Break-Away Clone!

From the N.A.R. Facebook page:

Beth Johnson made a Odd'l Rockets Break-Away clone!
All those launch lugs are going to be fun to line up - 

Nose Cones . . .

How many do ya' need?

Nose cones can be the most expensive part of a kit.
There's 100 here, a good start for the first run of a new product.

Ceramic Blast Deflector History

An interesting Blast! Deflector back story from YORF:

The MPC starter kit pictured earlier featured a unique parabolic blast deflector.  The design made its first appearance as an R&D entry at NARAM 11 submitted by Sven Englund of New Canaan, CT.  

This was the very same Sven Englund who was the winner of the Estes "Launch Pad Sweepstakes" which had a trip to see the Apollo 11 launch with Vern Estes as its grand prize.  Methinks that ol' Sven might have been the object of envy by a few thousand rocketeers over that win!

Only a few months later the April 7, 1970 issue of Model Rocketry magazine would report that MPC had purchased the rights to his deflector design from Sven for the princely sum of $75 dollars.  Here's the story from Ninfinger.org:  Model Rocketry Magazine April, 1970 (http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ModelRocketry/Model_Rocketry_v02n07_04-70.pdf) 

The design is still available today from various model rocketry dealers. (an Odd'l Rockets product!)

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Odd'l Break-Away from Australia!

On TRF, Snrkl posted he was building a BT-60 upscale of the Odd'l Rockets Break-Away. He had some questions and a few emails were exchanged.

Snrkl had two successful flights on August 20 using D12 engines.

To see the TRF posts and story - CLICK HERE
A flight video is on YouTube - CLICK HERE

F-104 Starfighter Kit Progress -

Here's a peek at the instructions for the upcoming new kit from Odd'l Rockets -
The F-104 STARFIGHTER

This model is based on one of the out-of-production Centuri Fighter Fleet jets. The intakes and fuel tanks will be closer in shape to the real thing.

When will it be available? Hopefully in the next few months. Kit production and test flights take time, especially drawing up the instructions.

Neil W's Cyclone Flight Report

From a post on TRF: 
"I am pleased to report that Cyclone II performed flawlessly at the BARC launch yesterday. Don't have any pics yet, hopefully soon.

First launch was on an 1/2A3-2T. It didn't go very high, but high enough to get a good long spin coming down. As promised, the booster unit spins down moderately, while the mapleseed part gets up a pretty good rate of spin and comes down slowly.

Given the huge flat recovery area, I got ambitious for the second launch and stuck in an A3-4T. That got some good altitude, and a nice long spinning descent. Unfortunately I made a stupid mistake and watched the final descent of the booster piece while asking others to keep an eye on the mapleseed. They *all* lost sight of it, so after some searching I was becoming resigned to having lost it, until some time later my Dad located it somewhat further away that I imagined it could have traveled. So thankfully it's all back together safe and sound.
The takeaway: in the future I personally will focus exclusively on the mapleseed part, and not trust anyone else to follow it. The booster unit doesn't drift that far and should be easy to fine. The A3-4T was a great engine for a launch at a large club field, with easy recovery areas, but for smaller fields definitely the 1/2A3-2T is plenty.

All in all a very fun rocket, I look forward to flying it some more."

Great to hear Neil!
I've seen a Cyclone spin and drift out of sight on a A3-4t before.
At my local soccer field launch I had a prototype drift and land in someone's back yard on the 1/2A3-2t.
Definitely keep an eye on the upper half. The lower half tends to land much closer.
I'm happy to hear of your success, many are surprised how well it helicopters in with no real moving parts.

Pigasus Flys High!

From a recent post on YORF, Les showed off just part of his collection - 

"Not the complete fleet....
A few weeks ago, Kopernik Observatory held its annual Rocketfest.
I put on a display of some of my rockets
This is about half of my collection from nearly 20 years of builds. Enjoy!"

That's an Odd'l Pigasus on top of all that smoke!