Brief:
The Lil' Nuke is a mid-power rocket part of LOC/Precision's Novice Kit series. It is single staged with a 29mm motor mount.

Construction:
The instructions of this kit were rather explicit. The assembly order was logical, but as far as I can remember, they did not have any illustrations. The kit came with all of the parts including an enormously thick paper body tube with lines pre-drawn to mark the fin locations. I was surprised to find that this kit did not have the through-the-tube fin attachment method. This disappointed me because I believe that mid-power rockets need the extra strength that a through-the-tube fin attachment method has. I used 30 minute epoxy throughout construction. Since I had to epoxy the root edges of the fins directly to the body tube, it made construction more time consuming. I had to stick one fin, and let it dry for hours before moving on to another fin. The fins were slightly warped. I also did not like the shock cord attachment method. However, I decided to use it anyway trusting LOC's design. The shock cord mount consists of nylon rope tied into a loop and epoxied against the inside wall of the body tube like the old Estes paper shock cord mounts. Many people have had separations with this type of shock cord mount on rockets of this size. Good epoxy is mandatory for this type of mount.

Finishing:
The thick body tube that came in the kit has spiral grooves that are deep and highly visible even with the primer and paint. I would highly recommend filling these spiral grooves with Elmers Carpenters Wood Filler or something similar. Otherwise, a normal finish will work just fine. The kit did not come with any decals. I tried making mine look pretty by painting it purple with yellow Monokote trim.

Construction Rating: 2 out of 5

Flight:
I flew my Lil' Nuke on an AeroTech F22-5 reload. LOC doesn't recommend any reloadable motors for this kit, so I had to make a judgement call here. However, I had to put two ounces of clay weight in the nose so that it would be stable on this motor. A RockSim file that I made for the thing showed that without the nose weight, stability would be marginal. I didn't like having to add more weight to the model as it would lower its performance potential. But then again, safety has to come first. I used a T-nut motor retention method. The instructions tell you to friction fit the motor with masking tape, but I really do not think that is very smart with composite motors of this size. It required wadding since the rocket is too small for a motor tube that is long enough to take a mesh baffle unit. The F22 boosted the rocket nicely and left a thick black smoke trail. With the nose weight, the boost was straight enough to please the crowd.

Recovery:
The shock cord was a long elastic shock cord. It was long enough for this rather heavy rocket. The parachute that came in the kit was 14" in width, certainly not big enough for a safe recovery. In fact, the sink rate of this rocket with a chute that small would probably be so high that it would create a recovery hazard. I used a 24" parachute on mine, and even that did not bring it down slow enough to prevent any damage. I picked the rocket up from the tall grass and found that one of the fins had come off.

Flight Rating: 2 out of 5

Summary:
Overall, I was not very pleased by this kit. I thought that the components were excellent, but the overall design was not adequate for the type of rocket it is. I do not think that this kit would be a good first mid-power rocket because it is not designed to meet typical mid-power rocket standards. I would suggest that the following improvements be made. It should have through-the-tube fins, a better shock cord attachment method, a bigger parachute, and the rocket should be made longer so that it is more stable.

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5