Brief:
Single staged boosted glider. This rocket is a re-release of an earlier Estes kit.

Construction:
Parts were of standard Estes quality and consisted of main body tube, 18mm motor tube (long tube since it's the tube for the boost pod), body tube for tail, plastic nose cone assembly, two balsa sheets for wing/fin pieces, 2 centering rings, one engine block, one engine hook, wooden dowel, parachute assembly, plastic scissor wing assemblies, and nylon cord for rear elevator.

This build was fairly easy when following the instructions. The whole thing seemed fairly well engineered, and the parts seemed to be well manufactured and fit together quite nicely. The only thing I didn't have supreme confidence in was attaching the wing to the body...more on that later...

I took my time with this build as I had always wanted this kit when I was younger but never got it. I got out of rocketry, and when I came back into the hobby this kit was not available so I was very happy when I got it for Christmas this past year. I waited to build it until I knew I could take my time with it.

I just followed the instructions on this one, not wanting to screw anything up. No "exotic" adhesives were used, just wood glue and super glue (for the plastic pieces). Fairly simple, just lots of steps to follow.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this kit is balancing the glider once it's built. The kit comes with clay for weighting/balancing. The instructions have you keeping the nose cone in two pieces until there are a few flights completed in order to allow fine tuning of the balance and just taping the forward part of the nose cone on for flight. I trimmed mine out and was a bit concerned with the fact that it seemed to want all the weight in the back to produce a stable glide. Oh well, it looks good so far...what could possibly go wrong?

Finishing:
Finishing was interesting as I didn't want to add too much weight and possibly throw off the glide characteristics. One light coat of primer, then two very light coats of gloss white on the glider portion and gloss black on the fins/back end of the booster pod. The decals were great, but I have notoriously bad luck with waterslide decals ripping on me. These were no exception and drove me nuts with some of the lengthier decals that always seemed to be folding in on themselves then ripping when I tried to separate them.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
Time for the first flight rolled around, and I did not have the motor I really wanted: a B6-4. Instead, I had a C6-5. Well, it should be fine. 3-2-1, liftoff! Great on the up part but kinda turning to the south a bit. Coasts, noses down, and POP! Ejection charge fired a bit past apogee, but I expected that. Parachute opens on the pod, and it looks great. Except that I notice that the glider never slowed down and there's an oval something fluttering down. Great, the wing had completely separated itself from the rest of the glider. The remaining part of the flight for the glider was a beautiful streamlined dart for the ground, landing (crashing) about 100 yards away in chest high weeds. I didn't even bother chasing in after it as I knew it was toast in the high weeds and rock hard ground. The pod landed under chute fairly close, and the wing fluttered down harmlessly (and uselessly) about 200 yards to the east. Well, so much for that kit...

Recovery:
Great on the up part, can't really render a verdict on the recovery, however, I'll still give it a 3.5--I loved the boost!

Flight Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary:
I liked this rocket and had fun building it! I only wish I had done a better job.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5