Brief:
This is a cool retro style rocket that is sure to please everyone with its looks and flying.

Construction:
If you like quality balsa parts, this kit has it. Here is what the VF-261 comes with:

• Balsa nose cone
• BT-55 tube
• Balsa tail cone
• 18mm motor tube
• Laser cut fins
• Engine block
• Screw eye
• Plywood block
• 4 launch lugs
• Clay
• Kevlar® cord
• Shock cord
• Plastic chute
• Tape discs
• Shroud lines
• Water slide decals

Everything came nicely in the bag undamaged.

As usual, Semroc put together easy to read instructions. Nothing was unclear or hard to follow. The only possible complaint I have is the fin marking guide. I didn't have trouble with it, but I could see how others may have a hard time holding the tube steady enough to mark the lines perfectly.

The build was very easy. All of the parts fit well with no sanding. Working with balsa is way better than plastic in my opinion so this build was a blast. Another plus with Semroc kits is that they supply every rocket with Kevlar® cord and a nice length of shock cord.

Finishing:
Finishing was basic. I only used one coat of sanding sealer for it. I probably should have used another coat or two, but it's lighter this way. After the sealer dried, it was all sanded down and ready for painting. My brother picked out some Testor's silver paint so that is what I used. My brother also put the decals on and he had no trouble with those.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
Well we waited for a good day to launch the VF-261. I wasn't 100% sure how it would fly due to the airplane appearance. The winds were around 5mph so I loaded it with the A8-3. The flight was nice and low with just a tad bit of spin. Next up was the B6-4. This sent it up quite a bit higher and once again had a nice straight up launch with just a little spin. Due to its size, it won't be flying on the C6 anytime soon. Most people will be satisfied with the performance on As and Bs though.

Recovery:
The first flight recovery went well. The second one didn't look good at first but turned out fine in the end. The chute didn't open until about 30-40ft off the ground. It landed undamaged and is ready to go again. I'm not a fan of plastic chutes though so this may get upgraded to nylon chute eventually.

Flight Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary:
Semroc produces a cool looking design that flies well too. I wouldn't change anything except maybe the plastic chute. I may have to upscale this sucker because it would look much better in bigger form.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Brief:
This is a Semroc original design, although it is inspired by the 1961 Estes catalog #261 (the VF stands for Vern's Fanttsay), which in turn was inspired by the Luna 3 from "Destination Moon".

The futuristic model shares many parts with the V-2 and flies fine.

Construction:
Parts are top quality:

• Balsa nose cone, screw eye anchor
• BT-55 body tube
• Balsa boat tail
• Laser-cut balsa fins (3)
• 18mm motor tube
• Launch lugs (trim details)
• Centering ring motor block
• 12" plastic chute
• Kevlar®/elastic shock cord
• Waterslide decals

The instructions for this kit are very good, consisting of about 6 half-pages of black and white illustrations and notes. It is rated a skill level 1, however, I'd suggest that for someone wanting a nice finish, this would be at least a skill level 2, possibly a 3. It does go together quickly and easily but takes a careful hand to really make it look sharp.

Construction begins by gluing the centering ring motor block inside the BT-20 motor tube using a stuffer tube that's included with the kit. Next, tie a couple knots on the end of the Kevlar® shock cord and tape it to the outside of the motor tube. It doesn't have to be that secure since the whole thing slides into the boat tail and is pretty snug.

Before gluing the boat tail to the body tube, make sure to mark for the fin lines using the alignment guide printed in the instructions. Once the tube is marked, you can then glue in the boat tail and extend the fin lines down the tail cone.

Fin attachment and alignment is a bit tricky. For starters, there are two main fins (aka wings) and a smaller central fin (aka rudder). These are spaced evenly around the circumference of the body tube but not mounted perpendicular so you won't get the normal 120-degree alignment. The wings line up nicely to the tapered tail cone at about 3/4" forward from the end of the cone and the dihedral is set by placing the tail cone flat on a table (atop a 3/32" shim), tacking the wings on, and letting the tips just touch the table. The rudder mounts flush to the end of the tail cone and is perpendicular to the cone.

Even though the laser cut fins fit fairly well, generous fillets and a little bit of filler putty are going to be needed.

Since this is based on a V-2 style design, it's going to need stability help. In this case, nose cone weight takes care of moving the CG forward. The cone comes drilled out so all that's needed is to pack in the provided clay then glue in a wood disk to seal it up (and serve as the attachment point for the screw eye anchor).

Construction wraps up by applying the launch lugs. One is obviously for the launch rod, and three others slide onto spars on the end of the fins. These leave a very rugged finish so it is suggested that small rounded cones be formed from wood putty to improve the appearance. It's that type of work that in my opinion elevates the skill level a good bit above the beginner's 1 level.

Finishing:
Most folks will probably want to go for a basic silver paint finish to this, and Patrick Bissonnette's previous review certainly looks nice with that approach. I decided though to add the black accents to model the cover art. It turned out to be much more difficult than I'd thought.

I started off, of course, filling balsa grains and tube spirals with a quick application of Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish but didn't wind up with as nice a job hiding the tail cone/tube seam as I'd hoped. I then applied a filler coat of automotive primer and wet sanded down to take off the roughness. I then hit it with three coats of Rustoleum Silver, which is supposed to be a mirror-like metallic finish as opposed to the more glittery silver metallic. This tends to be a finicky type of paint, especially in the variable humidity of the Midwest, and so I have a couple of flatter spots.

After allowing a full 4 days for the paint to cure out (tip: if it smells like paint, it's not cured) then masked off for the black trim. The upper rudder is black (except for the launch lug detail), and there are two stripes that run the length of the rocket centered around the two wings. While this looks like a straight line, due to the contours it requires a lot of curved mask lines. I wound up having to do a little touch-up with a black marker to even out the lines a bit. After doing all that masking and touch-up, I kept thinking it shouldn't be too tough to add in some black decals...

The decals add to the final appearance and were a breeze to apply.

Construction Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Flight:
For the first flight, I was flying on a smaller field and opted for the moderate B6-4 motor in 8-9 mph winds. It flew fairly straight though had a little bit of a spin on the way up. No weathercock at all so stability was perfect. It was still coasting up a bit when the deployment occurred but not so early as to warrant a longer -6 delay.

Recovery:
The 12" chute is a fine size for this, and everything came back in good shape.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
Overall pros are the cool space ark type of design and quality of parts.

Con: The launch lug detailing is a bit rough, and it might be easier to just work with wood dowels or pick up some MicroMaxx nose cones. It does though just come down to how much work you want to put into it for the appearance.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Brief:
Recognizable by almost everyone as either the spaceship from the sci-fi classic "Destination Moon" or as the cover model from the 1961 Estes catalog, the Semroc VF-261 is both a quick and challenging build. It's quick because it has relatively few parts but challenging because of a couple of non-traditional steps.

Construction:
The kit includes:

• BNC-55FD balsa nose cone
• BT-55S body tube
• BTC-55Z balsa tail cone
• 3/32" laser cut fin stock
• EB-20A engine block
• SE-12 screw eye
• PB-75 plywood block
• LL-2A launch lugs (4)
• WC-5 clay weight
• Kevlar® shock cord
• Elastic shock cord
• 12" parachute kit

The first thing I did upon arriving at the Nation Sport Launch in Muncie was head to the Semroc booth and buy a VF-261. Since I was staying at the Passport Inn in the south end of town, I figured that I'd be out of the action as far as post-launch activities were concerned. I also figured that the VF-261 would make a great project to work on while I was "locked in" my room at night. How right I was.

Instructions for this kit are up to the normal standards of Semroc excellence, but I think this kit might be mislabeled as a skill level 1 project. Construction in general was pretty standard, but there were two steps that caused me to stand back and take stock of the project to that point. The first of these was step #9 which said "Using a small amount of balsa dust or tissue, form a small aerodynamic shape on the tip of each fin." In my hotel room, dust was plentiful, only the bulk of it wasn't balsa dust. It was dirt. I took some of the spare balsa and sanded it like I was Survivorman trying to start a fire in the Canadian wilderness. I took some wood glue and mixed it with the dust then tried to place it on the fin tip in something that resembled an aerodynamic shape. The instructions said "This should look like the cross section on the fin and rounded like a miniature nose cone." It didn't. It looked like a booger. I spent the next ten minutes sanding and wiping the area down, trying to get all traces of the offending booger off of the rocket. I didn't, but you have to be looking for it to notice it.

The second area of concern was the fin attachment. First of all I had trouble extending the line from the body tube straight down the boat tail. My line always seemed to have a pronounced curve to them as they neared the engine mount. The only ruler/straight edge I had brought with me was my Estes tube marking guide, which was nowhere near flexible enough to allow it to conform to the tapered surface. In the end I eyeballed the rudder and glued it in place with gel CA. When this had dried I took each fin and placed them onto the body until I was satisfied that they were on straight then marked the end of the boat tail. I placed the rocket body onto a piece of scrap balsa as suggested in the instructions, coated the root edge of the fin with gel CA, and lined it up on my marks while allowing the fin tip to touch the tabletop. Worked great.

Finishing:
Finishing was not a problem. I had envisioned standing in the parking lot outside my room and doing my sanding and painting, but my room overlooked the "courtyard" (which looked as though a gang war may have been fought there. Possibly the previous night.) Once I was in my room for the night, I literally didn't emerge until morning. It was that bad. All of my glue fillets had dried by the time I woke on Saturday morning so before I took my shower, I used the bathroom as a paint booth and sprayed on the first coat of primer. Because of the dry air in the room, the primer was dry to the touch by the time I had dressed and I slathered on the first coat of Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish before leaving for the AMA Field. When I returned that night I once again locked myself in, sanded the Fill 'n' Finish, and sprayed on another coat of primer before I took my shower. After the shower I applied more Fill 'n' Finish to the problem areas, sanded them when they were dry, and sprayed the final coat of primer on before I turned in for the night. Conditions were still dry and breezy when I arrived at the field on Sunday, which allowed me to do the painting on the VF-261 between flights. I first sprayed the entire rocket with Valspar silver metallic, the perfect paint for the conditions because it dries extremely fast. Once it had dried to the touch, I masked off everything but the tail fin, which I then sprayed with Valspar gloss black. More painting would be necessary later but having it look close to the kit card art was all I was hoping for on flight #1.

Construction Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Flight and Recovery:
As I had hoped, the first flight was at NSL 2007 outside of Muncie, IN. Despite the size of the field, I somewhat puzzlingly went with a B6-4 for the first flight. (I may have wanted to cut down on the inevitable post-flight walk or I just may have been out of C6-7s.) As it turned out, the B6-4 was plenty of motor for the AMA field and the flight was straight and surprisingly high, momentarily going out of sight. Recovery occurred a long way downrange, but even from our vantage point on the flight line it was obvious that it was going to be a Bill Eichelberger signature recovery either on or very near the access road. One long walk later I found it within three feet of the road but luckily without damage.

Flight #2 was at a QUARK launch at the VOA, another good sized field. This time I chose an A8-3, once again because I probably had no C6-7s and was running low on B6-4s. This flight was also quite straight but never out of sight. Ejection occurred right at apogee and it was immediately apparent that something wasn't right. From the looks of things, the weight of the rocket and the lack of wind weren't enough to get the chute to completely deploy. Instead it acted like a bulky streamer and was perfect under the conditions as the landing happened in the heavy grass to the east of the field. No damage, but I wonder if future flights would be that lucky. On a happy note, the A8-3 flight would have been perfect for flights at B6-4 Field. Now if I can just find a day without ball games.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: Vintage styling. Fairly quick build. Good performer. Would make for a cool upscale!

CONs: Hit or miss fin attachment method. Balsa dust boogers.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5