Brief:
Anyone who has paged through a 1973-75 Estes catalog has undoubtedly seen and puzzled over the Goonybirds. The Goonybirds were a series of cartoonish, youth-oriented rockets thought by some to be the flying equivalent of the Rat Fink hot rod characters, and thought by others to be proof of someone spiking the Estes water coolers. Economically mini-engine powered and easily built with stick on decals, the original Goonybirds never really caught on, but in death they have developed something of a cult following among some BAR's.

While many rocketeers will admit to a fondness for the "Flying Freaks", mostly after a few beers, one company in particular has taken that fondness a step further. Excelsior Rocketry has revived the "Goony" name with a new series of rockets based on the Estes Baby Bertha. (A predecessor of which was the pretty much the starting point for the originals.) The Goonybird Zero is one of these rockets, a rocket with a strangely familiar fin pattern and a decal sheet that one might swear they've seen somewhere before.

The Goonybird Zero is the Excelsior take on the Estes Bluebird Zero, which means that it's a lot like the original BBZ after a ferocious lawn dart. For anyone who enjoys cloning the old kits, this constantly growing series is a quick and easy way to recreate the spirit of the old kits using an inexpensive and readily available Estes Baby Bertha kit. You supply the Baby Bertha and some balsa, Excelsior supplies the fin patterns and imaginative decals.

Construction:
To build this you will need the Excelsior Goonybird Zero plan pack and the Estes Baby Bertha kit:

• 7.5" BT-60
• PNC-60L nose cone
• 2 CR-2060 centering rings
• CR-520 engine block
• 2.75" BT-20J engine tube
• Mylar retainer ring
• 18mm engine hook
• launch lug
• 12" parachute
• 24" sewing elastic shock cord
• 24" Kevlar shock cord
• medium snap swivel

Unless you've been stuck in RTF purgatory for the past few years, the Goonybird Zero should cause you no problems from a construction standpoint. Built as a stock Baby Bertha with a different fin pattern and orientation, the Goonybird Zero is a candidate for weekend project greatness. I used all of the normal tricks on this project, Kevlar shock cord and Elmer's Fill & Finish to hide the balsa grain and tube spirals, and could have easily flown it on Sunday after starting the project on Friday if the weather hadn't conspired to thwart me. The only problem I had with the kit was that a wrap wasn't provided to help mark the fin locations on the body tube. I solved this problem by using the wrap from the Estes Long John Silver kit, (itself a 3 fin, BT-60 bird,) but I'm not sure that a beginner would know where to look for such a thing. I attached the fins with gel CA, then used a heavy run of Elmer's Wood glue to fillet them into place.

The Kevlar was anchored in the forward centering ring by cutting a slice in the ring, then sliding the knotted end of the string into the slice. This was glued securely with wood glue before the motor mount was installed into the body tube. I took the advice offered on the construction sheet and moved the mount up in the body tube to move the center of gravity forward, and based on the flight, it sure didn't hurt the stability in any way.

Construction was finished off with a 24" length of 1/8" sewing elastic, a medium snap swivel and the stock parachute from the Big Bertha kit. Couldn't be much easier.

Finishing:
After attaching and filleting the fins I sprayed the rocket with white primer, then sealed away the tube spirals and balsa grain with thinned Elmer's Fill & Finish. The entire rocket was sprayed gloss white, then masked off above the small fins. The top half was then sprayed with a nameless blue metallic paint that I've had for years, which coincidentally matches the original BBZ paint fairly closely.

This kit has a pretty fair amount of decals for a kit that's not even a foot tall. While the process of applying the decals isn't what one would call easy, it also isn't a killer. The most difficult part of this process is getting the winged Goony to sit flat in the spaces between the three small fins. This takes some careful repositioning, but putting a drop of dish detergent in the water makes this a fairly simple process.

Finally I sprayed the whole bird with a cheap-o Big Lots clearcoat. The finished product looks great and I plan to check out the Excelsior product line for some of my other cloning projects.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
After what seemed an eternity I finally found a free evening to visit fabulous B6-4 Field in the wilds of Ft. Thomas for a twilight launch. The Goonybird Zero was the first flight of the night and immediately attracted the attention of a group of neighborhood kids, all of whom I've know since kindergarten. They traded their recovery services for the right to pick the next flight and press the button, a deal I'll make anytime.

The first flight of the GBZ came to an abrupt finish when the ejection charge in the B6-4 fired early, much like a B6-2. The early ejection charge cost the rocket quite a bit of altitude, but it recovered without damage and waited for another turn behind the backlog of rockets that I'd built since I'd last found time to fly.

Flight two was on another B6-4, and this time the ejection was dead on, occurring just at apogee after a dead straight flight into dead calm skies. The flight was surprisingly high and once again I was able to send the recovery team to pick the GBZ up only a hundred or so feet away.

Flight three was on another B6-4 in seemingly identical conditions, but at ejection it immediately became obvious that the GBZ was in trouble as it began drifting to the west on a breeze that apparently only existed above B6-4 Field. It drifted toward the trees that line the field and have a voracious appetite for my rocket creations, unfortunately winding up near the top of one of the larger trees, joining the Big Dawg and Solar Sailer II as casualties on the night. I still enjoyed myself.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
Pros: Cheap and easy to build. Great looking finished product with minimal effort.

Cons: Rocket Eating Trees.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5