Brief:This is a small, phenolic toughly made rocket designed to break the sound barrier and is able to do so on 24 mm engines, namely Aerotech's F72 and G55.

Construction:All the parts were there, and were strong. My only difficulty was the tight fit of the nose cone to the body tube. I sanded the nose cone to loosen the fit, as I was unsure that the engine could build sufficient pressure to pop it. The instructions were clear, and the order logical. The chute is a good material, but is white. For me, I'd prefer something brighter, as this model goes very far up. The shock cord has no stretch. Since it comes with rings to attach along its length, I figure that force then travels in nodes much like in a musical string. Still, I would be more comfortable with bungee.

Finishing:It was easy to finish, and the decals look sharp. The instructions were simple and clear. However, I recommend painting it light and bright so that not only do the decals show, but for ease of location!

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight: Its only flight so far was with an Aerotech F72-10. Since it was one in a mass launch for G Harry Stine, I did not hear the pop as it broke mach, but I did see it go straight up and loudly. I think it did go to projected altitude of 4000 feet, as the manufacturer said. I used tracking powder to aid in sighting. With its Nomex® parachute protector, I did not need wadding, which was nice. The long delay motor was good, because of the speed and altitude the rocket reached.

Recovery:The Nomex® parachute protector worked well. The chute held up and inflated well, but I would choose another color than the white provided. As mentioned, I would prefer bungee shock cord, or something with stretch. Assembling the system was not too tough, but the attachment of the shock cord to the hollow nose cone was tricky, as it required sliding a tightly fitting bar into holes in the nose cone and sanding off excess that stuck out so that the nose cone could fit into the body tube.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:It was fun and different, and a real mover. On a G55, which will be my next flight, it will really book. I really don't mind the extra sanding here and there, but some modelers might.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Introduction
This model usually causes a lot of buzz, and why not? When you pop a 24mm G55-10 into it, most of the rocket is motor. It's really awesome.

The line is called Rugged Rockets and for good reason. The pre-slotted airframe is a fabric phenolic with no spiral line at all. The fins are made of G-10 fiberglass and are pre-cut. The nose cone is a thick hard polystyrene. The shock cord is made of Kevlar®, as are the parachute shroud lines. The rip stop nylon chute has metal grommets. They also include a Nomex® parachute shield. The only down side is the launch lug. Its inside diameter is too small and it tends to bind on most 1/8" launch rods.

If you replace the launch lug, flights are straight and very fast even on a D12-7. On the G55-10, it flies out of sight and it does go Mach 1+. On the down side the Nomex® shield gets crusty and hard over time. Also the white parachute is impossible to see at the altitudes it can reach.

Faster, faster...
From what I've seen, the lure of a rocket that exceeds Mach 1 and doesn't exceed $100.00 per flight, is quite attractive to newbies. It was for me. I had RockSim 3.0 and so when I got it, I just had to know: will it really go Mach 1.2? You becha. It also goes over 5,000'. At the time I had no concept of what that would mean for a 13" rocket. Oh, but it's a lot of fun.

Construction...
This is a really easy build. The body tube is a very sold fabric phenolic, the fins are G-10 fiberglass. The nose cone is thick plastic as is the launch lug. The parachute is a white rip stop nylon with metal grommets where the shroud lines attach. The shroud lines are Kevlar®, as is the shock cord. They also include a Nomex® heat shield.

On the good side the instructions are complete and all the parts are there and they are of high quality.

There are a few things they need to fix though. First, the nose cone is very tight. You'll need to sand it quite a bit, but don't do too much. It should be a very tight fit. Second, the launch lug is too small if you're going to boost this rocket on a G motor. With just about any motor this rocket only needs about 12" or launch rod, but it can really whip that rod around. Go with a 1/2" lug. A good way of getting one is to cut 1" off a Bic pen and glue this on for the launch lug. Third, a white parachute is a terrible choice for a small rocket that's going to go over 3,000'. I will be replacing this with a streamer anyway. Fourth, there's not much room in the body tube for the parachute, let alone the Nomex® shield. The Nomex® gets black and crusty really fast and once it does, it's an impediment to ejection.

Make sure you paint this very bright colors because more often then not, you're going to be looking for this rocket after losing sight of it in flight. Finishing is very easy due to the materials used.

Rating is 3 points on a scale of 1-5

Flight & Recovery...
I've flown it 4 times. The first flight was on a D12-7. The rocket really got up an moved, but it angled off funny. I didn't know why at the time. Then I loaded up the G55-10. This flight was spectacular in a bad way. It bound on the launch rod something fierce and flew off almost horizontal. It was trying to stabilize even as it slammed into the ground at full speed (500+ mph). Total damage was a 1.5" crack in the body tube which was easily repaired.

I repaired the damage and replaced the launch lug. The next outing I started with the D12-7 again. This time it was an arrow straight boost. Real thing of beauty, but the D12 didn't have enough ejection to push the now crusty Nomex® out the top. The chute never deployed. The last flight had a nose cone full of tracking powder and an F72-10. Great boost, a couple of people heard the sonic pop. The ejection charge fired almost immediately after the motor quit (had to be a failure of the motor). The nose cone came off at 400+ mph and this tore the Kevlar® shock cord right at the top of the body tube. At least it proved you can't zipper a Mach Buster. I got the body back, the nose cone drifted off on the chute.

Unless you've actually shot a rocket of this size to 5000+ feet, you have no concept of how high and how fast this little bugger gets there (or how hard it is to track it).

Rating is 5 points.

Overall...
This rocket is built for speed, not comfort. It's high performance, very stable and very tough. It's a rush to fly it on D12-7 even. Replace the launch lug and there's no real need for a chute, so I'd go with a streamer. You can't help but giggle when you put a G55 motor in it because the rockets is so small compared to the motor. All in all, it's a lot of fun.

Rating is 4 points.

Brief
The Machbuster is a great looking kit that is straightforward to build, has outstanding performance and is inexpensive to purchase. It uses 24mm motors from D12's through G55's with parachute recovery. With F and G motors the rocket will break the sound barrier and reach 900 miles an hour with the G55's.

Construction
The kit arrived the day after I ordered it. (Ok I only live about 10 miles from the factory!) Out of the package all of the parts were present and accounted for. The kit assembles easily from the instructions. Some sanding on the nose cone is required to get it to fit properly. The body tube is a very tough (nearly bullet proof) fiber phenolic, not the typical rolled tube. The nose cone is a thick and very tough molded plastic. Fins were G10. The shock cord is Kevlar® as are the chute's shroud lines. The chute itself is a small white ripstop nylon. Directions were complete and easy to follow. The body tube was preslotted for the fins which were no problem to mount. Be sure to make epoxy fin fillets as this rocket is going to go very fast. Also most importantly I had to change the launch lug. The one supplied is TOO small. The rocket will bind on the launch rod going up with the lug supplied. I also added a second shorter (1/4" long) lug at the end of the rocket. This seems to work well, and though it isn't required it does seem to stabilize the rocket better. At the point where the shock cord anchors to the inside of the rocket body I made a couple of extra loops around the anchor and used slow setting epoxy for maximum strength.

Finishing
I painted the kit to match the factory design and with the decals it looks super sharp. No special finishing requirements to note.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight
The Machbuster flies with wide range of motors. The smallest being the D12 and the largest is the G55. I have flown it so far with both D's and E's with very good results. The motors are a friction fit style mount and the key here is to make the fit a tight one.

Rocketvision supplies a Nomex® patch to be used as permanent wadding material. Though it works well it can get crusty from use and pose an impediment to ejection. I use several swatches of disposable wadding and it seems to work fine.

My first flight on a D12 was not so good. I am not sure what happened but as soon as it left the launch rod it took off in cruise missile mode about 40 feet off the deck. I found it about 200 yards away none the worse for wear. I suspect the small launch lug bound a bit on the rod. However I did talk to another rocketeer with a Machbuster who had the same problem. He added a small weight to the nose which seemed to help. After changing the launch lug and adding about .3 oz to the inside of the nose the next launch on a D12-7 was picture perfect. Straight as an arrow and chute deploy right at apogee. On D's at sea level it should do around 1300 feet. It is a mover even on D's.

Next flight was on an E30-7. This was quite impressive. This rocket is very fast. It was off the pad and out of sight quickly until we located the tracking smoke. Chute ejection was perfect. On E's the altitude should be approximately 3300 feet. The next flight will be on G55-15's The rocket should exceed Mach One and 6000 feet. Tracking this one will test the eyesight.

Recovery
Shock cord is Kevlar®. Great for toughness and flame resistance. But bad for any kind of elastic give. So far it has worked very well. I changed the color of the chute to bright yellow and made it slightly bigger both to increase visibility and slow the descent slightly. (I fly it in the desert with lots of room and the occasional rock) Flying the rocket in fields with soft ground a streamer would be fine. With the G55's there is very little room for the stock chute let alone the wadding so it helps to tuck some of the shock lines into the nose cone.

Flight Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Summary
This kit has been one of the most enjoyable rockets I have built. This was my first high performance (Mach one plus) kit. I learned a lot about sturdier materials used in high performance rockets and the motor/ delay combinations required for such a small rocket to keep it together after the recovery system deploys.

Awesome product. Great rocket. Incredible quickness going beyond Mach one. Beautiful appearance and ease of assembly. All for about $20. How can you beat that?

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Brief:
Single stage rocket capable of exceeding the speed of sound on 24 mm F & G motors.

Construction:
The overall quality of the kit was excellent. The instructions were clear and easy to understand (there are also further instructions on the rocketvision website if you need them) Very little preparation of parts was required - sanding to round the leading / trailing edges of the fins and to make them fit the pre cut fin slots. Once assembled the rocket has a very solid feel - almost unbreakable !

Finishing:
Finishing was very easy with the materials used. I gave the whole thing a light sand - applied a couple of coats of grey primer and then a red gloss top coat for a very smooth looking rocket. I was a little disappointed with the quality of the decals there were little blemishes in the printing which spoiled them a bit.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
I was a little apprehensive about flying this rocket having heard so many tails of people losing them on the first flight. To give myself the best chance of recovering it I chose Estes D12-7 motors for the first few flights. The recovery system using a Nomex® cloth as permanent wadding so there's no messing with little squares of paper. Motor retention is by friction fit (you also need to make a thrust ring with tape at the rear of the motor) The first flight was near perfect - a straight boost up to about 1200 feet. Parachute deployment near apogee. The 10 inch chute supplied with this model makes for a fairly quick descent (with minimal drift). Landed about 15 - 20 feet from the pad.

I made two further flights on D12-7's with almost identical results. I then headed for the table where a local hobby shop had set up for the day to try and find something with a little more kick to launch it with. The biggest 24mm motor I could find was an Aerotech E30-7T so in it went and onto the pad. 5 ... 4 ... 3... 2... 1... and off it went - I think I saw about the first 10 feet of flight before it screamed out of sight. Looking anxiously around and waiting ..... POP as the ejection charge fired - fortunately the loud ejection made it possible to locate the rocket in the sky again .. very high up ... after a seemingly endless wait the rocket touched down about 100 ft from the pad. Running the rocket / engine combination through wRASP showed apogee at over 3000 feet and a max velocity of nearly 600mph. I would strongly recommend choosing a motor which leaves fairly dense smoke behind - the blue thunder in the E30-7 leaves almost none making it very hard to track the fast moving rocket.

I added an extra 1/2 ounce of weight to the inside front of the nose cone - this was recommended by RocketVision to increase stability of the rocket at low speed. Apparently some Estes D engines have shown uneven thrust early in the burn which can cause stability problems with the Mach Buster.

Recovery:
The recovery system uses a Kevlar® shock cord - a 10 inch nylon parachute and a Nomex® cloth to protect the parachute. On all four flights in performed perfectly, returning the rocket to earth quickly but safely with minimal drift. There was some sign of wear to the shock cord after four flights but no real signs that it will break in the near future.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
By far the best feature of this rocket is the solid construction - I suspect the rocket would survive even if the parachute failed. The main Con would have to be the difficulty in tracking the flight of the rocket - it's very small and extremely quick - sure gets peoples attention at club launches.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5