Estes Prowler

Finished this rocket in May but hadn’t flown it until Sunday for a variety of reasons. An Estes Prowler, an OOP kit very similar to the Majestic, a mid-power E2X kit.

Estes Prowler on the launch pad at CENJARS.

I did some minor tweaks on this to improve the recovery line, add a rail guide in addition to the 3/16in lugs, etc.. It came with a nice looking pink body tube. Sadly one of the launch lugs slipped while setting and I didn’t notice. So I had to heat gun it off, sand paper the tube, etc etc, and wound up having to repaint the whole thing to deal with the blemish.

The big thing with the Majestic, and I assume this as well, is that you have to do something to keep the parachute, recovery line, etc. from falling lower in the rocket at ignition. It happens easily and the rocket becomes completely unstable. At the moment it’s one of my biggest criticisms of Estes kits: They’re selling the Majestic (and similar) as E2X kits for relative beginners, but they have a serious design flaw that’s actually kind of subtle to diagnose.

In any event, here’s a flight on a windy day on an E16-6, to an estimated 750–800ft, with the chute held to 200ft.

And video of takeoff from Brett’s action cam by the launchpad.