Part 1 - Polecat Aerospace 5.5" 'Honest John' M31 1/4 scale kit

When one makes the step into high power rocketry, there is a certain amount of obliviousness to how much money is about to be committed to building things that will literally go up in smoke. But after a few k-notes and untold hours (along with hard landings, catos, crashes, lost rockets and really long walks), one resigns himself to the somewhat uncontrollable 'impulse' to build larger and more 'airworthy' craft.

I had recently built and flown a 5.5" 1/3 scale Nike Smoke from Polecat Aerospace (Santee, California). Painted all black and 78" tall, it is an attention getter at any launch. Fly's nicely on I-J motors, and reportedly can run an M with no problem. On my Level 2 cert attempt (with a J570 -- I definitely wasn't messing around :) ), it took a particularly hard landing after a chute failure. The hit only popped off two of the thick spruce fins, with no other damage whatsoever. Convinced of the quality of Andy Woerner's (Polecat's owner, and owner of What's Up Hobbies) kits, I decided to pick up his 5.5" 1/4 scale Honest John M31 for a special project.

When I built my level 1 rockets (LOC Precision's Hi-tech 45 and its big brother EZI-65), I was introduced to the first level of high power construction methods. High power Level 1 (Tripoli or NAR) is where one graduates from the childhood of Elmers glue and Estes rockets to the joys of 5 minute epoxy and Kevlar straps. Both the Honest John and the Nike Smoke kits are designed for the stresses of Level 2 flight, which means fiberglassed airframes, thick, spruce fins and lots of heavy duty hardware.



The Honest John comes in a large box, and is a bit under 10 pounds delivered to your door. The large, distinctive nosecone is fiberglassed plastic, and the body tube (which is shown still wrapped up) is a standard thick airframe tube that has been fiberglassed. I opted for the dual deploy option, so this presented me with more hardware than I had dealt with on the single deploy 'Smoke. There's an electronics bay, along with a large bag of u-bolts and a few other items that one doesn't see in a single deploy system. I was a little disappointed to see that there were only two centering rings for the motor tube. The 'Smoke came with three, and Andy provided an extra to epoxy on the bottom of the rocket (to shore up the airframe in case of a hard, desert landing). However, I am building this for a special 'project' and won't have time to order and wait for an additional centering ring, so I'm going to go with the manufacturer's design.

If you've ever put your hands on a finished Polecat kit, the first thing you'll notice are the sturdy spruce fins. These fins will take a hard hit without breaking and won't fold under high aerodynamic stress. This kit is no exception. In fact, any kit you get from Polecat will have a sturdy airframe and full-duty fins.

The downside of large kits is that there's a lot of sanding and finishing work. That could be said of any rocket kit, but with large kits, there's so much more of it that hand sanding is less of an option. I decided with this kit to pick up a nice, small circular sander (for about $40 at Home Depot). I could've done a much better job with the finish on the 'Smoke if I had not sanded it all by hand.

Andy says that you can build any of his kits with five minute epoxy. I built my 'Smoke using mostly five minute epoxy -- and it has held up wonderfully. But I've decided to go with the extra strength of 30 minute. Plus the longer setting time leaves a smoother finish than five minute (a bonus for those of us who can be a little sloppy sometimes).

In the next part, we'll start building the Honest John -- and maybe I'll give you a little clue into my 'special project'.

peace and respect
Robin