Comanche 3 Another View of the Two Additional Booster Stages

In this photo, you can see the raised 'conduit' between the three stages. This is used only to quickly align the stages for appearance and to make sure the three sets of fins are aligned. (That's because they are not exactly at a perfect 120-degrees from each other and are not exactly perpendicular to the body tube - just minor production variation from my basement Comanche 3 factory.) I like the way the decals state "recover this unit".  Uh, yea!

Although it may not be obvious in this picture, the fins were mounted about 1/2 inch further toward the nose then the Estes design. With the friction fit-motors, I feared having a really tight motor casing that had to be removed with pliers, so I moved the fins up a bit to give me a little extra clearance. With the payload noseweight, Nylon 'chute and the ejection baffle, there is plenty stability margin.  She always flies very straight up.

Also not seen here, the trailing edges of the fins were not tapered to keep the fin edges stronger.  With the extreme altitude this Indian can reach, he don't need no more drag reduction.