Construction Rating: | starstarstarstarstar |
Flight Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
Overall Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
Manufacturer: | U.S. Rockets |
Brief:
This is a kit that I won in an EMRR contest. I don't think I will, but the packaging says it can be flown on Ellis 24mm G motors.
Construction:
The components came in the traditional plastic bag with the folded card for the hanger. The body tube is a heavy 24mm motor mount type tube. The nose cone is a hard balsa ogive that fit into the body tube nicely. The fins are precut balsa. There is also a long 1/4" black elastic shock cord, screw eye for attachment to nosecone, 2 reducers, and a 2 3/4" length of 18mm body tube. The launch lug is a 2" long piece of 1/8" lug. A decal sheet is also supplied.
The instructions are simple to follow. This is your basic 4 fins and a nose cone. The fin guide is a circle with 4 marks. I was going to use a leftover wrap from another kit but the thicker tube made this a bad option. Instead, I stuck with the one supplied and used a small piece of angle iron I have for fin alignment.
Fin attachment was the only other step that took a little extra work. I roughed up the tube with some sandpaper and glued the fins in place with thin CA. I do plan on flying this on an E9 or maybe an Ellis E just to see how this thing really does go so I drilled two 1/16" holes in each fin at the root to do little epoxy rivets. I then filleted all fins with 5 minute epoxy. I also coated the fins with the same.
Finishing:
I didn't spend a whole lot of time on finish. I gave the entire rocket a coat of white primer. I did seal the nosecone with white glue first but did not bother to fill the spirals in the tube. The body got a couple of coats of the Rustoleum high visibility orange. The nose cone is gloss black.
The decals have no placement to go by so I just put on the rockets name and a U.S. Rockets logo. This is a multi rocket decal sheet so make sure you get the right name on the rocket.
Construction Rating: 5 out of 5
Flight:
There is an extra sheet included in this kit that goes into the friction fitting of 24mm motors and the use of the 18mm adapter. I have only flown this rocket with a B6-4. The 18mm adapter was friction fit with masking tape and did not budge during the flight. I used plenty of dog barf for wadding and did not have a problem with the streamer. The specs say 864' on B6's. It was rather gusty when I launched, but it was a straight flight to about half of what is listed. I don't think the added weight of epoxy kept it that low as ejection was at apogee.
Recovery:
The rocket landed without a mark. The streamer is huge by mod roc standards at 2" wide by a good 5 feet long. The shock cord is also long and 1/4" wide. A screw eye anchors it to the cone while a trifold of card stock holds it to the body. This brings it down pretty softly even for a streamer.
Flight Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary:
Although I only have one flight so far and with the G motor rating that come with this rocket, I can see this rocket being overbuilt to fly on the Gs with the smaller motor performance suffering. So you do have choices to make when building. I built mine with the idea of E flight. I just don't see how one can build this rocket to fly to specs on both As and Gs. But if you want a rocket with this type of ability then this is one to build .
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5
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