RocketReviews.com - Estes - Richocet - Review by John R. Brandon III

Rich DeAngelis (May 31, 2011)

The Estes Ricochet was an enjoyable kit for me. I was attracted to it by it's design feature. The design appears to be inspired by a guided air-defense missle. The design includes extra little fin 'tabs' a few inches in front of the main fins which are attached to 4 balsa strips that extend forwards from the fin's leading edge. The kit has a reduced section forward of the parachute bay, useable as an extra long payload bay. The design also has an attractive paint scheme, which I followed exactly, with the exception of using a metalic blue paint in addition to gloss black and white. I prefer payloads so I can include a little Altimeter One and/or a recovery beeper safely in the nose. The instructions tell you to glue the forward body tube to the balsa parts - but don't! Just tape them up tight and you can use it as a (narrow) payload bay if you ever need one.
Building it was pretty easy, but I did make a bonehead cosmetic mistake. The trailing edges of the fins taper back before extending 90 degrees, like this |_/ \_|, but when I sanded the fins, I accidently sanded a little too much off of one fin on the inside taper, causing a slight difference in the root edges. When gluing them to the body, I lined them up using the trailing edge of the fin to the edge of the body, and as a result the four fins are not evenly placed fore-aft wise (only about 1/4 inch). As a result of that, the rocket will not stand upright by itself. Also, when gluing on the balsa strips and the smaller fin 'tabs', I aligned them using the mis-aligned leading edges of the fins, so the slight mis-alignment looks much more obvious. At least everything is straight and aerodynamically sound, it's just a cosmetic mistake.
Finishing it was more of a chore, having to balsa fillercoat, then prime, then paint white, then mask and paint black, sanding between all the coats. The upper tube section could be seperated and didn't need masking for blue paint, as well as the nosecone which was painted black. I applied 3 coats of clear coat after applying the water-transfer decals that were included, I also painted thin, 1/8" chrome bands around the balsa transition section and nose cone. It does look sharp - if you don't notice the fin allignment problem!
The (plastic) parachute included was plain white in color. It included a note from Estes stating something about laws not allowing them to use colored ink for the moment and suggested I could use markers or something, but I decided to leave it white since it looks pretty unique. The plastic sheet seemed a bit thicker and more durable than the usual parachute material.
The Ricochet flies pretty good. It's relatively light weight allows for A, B or C motors. I test flew it with a A8-3 and reached a height of a few hundred feet, the trajectory up was straight and uneventful. The small white parachute did a good recovery job without drifting too much.
Next month, I'll fly it with a B and C motor to see how much height I can get out of this pretty little projectile.
I would recommend replacing the standard Estes shock cord mount with a kevlar cord glued to the motor mount, otherwise it's good to go.

Estes - Richocet

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