Brief:
Semroc is offering up this basic 3FNC as a free gift to new NAR members in 2010, or for a retail price of $11.50 to the rest of us. It's a quick, simple build well suited for beginners.

Construction:
Parts are excellent quality, and include

• Balsa nose cone
• Series 8 body tube (slightly heavier wall than regular body tubing)
• BT-20 motor tube, metal hook
• Laser-cut balsa fins
• 12" plastic chute
• Kevlar®+elastic shock cord
• Waterslide decals

The instructions for this are somewhat condensed compared to the typical Semroc product, with the construction notes printed on one side of a legal-sized sheet. There's an exploded parts view in the center, with 11 construction steps circling the perimeter. Overall, this is a skill level 1 kit, possibly a 2 if masking the paint/finish, and I had it built in well under an hour, plus finishing time.

The motor mount is quite simple--put the metal hook through the pre-slotted BT-20 tube, tie the Kevlar® anchor, and slide/glue on a coupler-like sleeve to hold everything in place. Mark the body tube fin lines using a template on the instruction sheet, and insert the mount into the body tube.

The fins included a neat feature which I hadn't seen before--tiny little nicks cut into the root edge, which would lead to a better bond by forming little glue rivets. Previously, I'd only made glue rivets by poking the fin/body tube with a thumbtack or pin. I think this is a useful improvement, though it could be lost on a beginner as it's not mentioned in the instructions at all, and even identifying root versus tip edge is only somewhat covered in the parts illustration. It wouldn't be at all difficult for an inexperienced beginner to get the fin orientation wrong.

The launch lug is intended to go in the fin/tube joint, but since I intended to mask and paint my fins a contrasting color, I moved the lug to a line centered between two fins.

Attaching the screw eye nose cone anchor and making the chute completes the construction.

Finishing:
The body tube had a barely noticeable spiral, so I just brushed on diluted wood filler and coated the fins and nose cone with the same. I then hit it with Rustoleum's reformulated 2x coverage paint, primer in this case. It certainly lives up to it's claims, going on quite heavy but without running, and it dries fairly quickly. I was sanding it down the next morning with wet 600 grit paper to take the edge off the rough primer finish.

I then followed up with the 2x type white gloss finish paint. After allowing another day to cure, I painted the nose cone gloss black, and masked off to paint the fins gloss red. In each case, a single application of the 2x coverage paint seemed to work fine, so I'm sold on this stuff.

The waterslide decals were easy to apply and are some of the best I've ever worked with. Easy to apply, tough enough to support sliding around a little to position, but thin enough to still look painted on when dried.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
For the first flight I went on the low end of the power spectrum with an A8-3. Winds were pushing 10 mph, it was nasty cold, and I didn't feel like a long recovery trek. It tipped off slightly upwind, but it didn't come across as weathercocking, more something funky with the way it left the rod.

In any case, the slight angle was no big deal, it flew perfectly fine, though the -3 delay was short and is probably why Semroc recommends A6-4 instead of A8-3.

Recovery:
The 12" plastic chute is certainly plenty for this, maybe even overkill. This came down very slowly, and drifted a good 150 yards.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
Sure, this is a rather ordinary design, and very similar to the Astro Jr., but for its intended purpose as an introductory model to a new NAR member, it's right on the mark.

For Semroc to offer up, for free, such quality materials and a sound model is really a generous move. Kudos for yet another example of what they do for this hobby.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5