Eagle Five

from Spaceballs by Mel Brooks

Bad science fiction comedies seem never to die, they just become legend. Hence the reason that Spaceballs is still known as one of the best science fiction comedies of all time. I toyed with the idea of making mega maid, or space ball one, or even that cute little mercedes Princess Vespa used (the one king Roland got from his brother in law who owns a dealership in the valley and got him a good deal)

But to me, nothing shows state-of-the-art cool-ness like a beat-up rust "detailed" dented-fender ship like Eagle V reconstituting parts.

Mainly, I wanted to design a rocket with an outer "shell" that would have a standard inner unit in order to fabricate more than one design (see my other entry).

First I took 1/2" strip of the face card and fashioned a ring, I took another strip and glued it to the first one for reinforcement. I then took the three smallest tubes and cut them in half (three halves for each unit) I took the three tubes and glued them to the ring to make up the beginnings of a tripod.

I then took the two larger tubes and cut them in half. I then slit along the length of one tube and wrapped the un-cut one with the bag to protect from gluing. I then too the slit tube and put it over this assembly and glued two strips of the instruction sheet over the gap. I then glued the tripod to the larger tube.

I took the hang tag and cut this up to make motor mounts by wrapping them around a micromaxx engine and gluing CAREFULLY. I made a total of six of these for both entries. I then glued them to the end of the uncut larger tubes.

At this point I realized that I should not have cut the tubes in half, as this would cause a lot of friction upon ejection. the then trimmed the uncut large tube to about 1/2" long. I then took the balsa nose cones, cut the points off, glued the kevlar between the widened large tubes and the "plugs made from balsa nose cones. I then made an Estes style motor mount and glued that to the motor mount.

Lost? This is a rear ejection unit. At ejection the engine mounts, uncut large tube, shock mount and kevlar are kicked out the back pulling the streamer till the kevlar reaches its full length. Think of the parachutes used on funny car dragsters.

I then took the remaining face card and built up the Eagle Five using online photos for reference. Halfway through the build. Drake "Doc" Damerau's entry shows up! Cool, I didn't think it would have been stable without external fins.

Painting them winnebago stripes was hard.

Anyway, I never played with Micrommaxx, let alone a cluster, I heard some bits of rumor, including soldering. I went and loaded them up and put it on the pad.

Nice thing is, that with Micromaxx you can do all your prep indoors and use your back yard to launch!

Got off work, it was dark. Night Launch! in the headlights of my trusty truck I was able to get things all prepped

IT WORKS!

Ready to go again!