version of the new Estes D-Region Tomahawk (#2037). This kit is 38.8" long, 1.8" in diameter and comes with a 24mm motor mount. I got my Tomahawk from Belleville Wholesale Hobby for just $24.49. Features of the kit include a very detailed blow-molded nosecone, a very detailed fin and fin canister section, a twist-lock motor retainer and a rip-stop nylon parachute.

HJ101: Turbocharging the Estes Maxi Brute Honest John

This edition of the Rocketry Planet How-To Classroom is based on the Estes Maxi Brute Honest John, a 1/9 scale model of the venerable ballistic missile used by the United States Army. This class covers the Estes first edition Maxi Brute kit #1269 released in 1975, the Estes second edition Collector Series kit #1269 released in 1993 or the third edition Maxi Brute kit #2166 released in 2000.This kit is approaching collector status, if it hasn't already, and you can still find them occassionally on eBay for reasonable prices. This class project features dual deployment with an altimeter bay, fiberglass airframe reinforcing and fiberglass fins to replace the thin styrene shells that come in the standard kit. In fact, of the original kits, we are mainly using the styrene fin canisters and the two-piece styrene nose cones while replacing most everything else — this is imperative to be able to fly these kits on 38mm and 54mm motors.