Brief:
The Quest Aerobee Hi is a single stage, parachute recovery sport scale model. When I was a kid, one of the things that said "science" and "speed" to me was the Aerobee Hi sounding rocket. Pictures of them seemed to be everywhere! I was delighted to win one of EMRR's random drawings and receive this kit as part of the prize!

Construction:
Inside the usual Quest bag you'll find a nicely printed header card and the following components:

• Steel motor clip
• Blue wound paper thrust ring
• Yellow 2.75" paper motor mount tube
• 2 wound paper red centering rings
• Set of 3 beautifully die cut, hard balsa fins
• White glassine-coated body tube
• Plastic nose cone and base
• 2" launch lug
• Composite shock cord consisting of an 18" piece of elastic and an 18" piece of Kevlar® string
• 14" parachute kit consisting of the chute itself, (3) 26" shroud lines, and 6 revised gripper tabs
• Self-stick decal sheet

Elmer's carpenter's glue was used throughout the build. Construction is a breeze for anyone who has built a model rocket before. The instructions are clear, concise, and make good sense. The use of color-coded parts for the motor mount makes great sense for beginners by easing proper parts placement.

The Kevlar® end of the shock cord is tied around the center of the motor mount tube, then it goes between the upper centering ring and the motor mount tube. On my Aerobee, the fit was very tight. To prevent pinching the motor tube, I filed a small groove on the inside of the forward centering ring. This was then slid over the Kevlar® and glued in place. Other than this, the motor mount assembles as normal. The new Quest motor clips are improved with better springiness and strength.

The 14" chute is made of similar material to the Estes chutes, but a little tougher. They have a new color scheme--red and yellow checkers. Very cool and retro looking! I think 14" of parachute is WAY overkill for a rocket of this size, weight, and altitude potential. I used a 1" wide steel ruler and an X-Acto knife to trim 1" off all around the chute, yielding a 12" chute. This was closer to correct for this bird. 2" was also trimmed from each shroud line to offset the reduced chute diameter. The new Gripper tabs are simply square tabs with a very aggressive glue on the back. Simply stick them into each of the six corners. Then, punch a hole in each corner and tie on your shrouds. Pretty easy!

Attaching the fins is done by the tried-and-true paper tube marking guide included in the instructions. Cut it out, wrap it around the tube, make tick marks with a pencil, then remove the guide and connect your tick marks using a straight edge. The instructions recommend using a door jamb. Since their are no straight door jambs in my 104-year-old house, I used an Estes tube marking guide to connect the dots. Fins and lug were then attached using the lines as a guide. Fillets were added later.

When everything was dry, the entire rocket (except the nose cone) received a coat of thinned Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish. This was allowed to dry, sanded smooth, and repeated until the fins and tube spirals were filled in to satisfaction.

The base was glued into the bottom of the nose cone using CA. This is not recommended but if you've worked with CA before, then you should not have any trouble with it. Just get the parts together quickly before it grabs. Once the two parts were assembled, the glue took hold and it was literally impossible to move them any more!

Finishing:
If this were your first multi-color paint job, you could still do a nice job. The molded finish on the nose cone is very smooth and only needed a touch with some 1000-grit emery paper before shooting the Testors silver paint.

The rocket was shot overall with 2 coats of Krylon white primer with sanding in between coats. Then, 2 of the 3 fins were masked off and the rocket was shot with several light coats of Testors Competition Orange. After this set, the masking was carefully peeled away and the rocket set aside to cure for a while. After allowing plenty of drying time, the rocket was masked and the remaining fins shot in Testors White.

All that was left to do for finishing was attach the sticker-type decals. As these were thinner than normal, caution was required. The payoff is that they look MUCH better than most stickers.

Once painted and stickers applied, the entire rocket was shot with a thin coat of Testors clear enamel. The silver on the nose "lifted" from the clear spray but after drying, regained its silver color although not its gloss. The resulting "flat silver" color looks pretty good, though. This is a very nice looking rocket when completed and finishing is easy for a multi-color paint scheme.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
The Aerobee Hi was given 3 flights at the June launch of SOFAR in Franklin, New Hampshire. A Quest A6-4 motor was used for the flights. Prep is standard fare and as easy as it can be... Just pull the Kevlar® shock cord to one side, push 3-4 balls of wadding down on top of the motor mount, and then put the shock cord over that. Fold and install your chute, pop on the nose cone, add a motor and ignitor, and that's it! Ready to rip.

The first flight was a bit odd and may have been due to the shifting wind on our mountaintop launch site. The rocket zipped off the pad, leaned slowly to one side, and then slowly shifted to the other. This ceased after burnout as airspeed slowed. It was slightly arched over at ejection but hadn't gained enough speed to be hurt.

The 2 subsequent flights had very slight arching trajectories, with apogee occurring a few degrees from vertical with the rocket near dead in the air. On the second flight, the chute did not fully inflate but still provided enough drag to keep the Aerobee from being damaged when it landed in the long grass. The other flights had near-perfect deployment.

Recovery:
The Kevlar® shock cord is tied to the motor mount as described. I then fed it through the motor mount and glued it into the body tube. The Kevlar® was then fed back through the motor mount and out the top of the body tube. It was overlapped 1" with the elastic and they were tied together in a square knot.

Quest recommends tying the chute directly to the nose cone along with the shock cord. I deviated from this by tying only the shock cord to the nose cone. A fishing 1/4" split ring was tied to the elastic shock cord roughly 1" away from the nose cone, and a snap swivel was added to the chute at the point where the shroud lines are gathered. This was then used to snap the chute onto the split ring. This setup allows for minimal tangling and quick changes, too.

The Quest recovery system is an up-to-the-minute system. The recovery materials are more durable than usual, and everything works quite well. There was no damage present after three flights other than one very small burn hole in the canopy (probably my fault) and a lot of soot on the shock cord.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
I have always loved the Aerobee Hi and Quest has really hit a home run with this kit. It is completely superior to the Estes, MPC, and even the MMI Aerobee. It is fun to build and flies like a champ. On a big field, this bird would be a riot with C6 power using streamer recovery. As a final bonus, it's a really nice looking display bird. The paint job makes it pretty easy to spot on the ground and in the air too!

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5