Brief:
This is a single stage, 29mm, easy to build, yet very durable rocket kit from AeroTech. My first AeroTech kit was the Cheetah and I was so pleased with it that I ordered and built this Arreaux, the G-Force, Mustang, Sumo, and Wart-Hog all at the same time. I built this rocket two years ago, installed the recovery system about a month ago, painted it on a Friday night, and flew it the following Saturday morning.

Construction:
The AeroTech Arreaux is the exact same model as the Cheetah except that it has a payload bay and the rocket is 11 inches taller for a total height of 43". This is the second from the top of AeroTech's highest performance kits with the Cheetah being in the #1 slot.

Kit came with two 1.9" airframes, bulkhead, nice durable AT nose-cone with the L shaped recovery mount, 29mm engine tube with baffle system, fin-lok motor mounts, motor clip, three pre-cut and shaped through the wall fins, elastic shock cord, nice nylon 16" rip-stop chute, and high quality decals.

The instructions are typical AeroTech, excellent and well illustrated. I did not use them as after building one AeroTech kit you don't really need to refer back to the instructions. The build was done with CA only and the rocket was finished in one afternoon side by side with four others.

Finishing:
This rocket got to wait two years for a paint job and first flight and on the day before the launch I decided to go with gloss black with a clear coat. I first applied two coats of Rustoleum Painter's Touch gray sandable primer. 20 minutes later a single coat of gloss black Decrolon spray enamel. 15 minutes later a single coat of Rustoleum Crystal Clear Gloss. It came out looking pretty good and I think I will cover it with one more coat of black and another coat of gloss eventually.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
It's first flight was on September 11th, 2004, at Rushing Park in Katy, Texas at an event with the local Challenger 498 Model Rocket Club. It was a little after 10:00 AM. The motor I selected was a newer Ellis Mountain G20-3 which is stated to have a burn time of 5.47 seconds. I also selected a Quickburst Twiggy ignitor as Ellis Mountain motors do not come with ignitors and I have been extremely pleased with Quickbursts as they never fail and light FAST!

Wind at the park was predicted to be 5-10mph from the NE according to the local weather service. There were scattered clouds with lots of nice big blue openings and according to the park flags wind was calm at the time I decided to put this thing up into a nice blue hole. And after the customary countdown, the Arreaux ripped off the pad and begin a nice long burn journey right into the open blue. It kept going and going and going... The 5.47 Ellis Mountain burn seemed to me to be longer than that and it was nice and dramatic. The rocket vanished into clear blue sky, no club members saw it again and I wrote it off as a loss. I even logged it on EMRR as R.I.P. LOST! However, some club members found it several hours after I left.

Recovery:
The shock cord provided was six feet of 1/2" elastic mounted to a screw eye at the top of the motor baffle. I do not care for this technique as if the cord breaks or burns through, there is no way to get back to the mount to repair or replace it. So I added a backup Kevlar cord that can be used in the future. I also added 34 more feet of 1/2" white elastic to the 6 foot black provided length bringing my shock cord length up to 40 feet long. I hoped that would aid in recovery as I have seen white elastic reflect off the sun. The provided chute would have been perfect but I downsized the chute to another AeroTech cloth yellow chute.

Several hours after I got home from the launch and had already entered my flight logs on EMRR, I got an email from our club President Brad Winbigler indicating that he and another club member Harvey Miller had located my rocket later in the day. I believe they were using battery powered scooters and zig-zagged a very large park and found it safe and sound laid out quite a ways from the launch site. I can not believe it was found and am very grateful to my club members. I want to fly this one some more, however based on advice I will not use a yellow chute again for that type of altitude. Next chute will be a darker color like black. I would suggest replacing the stock chute with a darker color or perhaps a tri-color conical chute with a spill hole. I have an Anchor brand conical chute with spill hole that is 12" (rated at 16" I believe) that is black, white and dark blue. I believe I will install that one before the next flight.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
No one can go wrong with an AeroTech. They are very simple to build and durable rockets that fly excellently. They are a little expensive and a backup recovery system should always be installed during the build which can be a simple 240-500 pound Kevlar cord to the motor mount which is about $1 and only adds a few minutes to the build. AeroTech rockets are a good introduction to rocket behaviour in the mid-power range.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5