West Coast Rocketry Screamer

West Coast Rocketry - Screamer {Kit}

Contributed by Nick Hills

Construction Rating: starstarstarstarstar_border
Flight Rating: starstarstarstarstar
Overall Rating: starstarstarstarstar_border
Manufacturer: West Coast Rocketry

Rocket PicBrief:
This is a single stage, Out-of-Production (OOP) mid and high power kit. This rocket is great for E-H motors.

Construction:
There are two (2) nicely finished 2.25" body tubes, same thickness as LOC's, a nicely turned solid balsa nose cone, four (4) 1/8" plywood fins, elastic for the shock cord (12 feet), a coupler, bulkhead, motor tube and two (2) centering rings along with a 1/4" launch lug.

In my kit I got, there were no instructions, other then a header card, this kit is OOP, so I figured that it must have gotten lost or something along the way. But the kit is simple enough for anyone to figure out. All parts fit well, I had to make my own slots in the body tube for the fins, which is not hard. All the centering rings, bulkheads, coupler, and fins fit well and went together well. I had to put some filler in a few minor dents in the nose cone from handling over the years. I then put four coats of sanding sealer on it and primed it. The kit comes with nose weight and have a pre-drilled hole in the cone for the weight, which is much easier then making your own hole in it. The shock cord attaches to the top centering ring with a steel cable and then attaches to the bulkhead screw-eye. The over all finished kit seems pretty strong.

Finishing:
Finishing was easy, I filled the seams with Elmers Fill'n Finish, then sanded down and primed. I then used Testors Gloss Cherry Red and Testors Gloss Black to finish it off. It looks great. The kit came with no decals, and looks just fine without them.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Rocket PicFlight:
There is a whole list of recommended Kosdon and Aerotech motors. For the first flight I choose a Aerotech E23-5 Blue Thunder motor. A great, straight boost to about 600 feet with a very nice parachute recovery.

I have flown this rocket 8 times, with Aerotech F40-7's, an Aerotech G104-M, a Kosdon G40-10, an Aerotech G64-7, a Vulcan G200-10 (my favorite flight so far on this rocket) and an Aerotech F101-10. All flights have went well other than the shock cord breaking on one, but all was recovered with only a broken fin.

The model does require wadding, it was easy to prep. For motor retention I used tee-nuts with washers to keep the motor in place. Has not failed.

Recovery:
For recovery, you can either use a 18" or 24" chute, if you are not going to put it all that high, use the 24" chute, or if your flying area has a hard landing surface, use the 24" chute, but if you want to minimize the walk to get it, go for the 18".

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
This rocket is great. The kit is high quality and easy to put together. Only bad side I saw to the kit is it came with no instructions. There are no other cons to this kit at all. If you ever can find one of these, make sure to pick it up. Great kit!

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Other Reviews
  • West Coast Rocketry Screamer By John Lee (June 14, 2009)

    Not too long ago, I won several kits from West Coast Rocketry on eBay. Not long after, I built my Screamer II, affectionately known as John Deer. Since my John Deere yellow and green paint cans have about one rocket left in them and I need the shelf space, I decided to build the Screamer which will be called the Jane Doe and painted with the contrasting paint scheme of the other one. The ...

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