The main online resources for model rocket kit and parts information are:
- JimZ plans site
- RocketShoppe
- Estes instructions archive
- Estes catalogs archive
- ninfinger.org rockets archive
The JimZ plan site offers kit instructions and fin pattern and decal scans. Coverage includes a great many vintage Estes kits, plus some Centuri and other plans. Scan quality is sometimes poor from having been done a long time ago on weak equipment, and sometimes utility is compromised by lack of pixel scale control or reference rulers in the scans. Many of the decal images are pretty poor. There have not been any new additions to this site since circa 2010 or so.
The Rocketshoppe plans site is similar to the JimZ site, with instructions plus fin and decal scans. There is some overlap in coverage with JimZ. The decal and pattern scans often suffer the same kinds of problems as on the JimZ site, for the same reasons. I don't know if new plans are actively being added to Rocketshoppe.
The Estes instructions archive is only instructions; there are no fins or decal scans. But the quality of the scans is uniformly good, and coverage is pretty good. There is no Centuri material even though Estes owns it all.
The Estes catalog archive contains excellent quality scans of Estes catalogs all the way back to the legendary No. 261 catalogs. It has pretty much made ninfinger.org obsolete for Estes catalogs due to the much higher scan quality. There are as yet no Centuri catalogs there.
The ninfinger.org site has a lot of scans of rocket catalogs and documents, including some of the more obscure vendors. Scan quality is sometimes very poor, but there are important and unique resources there such as early Aerotech and Canaroc catalogs.
John Brohm, Estes Nose Cone Reference, version 10.1
Cross reference that lists Estes nose cones used in kits by numeric part number, traditional part number, and kit usage. Does not list dimensions or mass/weight data. Last updated circa 2008 so does not include recent kits and many plastic cones. Fails to list nose cones that apepared in a catalog but were never used in a kit, such as BNC-55AA, BNC-10B, and multiple BNC-30xx. Contains some scattered errors.
John Brohm, Estes Body Tube Reference
Cross reference listing Estes body tubes and the kits in which they appear. Shows lengths, BT-xxx designators, numeric part numbers, and PNs of the kits.
Semroc legacy site nose cone listing
this resource is now dead
Shows all the nose cones Semroc and its owner Carl McLawhorn knew of, with dimensions. Annoyingly fails to list shoulder lengths, but provides correct dimensions for many parts for which Estes data is erroneous or not otherwise available. You must use this in conjunction with the Semroc nose cone compatibility list since the overall nose cone listing shows many items representing parts that were never issued by Estes as balsa nose cones.
Semroc legacy site nose cone compatibility list page
this resource is now dead
Shows which Estes BNC and PNC series nose cones were made by Semroc, and shows the Semroc BNC equivalents for the Estes plastic PNC nose cones. Very helpful for determining which parts were ever actually made by Estes.
Catalog archive on the Estes site
Downloadable PDFs of nearly all Estes and many Centuri catalogs with high quality scans.
Estes official instructions archive
This resource from Estes contains good quality downloadable PDF scans of the instructions for many kits. However it is very incomplete in kit coverage, and does not include scans of fins, templates, cardstock parts, or decals.
This site contains scans of historic model rocket catalogs from Estes, Centuri, FSI, LOC, and others. Some of the Estes and Centuri catalog scans here are old and of poor quality - check the Estes catalog archive listed above for generally better versions.
This is the only site where I could find any scans of MPC catalogs. There are also 3 MPC kit documentation sets on JimZ and more on plans.rocketshoppe.com. I was able to use this information to build a reasonable MPC parts file.
Quest Downloadable Instructions
This page has about 30 instruction sets for Quest kits. It is not complete and actually does not include most of the 14 plans on the Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe plans site. It also does not include any Micromaxx kits. Quality of the PDF files is very good.