| Construction Rating: |   | | Flight Rating: | | | Overall Rating: | |
Contributed by Chris Gonnerman 
Brief:
This is a semi-scale model of the Acceleration Engineering "Lucky Seven" rocket, one of the contestants for the Ansari X-Prize.
Construction:
This is a largely plastic rocket. The package includes a three-piece plastic nose cone (two side halves and a bulkhead), a plastic body tube with integral bulkhead, a plastic tail bulkhead, four plastic decorative nozzles, four plastic fins, a paper engine tube, a standard engine hook, a short (too short) length of shock cord, a 12" pre-assembled parachute, a sheet of stickers, and a wad of modeling clay for nose weight.
Note: I've built one of these kits myself, and assisted in assembling another, so the following review draws from both experiences.
The instructions are pretty typical for an Estes kit: logical but lacking in some details. First, the paper engine tube and engine hook get inserted into the body section, followed by the fins, which slide into slots in the body. At this point there is no glue yet, but the next step makes up for that omission as you are expected to glue the nozzles to the base then glue it to the body. This is not a good idea...if you want the nozzles on the rocket, leave them off until the rest of the rocket is complete. Also, the instructions call for using plastic cement on the end of the paper body tube to secure it to the base, which frankly does nothing. I recommend using Superglue instead but go easy on it so it does not swell the end of the paper tube.
When all this is done, you have an assembled body which may rattle because the fins aren't glued to the body, just held in place in their slots. In our case, they fit tightly on one model, but one fin rattled somewhat on the other.
Next, the nose cone "cap" (bulkhead) is glued to one half of the nose cone and allowed to dry. Then, modeling clay is pushed into the upper end of the cone, half of the clay in one side and half in the other. Finally, the shock cord is tied to the cap, glue is applied, and the nose cone is completely assembled.
This didn't work well in either of our kits. In both cases, the cap didn't stay put while the cone was assembled, resulting in a "fishing expedition" to insert the cap. The nose cone is more than half empty space to allow for the parachute since the body section is so small. In both cases, we chose to re-glue the cap with Superglue instead of more plastic cement.
Finally, after tying the other end of the shock cord to the lug inside the body section, you can attach the parachute using the standard "parachute through the shroud lines" method.
Finishing:
The rocket is pre-colored so there is no painting to do. Stickers are available to apply to the rocket, and in this case the instructions actually tell you where to stick them although it's not hard to figure out.
Construction Rating: 3 out of 5
Flight:
I've flown this rocket twice on the recommended A10-3T engines. In both cases, the rocket came off the pad pretty quickly but then seemed almost ready to fall over at around 50' or so. This is not a high-flying rocket. The flight pattern is pretty easy to understand if you look at the thrust curve of the A10-3T engine. It hits pretty hard for a fraction of a second then falls off to a low thrust level for the remainder of the flight. It's my opinion that the low thrust level is not adequate to lift this relatively heavy model or even keep it ascending. The Lucky Seven model just barely flies. I haven't weighed it (I got the weight from Estes' website), but I'm suspicious that it's real close to the maximum for the engine.
In its defense, it is a good small field rocket since it sure isn't going far.
Recovery:
Three seconds of ejection delay is long enough but only just. The rocket can't afford to fall for long considering that it hasn't made it very high when the engine burns out, and it sure doesn't coast long.
Flight Rating: 2 out of 5
Summary:
Frankly, the Lucky Seven rocket has very little going for it. It's not a handsome rocket, it doesn't fly all that well, and it's can be a bit of a hassle to assemble. Other than flying it in small fields, I can't see any good reason to buy one.
Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 Flight Log| Date | Rocket Name | Motor(s) | Altitude | Notes |
|---|
| 2004-12-14 | Donald Besaw's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nice first flight, rather slow liftoff but climbed steadily up to about 150-200 feet. Nice... | | 2005-01-25 | Alan Tuskes's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Good flight. Fast, surprisingly peppy for as heavy as this model seems to be. Ejection just at... | | 2005-02-05 | Alan Tuskes's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Started a little squirrely, but straightened up as propellent burned. Ejected right at apogee,... | | 2005-02-05 | Kyle Hancock's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nice flight. | | 2005-02-13 | Scott Hauff's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Fun little scale rocket. Fast but quick flight on this engine. Close recovery. Son loved it since... | | 2005-02-20 | Kyle Hancock's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2005-03-13 | Rocky Firth's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Great first flight. | | 2005-05-21 | Alan Tuskes's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Another zippy flight for the Lucky Seven. Landed maybe 20 feet from the pad. | | 2005-05-29 | EMRR's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A3-4 | - | Nice first flight and fast. Parachute stuck in nosecone. Rocket came down fast. Nosecone stuck... | | 2005-07-09 | Roy Lappalainen's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2005-07-11 | Austin Flora's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | 150 feet | Great for very small fields. Word of warning- don't try to make it a streamer rocket. I thought... | | 2005-09-18 | Brad Bowles's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Perfect launch straight up with no spin. Ejection was textbook with a successful chute opening... | | 2006-01-08 | Mark Edwards's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Excellent Flight. Landed 10' from pad. | | 2006-01-08 | Alan Tuskes's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Wet park equals plastic rocket day. Another fine flight for this little Old Spice bottle.... | | 2006-02-24 | Donald Besaw's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nice flight, some slight wobbling noticed during boost. One nose cone half and the motor mount... | | 2006-03-27 | Mal McClenaghan's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | First flight. Much higher than expected for this little beast. Lawn darted without damage. | | 2006-03-27 | Mal McClenaghan's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Great flight, this is a cool little rocket. Gusty wind to about 5mph, but the Seven landed within... | | 2006-04-14 | Mal McClenaghan's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nice flight, especially given the wind. Slight damage to base on recovery. Easy repair. | | 2006-05-06 | Mike Mistele's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nice straight flight. Parachute didn't deploy fully (melted a bit), but landed OK. | | 2006-06-04 | Mal McClenaghan's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nose separated, but no chute deploy. Ejection charge burned through shroud lines. | | 2006-06-19 | Mal McClenaghan's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nice flight. Toasted a couple of shroud lines. | | 2006-07-08 | Chan Stevens's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2006-07-15 | Ed Scientist's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nozzle came off putting motor in. Good launch nose cone broke leaving the pararchute with nothing... | | 2006-08-05 | Donald Besaw's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Great flight, fairly straight boost. Landed close to pad. No damage. | | 2006-10-29 | Mal McClenaghan's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Textbook flight. | | 2006-10-29 | Mal McClenaghan's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nice flight. No laundry, but plastic rockets bounce! Chute is sometimes hard to pack in this one. | | 2007-03-11 | Chris Gonnerman's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | It flew pretty well, arcing a bit more than I'd like to see, but recovered fine. The flight was... | | 2007-06-09 | Chris Halinaty's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Parachute got stuck in NC but rocket was undamaged. | | 2007-07-19 | Chris Halinaty's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2007-07-19 | Chris Halinaty's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2007-07-19 | Chris Halinaty's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2007-08-19 | Chris Halinaty's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2007-09-08 | John Lee's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | 2 feet | Technically, it did eject NC up at apogee. The problem is that it hung on the rod and the whole... | | 2007-10-14 | John Lee's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A3-4 | 3 feet | It hung up on the rod again! It did eject NC up. | | 2007-11-10 | John Lee's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | It finally did what it was supposed to do and did it well. | | 2008-06-01 | Tom Benson's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Nose cone stuck - my fault since I friction fit it pretty tight. Came in ballistic and de-kitted... | | 2008-06-01 | Glenn Weiss's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Chute did not open, nose cone buried itself in ground and a couple of the plastic parts popped... | | 2008-06-27 | Chris Halinaty's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | | | 2008-06-27 | Chris Halinaty's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Shock cord burn-through. Repairable. | | 2008-06-28 | Glenn Weiss's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Third time was the charm, full deployment of chute and no repairs needed. | | 2008-09-14 | EMRR's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Great flight up... not so great down. Parachute failure. Hit the ground and broke into pieces | | 2008-10-26 | Glenn Weiss's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | 2 shroud lines on chute broke so descent was quicker than I'd like but no damage suffered | 2009-02-14  | John Lee's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | It again got stuck on the rod. | | 2010-03-20 | Glenn Weiss's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | A rare good flight out of the Lucky Seven, which has not been lucky for me in general! Full... | | 2010-04-18 | Matt Shoemaker's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | 4 feet | Got stuck on the rod... ejected fine, just still on the rod :-( | | 2010-05-15 | Moe Bertrand's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Concept Scale Event. Good first flight of my nekkid Lucky Seven. | | 2010-10-23 | Glenn Weiss's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Ejection blew nose cone out and broke the 2 halves apart, chute did not fully deploy, but all was... | | 2011-08-20 | Glenn Weiss's Estes X-Prize Lucky Seven | A10-3 | - | Put it too far up the rod after previous attempt got stuck, flew in a corkscrew to about 35 ft,... |
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K.J. (January 30, 2005)