Brief:
The Skinny Mini was a 'longneck'-style, 13mm, minimum diameter rocket that used streamer recovery. Mine dates back to the late '80's.

Construction:
The parts included:

• 2 sections of 13mm tubing
• tube coupler
• plastic nosecone
• 3 die cut balsa fins
• plastic streamer
• rubber band shock cord
• launch lug
• engine block

This was a typical skill Level-1 kit. As with other Estes kits, it came with good instructions, a fin marking template, etc. The biggest issue was making sure the two body tubes were aligned properly. This is always an issue with long, skinny rockets.

Finishing:
The kit came with decals. I originally painted mine as shown in the attached pic.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
The Skinny Mini flew on 1/2A and A engines. All my flights were on A10-3 with expected altitudes in the 700' range.

Recovery:
The shock cord was a rubber-band style as was typical of Estes at that time. It was tied to the nose cone shoulder and used a folded paper mount to the BT. This relatively wide cord made packing the streamer fairly difficult. It really needed some thin Kevlar® twine. One one flight the streamer didn't deploy and the tubing was destroyed. It was replaced and the rocket has flown well since.

Flight Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary:
Pros: Long and sleek design, easy to build and flew great Cons: Needed a thinner shock cord, tended not to deploy the streamer

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5