Construction Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
Flight Rating: | starstarstarstar_borderstar_border |
Overall Rating: | starstarstarstar_borderstar_border |
Manufacturer: | LOC/Precision |
Brief:
Single 38 mm engine rocket almost 8" in diameter and 4.4' high with chute, plywood fins, cardboard tube and plastic nosecone.
Construction:
High quality cardboard tube, engine mount tube, three plywood fins, two plywood centering rings, eyebolt, quick link, 60" ripstop nylon chute, and 22' x 1/2" shock cord. It comes with no previsions for motor retention.
I have built two other LOC kits and this was a little bit better than the others. This kit came with instructions and fin guide pattern. The rocket is easy to build for anyone who has already built high power rockets before. The instructions have only one illustration. They tell you everything you need to know including where to mount the cardboard launch lug.
The hardest part was cutting the 7.5" long slots in the body tube to mount the fins. Unfortunately the fins do not have tabs that mount to the engine tube. They only stick inside the body tube a very small distance, maybe 1/8". I worried about this during the construction and for good reason. The first time I flew it, I had a broken fin at the tube.
The parts went together just fine with very little sanding. Because the root edges and center rings are large, it took a lot of epoxy to put this rocket together.
There are no provisions for motor retention so I used my standard method, using T-nuts mounted in the centering ring with a sink clamp. (See my website for more information.)
Finishing:
This rocket comes with no decals or other enhancements so I added my own gold band and gold fin reflectors to make it look better. The nosecone on this rocket is huge and it takes a lot of paint. I went through three cans of Krylon Plastic spray paint on the whole rocket. The paint suppose to bond to plastic but even before I got to the first launch the paint had already chipped off a few places from the nosecone where it rubbed against something during transportation.
Construction Rating: 4 out of 5
Flight:
There are three recommended motors: H260-5, I357-6 and I284-8. Of course you can fly it on others, anything that can lift about 7 pounds.
I bought a Nomex pad to protect the chute and I also used wadding in the engine tube as suggested by LOC. Even though the rocket is short and the shock cord/chute are real close to the engine tube, these precautions worked and the chute was not damaged.
I flew it on an I284-S. I have a video of it on my web site. My rocket weighed in at 6.5 pounds unloaded and RockSim suggested an 8 second delay so I used an I284 short delay.
Recovery:
The first time I flew it one fin almost got broken off at the root edge. Looking at the video of the flight not sure if the fin broke during separation (looks like maybe the nosecone hit it) or it occurred when it landed. It was windy that day.
Flight Rating: 3 out of 5
Summary:
PROs: Large diameter, short rocket with good flights on I engines. Materials are high quality and sufficient instructions
CONs: Cardboard launch lug, weak fin attachment method, no decals, and no motor retention
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5
A short fat rocket capable of flying on H through J engines. All components were standard LOC components. 1 Huge plastic nose cone 1 7.67 inch. diameter paper bodytube 1 38mm paper motor mount tube 2 7.5-1.5 inch plywood centering rings 4 1/4 inch Plywood fins 1 54 inch nylon parachute 1 Eyebolt assembly 1 1/4 inch paper launch lug 1 9/16 tubular nylon shock ...
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