Brief:
A step up from the fire and forget Mosquito, the Screamer is a mini-engine bird that lives up to its name. Even with its mini engine power, this little rocket is out of sight before the smoke hits the blast deflector. With its bright orange paint it is a highly visible rocket, but with the kind of performance that it is capable of, bright orange paint is only going to be of so much use.

Construction:
I used the following parts to build the rocket:

• BT-5P body tube (from Red Arrow Hobbies)
• BNC-5AX nose cone (from BMS)
• EB-5B engine block (from Red Arrow Hobbies)
• LL-2A launch lug (from Red Arrow Hobbies)
• small washer (from Lowe's)
• small screw eye (from Lowe's)
• 24" length Kevlar® shock cord (from Thrustline)
• decal (scanned from JimZ)

Construction of the Screamer is only slightly more difficult than building a Mosquito, but the end result is much more satisfying and looks like it will at least be recoverable. (More on that later.) It involves nothing more complicated than tying a length of Kevlar® cord around the engine block, then gluing the engine block in place with Elmer's wood glue. I attached the three fins using LocTite Gel CA, then filleted them in place with wood glue. The small washer was then attached to the nose cone with the small screw eye and the Kevlar® was then tied to the screw eye. After attaching the launch lug the Screamer is ready to fly if you aren't picky about paint.

Finishing:
Finishing could scarcely have been easier. After the tube spirals and balsa grain had been eliminated with thinned Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish, the rocket was sprayed with white primer. This is an important step because white primer allows the florescent orange paint that I used next to glow to its best effect. The unlabeled orange paint had been left over from my car modeling days and was so old that I wasn't even sure it would spray but it worked like a champ. The flat florescent paint sprayed on quite rough, so I lightly sanded the rocket with fine grit sandpaper to smooth out the finish, then sprayed and sanded it again. I then sprayed the nose cone with Valspar gloss black and after allowing everything to dry, a coat of Valspar clear gloss. The orange and black of the rocket's color scheme made a great contrast together and I was left with a smooth surface to attach the decals. I printed the decal off on my home printer using the scans from JimZ. The scans need to be cleaned up but that is a skill I have yet to master. The spaces between the bands on the wrap decal looked a little dark but not badly enough that they detracted from the looks of the rocket.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
While three flights is considered normal, it only took one flight for the Screamer to show what it was capable of. I left home on the day of the flight and encountered worsening weather conditions on the trip to the VOA. By the time I arrived at the field, only two other fliers were still present and it had begun to snow lightly. With the field already covered with snow from a previous storm and three successful flights in the books already, I decided to give the Screamer a chance. I had no doubt that the bright orange rocket would show up well against the uniformly white coating on the ground and loaded it with an A10-3T. This was a mistake. I should have chosen a much smaller motor for the first flight because I never saw the rocket after it left the pad. I heard the pop of the ejection charge and waited expectantly for the rocket to drift back down and glow against the white carpet of snow. No dice. I began looking over in the direction that the light breeze would have carried the rocket but I found nothing except for a lost soccer ball. By this time it had begun to snow harder and I got the distinct impression that I was the only one on the field still interested in flying. I suggested that we strike the range and after helping pack things up, I went back to my rescue mission. For the next hour I walked a grid pattern for several hundred yards in the direction of the breeze, hoping to spot an orange glow, but it wasn't to be. I never saw anything of the Screamer again. It doesn't call or write.

Recovery:
PROs: Without a streamer in the body tube, packing the rocket is a snap.

CONs: Never recovered the rocket.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: Great looks and performance. Cheap to build and fly. Easy to upscale.

CONs: Not a rocket to fly when you have the only eyes watching the skies.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5