Brief:
Inspired by the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Trident", this flagship of Fliskits was inspired by the Estes classic ducted-ejection charge Trident. Micro-sized and finely detailed, this rocket has an impressive appearance and is a very challenging and enjoyable construction project.

Construction:
The main body tubes are BT-5 (13mm), with 3 side tubes that are, I'd guess, BT-2's that look more like 18" launch lugs. You also get an assortment of nose cones (9 total), amazingly detailed and intricate water slide decals, 1/16 balsa finstock, assorted basswood toothpick-sized stock for the details, and Kevlar®/cotton shock cord with a plastic chute.

The instructions and illustrations are very thorough and complete. While you need good building skills for this rocket, you don't need to figure out how to make things work--just follow the plans. My set of instructions, though, contained two significant errors (front/rear strut templates were mislabeled, and one dimension was typo'd), but this was easily corrected, and I've since learned that this was caught by Fliskits and corrected.

The assembly consists of a lower section of 13mm tube with a permanent nose cone, and an upper 13mm body with the chute. The two sections are joined by (3) side tubes, which carry the ejection charge from the lower to upper body through ducts cut in each of the tubes. Templates are provided to carefully cut the ducts. Bonding the tubes straight, with ducts overlapping, is very tricky and should not be rushed. Generous fillets are also in order, as the seams must be completely air-tight.

Fins are a beautiful swept pattern, and cut from 1/16" balsa. The leading edge is straight, but other lines have appealing curves and rounded corners.

After construction of the tubes and fins, the instructions suggest painting the rocket now, rather than mask off tiny details later. I went with two coats of primer, followed by two coats of gloss white. It's worth noting that the BT-2 side tubes had very pronounced spirals, much worse than any tube I've ever gotten in a Fliskit. I wound up sanding down both coats of primer and applying a heavy layer of Elmer's Fill N Finish to fill the spirals. This was very hard to do on the completed assembly. I should have caught this earlier and filled the spirals before bonding the tubes.

After painting, the real challenge to this kit comes into play--construction of the tiny details. The first detail is a shroud, formed from cardstock and an adhesive colored cover. The shroud fits snugly under the fins, and is anchored to the body by 6 tiny struts. Next, frames for the 3 solar panels are built, and this is aided by construction of a jig (using the provided templates and balsa stock). You must be very careful to measure and bond EXACTLY per the templates or the panels will not fit properly. Due to the typo on my template, I had to run to the hobby store to make replacement struts (though Flis offered to replace my stock for free). The panels and frames are bonded together, then carefully bonded to the rocket at notches in the fins and to the tubes with drops of CA. Tweezers definitely help here, as you're working with materials smaller than 1/16" square, and two of these share a notch in a 1/16" fin.

I decided to use the full 16" chute provided rather than follow the instructions and cut it down to 12", figuring the details were just begging to break off on impact.

Finishing:
I had pre-painted the main body per the instructions, so "finishing" involved hand-painting the struts and smaller details, and applying the water-slide decals. Lots of decals. Lots of very small decals. I suspect the decals came from Tango Papa, and were very high quality. Most impressive to me, was the intricate details--these aren't just basic stripes. Even on the tiny 5mm tubes, you get decals clearly identifying this as the U.S.S Grissom, though you're probably going to need a magnifying glass to read them. I actually ran them under my son's 10X Intel Microscope, and could see clean, straight lines. These decals are really high-resolution!

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
The only recommended motor for this is the Estes A10-3. Flight prep is quick and easy, as this needs no recovery wadding at all due to the ducted ejection method. I'm a bit conservative, and put about 1" of "dog barf" in the upper tube since plastic chutes seem to melt on their own on hot/humid midwestern afternoons.

With winds of 6-8 mph, this weathercocked a bit, but flew very well and straight as an arrow. The ejection was a bit early (would have been fine with less wind), and the chute deployed without any problems.

The rocket came down just about right with the larger chute, and landed less than 5 feet from a paved road in our field. Not a trace of damage, and 2 minutes later it was prepped for another flight. Same result, no problems. The descent is fairly stable, so it tends to land on the end of the tube instead of sideways, which saves the details from stress.

Recovery:
Nothing but pros on flight--easy to prep, doesn't need wadding, and I love the fact that I get 4 A10's for the price of 3 A8-3's, so it's like getting the 4th flight for free on this.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
While this is almost too beautiful to fly, it does fly very well, and the fragile-looking details seem to be holding up well. It's one of the most expensive FlisKits, but you get a lot of top-quality details and materials for the money, and the result is a rocket any builder would be proud to include in his fleet.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5