I was recently deployed with Strike team 0803 to Heyfield in Eastern Victoria to help fight the fires that had burnt through Heyfield, Seaton and Glenmaggie. I was on night shift on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th of Jan, 2013. These are some of the photos I took over those few days.

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More photos on Flickr.

Back in November Bill from 3D Rocketry announced his new kit, the Nautilus III
I thought it looked like a super rocket so I contacted Bill and he was happy to post one off to Australia and it arrived within a couple of weeks.

   

First impressions is that this is a good solid kit. The 54mm body tube is solid and has a very tough nose cone. The centering rings are 4mm ply and the fins are 3mm ply. The instructions are straight forward and even describes how to do internal fillets - something that you'll want to do as externally, there's some strips of basswood that go between the body tube and the fins.  

I used an Estes 29mm motor retainer (for the price, these are great value). I swapped out the supplied launch lug for rail buttons and attached the shock cord to the forward centering ring with a screw-eye. 

The kit as it comes is designed to fly on a range of F's but with the quality of the parts supplied, there should be no reason why it won't perform just as well on G's (I'm looking forward to seeing it go up on a G64!!)

As for finishing the Nautilus III, I thought what a rocket would look like if Capt. Nemo had a rocket and looking at the Nautilus submarine, it seemed like it would be metal that was a bit old and rusted. I took some time, read through a bunch of tutorials and had a go at airbrushing the metal & rust effect. I'm happy with the end result :)

I had a lot of fun building this kit. View the full build thread on The Rocketry Forum and the photos on Flickr.

The Blue Bird Zero was part of the Estes catalogue from 1980 to 1985 as kit #1335

I've always thought that this was a very neat looking kit and have wanted one for a while. Recently, Semroc have released this as a Retro Repo kit. While it's nice, I wanted something bigger. The original is about 1m tall, made from BT55 tube. Here's my 2x upscale!!  Made from BT80 body tube it stands just on 2m tall.

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More photos on Flickr.

The Battlestar Galactica Laser Torpedo was released in 1978 by Estes. It was kit #1311

I purchased this kit, still sealed on Ebay recently. Not wanting to open the original box, I found the plans online (Both JimZ and Ye Olde Rocket Plans have copies) and bought the nose cone from Semroc. With all the parts on hand, I cloned my own copy :)

I re-drafted the decals in CorelDRAW to get a better resolution.

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Back in 1980, Estes released two kits in the "Galactic Pirates" set, only to be discontinued in 1981.
I hunted around for the plans and found that I could download them from JimZ site. The original decal design had rivets all over, but I didn't put them on this - just the main decals. It's a great looking rocket and am surprised that there aren't many around!

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November 11th, 2012 saw the final launch of the Rocketry Victoria calendar for the year. Some great flights on what turned out to be a very warm day!

I only launched a couple of small rockets - My scratch built 'Stumy' on a A3-4 and an Estes Patriot on a D-something RMS motor. There were, however, some spectacular flights including Nic's sparky 'M' rocket which was never recovered. Photos of the launch on flickr.

On Saturday October 20th, I went along to the October Sky launch at the Police Paddocs Reserve in Dandenong, organised by Robin. While I have launched at the sporting ground to the North of the reserve and the wetlands to the South, I have never never flown in the middle!

The launch area is great - lots of open space with access from Stud Road. The North-East corner is a bit boggy, but not too bad. The day was fine with a little wind.

We had visitors! Several groups of Kangaroos hopped their way through the paddock.

I flew a couple of Estes rockets (Satellite Interceptor & Bullpup) as well as 'Stumpy', my little 13mm powered rocket. Robin got a few rockets off the pad, too, for some nice flights :)

Check out the photos of the day on Flickr.

This year the weather hasn't been kind and the October launch was no exception. Originally scheduled as a 2 day launch, the weather wasn't cooperating and Saturday was cancelled.

Despite the wind and the cloud cover keeping us under 5,000' (Our waver is 10,000' on a clear day!) the most was made and a great day was had by all.

I only flew a couple of low power rockets - my tried and true Estes Baby Bertha and a newly built Estes AGM-57x Heatseeker.

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More photos after the jump!

The launch of September 16th was a lot of fun. There was quite a bit of cloud and that restricted the altitudes we could safely fly to. That said, nothing I had was going to go that high.

For my first launch, I put up my kinder surprise rocket on a C6-5. I should have flown it on a C6-3, the extra delay resulted in a partially shredded parachute. Not a big problem as I was only using a 12" plastic thing I got in an Estes kit somewhere along the way.

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The second launch was the Space Cadet on a C6-7. From what I was told it was a perfect flight - me, well, I lost sight of it! Rocksim puts the altitude at 1500'+

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However, the highlight of my flights was the Big Daddy on a H128!

The Big Daddy just leapt of the pad and kept going. Rocksim put the altitude at 2800' and it looked like it did every bit of that and more!

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It recovered without a scratch - in fact, apart from a sooty rear-end, it looks like it has never been flown :)

I really love the Estes Big Daddy. It's a great kit - looks good and flys well on D and E size motors. My last Big Daddy had a number of flights on the Aerotech E18 reload & looked fantastic with it's big white flame. It's part of my regular fleet, despite suffering a CATO when the rear closure of the motor blew out.

At Christmas time, I picked up another Big Daddy kit on Ebay with the aim of converting it to fly on 29mm motors - the H128 specifically!

The kit sat, taunting me for months but I've now completed my upgrade!! This is the Really Big Daddy!

I started by re-cutting the centering rings and fins in 3mm plywood - the fins are very slightly larger than original. The launch lug has been swapped for rail buttons and I have also added 120g of lead shot in the tip of the nose cone.

Rocksim predicts that this will fly to around 2800' on a H128 or about 2000' on a G64. I'm looking forward to launching this!