In the glory days of hobby rocketry, one well-known kit was the Enerjet Athena, cousin of the celebrated Centuri Orion, both of which are popular cloning projects for today's born-again rocketeers, those baby boomers who are still trying to grow up    But, rather than do a clone, I opted to build a new model inspired by these classics from my childhood years.

Here's one rocketeer's clone of the Athena.  This is an outstanding example.
Here's another rocketeer's Orion clone, yet another excellent example of craftsmanship.

And here's my take-off on the Athena, the TUBena. 


Here's the new TUBena (TWOBena?) to replace the original lost on its maiden flight


In the case of the Tubena, the Athena's four fins are replaced with four tube fins.  And the decorative outboard tubes are converted to real motor tubes  - they don't just look neat, they add some woosh, too   The standoffs on the outboards are omitted thereby moving the tubes inward against the main airframe to minimize the effects of torque steer due to uneven thrust, such as when one of the outboards doesn't light.

In addition to the four 13mm outboard motor tubes, there is a central, 24mm motor tube which includes loops to attach a burn string.  This motor will provide most of the woosh, and the rocket can be flown with it alone, sans any outboard motors, thus avoiding the challenge and complexity of reliably lighting a cluster.



For the new one, I got it a bit cleaner looking.



The decals are based on the Athena decals and retain the "ena" and font from the Athena.  Orginally, the T and H were uppercase - ie, aTHena, so using capitals for the TUB was justified.

This is the new TUBena.  The United States decal uses a larger font than the original.  In turn, the aft roll pattern was pushed a little farther aft.


This pic presents a good view of the silver, 13mm outboard motor tubes between the tube fins.



This pic shows the lower launch lug and its standoff. Being a little vain, I added my name to the lower roll pattern

After losing the original, I added my phone number, too (masked out here for obvious reasons )


This is a good comparison shot showing the original (left) and the replacement.



Here's a pic of the original on its maiden and final flight.

Not sure how I lost it.  It went into the sun, and I picked it up under chute on the other side.  And then tracked it for a while until looking down to grab my camera to get a descent shot.  It took me a few seconds to re-acquire it, but I was soon tracking it again, or so I thought.

A few moments later, I realized the parachute was the wrong color, that I was tracking the wrong rocket

Not sure if I picked up the wrong rocket coming out of the sun, or if I began tracking the wrong one when I picked up my camera.  But I know this: when I fly the new one, I'm getting lots of folks to help me track it!

(By the way, I hadn't lost a rocket in this manner in 7 years, and have only ever lost 6 in the 11 years since I resumed the hobby in 1999.)


Doug's Rockets Homepage

8-26-2010