In one of my many jaunts to the Hobby Shop, I saw the Estes Bull Pup Kit. I like the shape of it, even though I had heard that the Canard wings deteriorated stability to some degree. Of course, I knew it wasn't true scale, but it looked kind of cool, so I bought it.

As with every other Estes rocket, it was WAY under-powered. I didn't see a logical reason to buy another rocket that flew on 18mm motors, because I already had plenty, and was moving toward 24mm motors or larger, because I liked the bigger stuff. So, as I began going through the instructions, it seemed very clear to me that it really wouldn't take very much to be able to replace the motor mount with something a little... larger. I thought 24mm was the obvious choice, since one of my favorite motors was quickly becoming the F21 from Aerotech, and I could fit one of those in there. The Boat tail was a small issue quickly resolved with a dremel tool and a sanding bit. As I recall it, I assembled everything with two-part epoxy, rather than with wood glue, because it very quickly became apparent that I am starting to exceed the limits of a paper/wood glue/balsa bond, with the failure of my booster for Rock-010, and all of it's fins coming off all at once. I wasn't getting any more failures than normal, but it just seemed like things were going higher, and faster, and a quick answer was more 'exotic' (I didn't keep 2-part epoxy just lying around the house) adhesives, and materials.

As a result of the larger motors that I was going to try to fly, I knew that I would have to change the default CG of the typically over-stable Estes kit in order to be able to retain stability, and to allow for the biggest motor I could think of that would fit. This required me to add a little bit of nose weight. As you can tell by the picture of the empty (no motor, no recovery) rocket, there is just a little bit of nose weight. Yes, I am balancing it on one finger as I take the picture. There are no strings, no tricks.