Estes - RediRoc IntruderContributed by John Lee Brief: The Invader is a simple, almost ready to fly, entry level UFO rocket. It is made almost totally from Styrofoam and is really ready to fly except for the paint job and stickers.
Construction: There was no real construction. In fact, the rocket could have been flown plain without any paint. All that is really needed is to friction fit the motor tube. It's a blocked length of BT meant to protect the foam from ejection gases when the motor is spit.
I wanted to do something so I investigated the paint options. Finishing: Still, to be cautious, I approached the spraying with a method I learned from Art Applewhite. I merely dusted the rocket with the lightest coating I could. After the pass, all I could see for my efforts were a few dark freckles. Hopefully, the paint was almost dry by the time is landed. I was dry 10 minutes later when I did the same thing. In this way, I slowly built the paint up providing complete coverage only after about a dozen light mistings. My hope was that as the paint underneath dried, it would form a protective barrier for later, heavier (but not heavy) sprays. The first thing I did when the paint was dry was to test fit the plugged motor tube. The instructions say that the friction fit may need to be made with tape but that was not the case with mine. It fit in snugly. I am not a great fan of crack and peel stickers but I expected nothing more from a kit of this type. I was pleasantly surprised at their quality. They lifted from the sheet without too much trouble and went into place and stuck well. I used the edge of a toothpick to burnish them and they seem like they will stay put alright. Construction Rating: 4 out of 5 Flight and Recovery:
Just to push the boundaries a bit, I tried the next flight on a 1/2A3-2T. As expected, this one went even lower, but it did invert and spit the motor before the charge went off. Again, I had stuffed a piece of wadding in the ejection end of the motor and that seemed to work just fine. A video of the spectacularly low second flight can be seen here. Flight Rating: 3 out of 5 Summary: Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 Flight Log
What You Can Do
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