Brief:
The Marauder was my re-introduction to scratch building after getting back into the hobby in early 2001. In my early days in rocketry 20+ years ago I had enjoyed scratch building to the point that no paper tube in the house was safe from my “creative” eye. (Luckily no pictures exist of any of these early creations, although I do have the fins from one of them.) While garbage picking was my method of procuring materials in 1977 (and served me quite well,) in 2001 I mistakenly thought that the best way to get back into scratch building was by buying an Estes Designer’s Special. Unfortunately, the Designer’s Special that I had always lusted for as a kid and bought as an adult turned out to be little more than Estes way of getting rid of some of their more hideous mistakes. One of these mistakes was the brick-like “nose cone” from the SDI Satellite, one of the least attractive, albeit most unique looking, rockets ever to disgrace the skies. Another was the almost equally hideous cockpit style nose cone that had once been part of the Greyhawk kit as well as several others. It was out of the necessity to use this cone that the Marauder was born.

Construction:

• 1 - 15" length BT-55
• 2 - 3" lengths BT-20
• 1 - PNC-55? from Estes Greyhawk or AstroSat LSX
• 18" length of 1/4" sewing elastic
• 3/32" basswood for fins
• standard launch lug
• 18" parachute
• 18mm engine mount kit
• snap swivel

At a loss to come up with a fin pattern distinctive enough for the monstrous nose cone, I scanned the JimZ site and found the Intruder in the Model Rocket News plan section. Since the Intruder was originally planned as a BT-20 rocket, I had to enlarge everything by 180%. I found a moron-friendly copier that managed this for me, so it wasn’t a problem. While I liked the Intruder’s original design, I wasn’t crazy about the chevron-shaped wingtip fins, (especially after enlarging them,) so I replaced them with the 3" lengths of BT-20. The futuristic looking fighter that resulted after mating on the nose cone just goes to show what a great design the original Intruder was.

As I mentioned earlier, I used basswood in place of balsa when building the fins. This not only allows for an extra measure of sturdiness, but also makes finishing much less of a headache. To further increase the chances that it would survive past one flight I poked holes in the body tubes around each fin with a pin drill after they had been attached, then allowed the Elmer’s White Glue to seep into the holes during the fin fillet process. This makes small glue rivets that are supposed to greatly strengthen the fin to body tube joint. Elmer’s Wood Glue was used in all other areas of construction. I experimented with several different colors before settling on the battleship grey that I had originally planned on. Various military decals from old plastic model kits finished off the construction and from that point, all that was left was to come up with a name. I plucked Marauder from an old Mercury that a neighbor had when I was a kid. It seemed like the perfect name for a rocket. (Turns out that both Estes and Centuri thought so also.)

Flight:
The first flight of the Marauder came at a family launch on Good Friday (known now as the Good Fly Day Launch — no one else laughed either.) Since I had so recently gotten restarted in the hobby and didn’t have a lot of confidence in my scratch building skills, I conservatively chose a B6-4 for the first flight. I needn’t have worried. The rocket rolled slightly as it left the pad, arcing gently into the wind and topping out at a respectable height. Recovery was trouble-free until it touched the ground. Then it almost became a one flight wonder under the stampeding hooves of the accumulated nieces and nephews. The field we flew on that day was huge and after the performance of the rocket on it’s first flight I was kicking myself for not having loaded it with a C6-5. Flight #2 took place at a local soccer field, also on a B6-4, but this time because of the small field size. The Marauder drifted badly on this flight, even with a reefed chute, and managed to badly damage a fin on a hard landing into a curb. Once the damaged fin was fixed several weeks later, we returned to the same field on a calm evening for what would be flight #3. Since it was a calm night at ground level and also because the Marauder recovered quickly on it’s reefed chute, I decided to go with the C6-5 that the first two flights seemed to have begged for. The flight was as impressive as I had expected, but recovery was a different matter entirely. The extra punch that the C6-5 provided apparently allowed the rocket to get into the area above the field where there was a breeze. Upon ejection the rocket began drifting rapidly to the west toward a subdivision that bordered the field. I knew I was in trouble when the Marauder cleared the tall hill and taller trees at the edge of the field by 50 feet or more. I jumped into the van and tried to chase it down, even going so far as to recruit some of my son’s football teammates to join in the search. All to no avail. I never saw the original Marauder again and we now call the field B6-4 field for reasons obvious.

Summary:
Considering how disappointed I had been when I found what was to become the Marauder nose cone in my Estes Designer’s Special, the fact that I went and bought an AstroSat LSX just for the nose cone within a few days of the Marauder’s final flight goes a long way toward demonstrating how impressed I was with the rocket’s performance. The Marauder that replaced it has exhibited the same flight characteristics as the original, having been flown regularly when not being repaired after one of it’s frequent hard landings. It’s a fairly heavy rocket with an unfortunate taste for asphalt and concrete, and anything other than a pillow soft landing seems to cause some sort of serious fin damage. Since it is creeping stealthily up on its first full year of service and seems to be becoming more obviously brittle in its old age, I’m beginning to think it might be time to retire #2, or at the very least, rebuild it. A stouter build with epoxy? D engine power? A Centuri Super Kit-style dual chute recovery? This could be fun.