Estes Astron Cherokee-D (Clone of Original K-47 "Short" version) Introduction

Years ago (back in the mid-80s), I built and flew my first Cherokee-D. For me, at the time, this represented "hi-power" and I was always impressed with how high this rocket would go on a "mighty D" engine, as Estes use to bill them. Unlike some, I recovered it every time (even on the oversized 18" chute it came with). Perhaps I was just lucky. I did finally lose that rocket at some point over the years. However it was, no doubt a casualty of too many moves and being carelessly stored in a box which got stacked or thrashed somehow. So now, through the miracle of "cloneing", I finally have a chance to replace this iconic Estes rocket in my collection.

The Cherokee-D actually came in two (that I know of) variations. When the kit was originally released in 1970, it came with a body tube that was 16.35" long and a BNC-55AC balsa wood nose cone. Later kits (including the one I built in the 1980s) came with an 18.00" long body tube and a PNC-55AC plastic nose cone. It is believed that these changes occurred sometime around 1975, which is also the time that Estes changed their kit numbering system from K-XX to 12XX numbers. As such, many will refer to the original kit as the K-47 version and the lengthened kit as the 1247 version.

The reasoning for lenthening the body was likely due to the fact that 18.00" was the standard length of a BT-55 body tube and that meant that no custom cutting was involved. It also meant that the rocket would be more stable since it increased the distance between CP and CG.

This build was my first "clone from scratch" model. Both the Centuri Micron and Lil Hercules were clones but I had an original kit for reference and also the models themselves were "clone kits" from SEMROC. The fins and nose cone for the Cherokee-D were sourced from SEMROC and the rest were from an old Estes Designer Special parts assortment I've had for awhile.

The instructions were downloaded from JimZ's website which is an invalueable resource for anyone wishing to clone old kits (www.spacemodeling.org/JimZ). Jim has an amazing archive of old publications and kit instructions from many of the major companies from the "golden age" of model rocketry.

I am not going to go into every detail of construction on this model as it was a very basic build from that standpoint. The next post will briefly touch on the construction, talk about some decal choices I made, and show some pics of the finised model.