Brief:
The Aerotech Cheetah is a high-performance mid-power rocket. The rocket is single stage, and goes over 3000' on a G motor.

Construction:
The kit comes with a single body tube, a nose cone, three (3) plastic clipped-delta fins, a parachute, a shockcord, and motor mount components. The motor mount components are the motor tube, two (2) fin-locks, two (2) centering rings, an ejection baffle, cooling mesh, motor retainer hook, and screw eye for shockcord attachment. The kit also comes with a 24mm/29mm adapter.

The instructions are easy to follow, and the kit is generally easy to build. The only shortcoming is that once the fins are inserted through the body tube into the fin-locks, there is not much room for doing fillets for the fin tabs inside of the body tube. I attached the fins with 30 minute epoxy and figured that was enough. Doing internal fillets is always a problem with small diameter rockets, of course.

Finishing:
The groves are barely noticeable. I just sprayed on a couple coats of paint for a nice, easy finish. Since I'm doing the rocket for my niece, I did not add the decals provided. Instead, the rocket will probably get some Britney Spears stickers.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
There are several recommended motors, and the rocket is very versatile. The rocket will fly about 1,000' on an E motor, about 2,000' on an F motor, and over 3,000' on a G motor. I flew this on a G25-10, which has a nice 4-5 second burn. The rocket comes with an ejection baffle system, so no wadding is required. The motor is retained by a strong metal clip. Changing engines is very easy.

Recovery:
Recovery was fine. The provided parachute is quality rip-stop nylon. It's small, but sufficient for this small rocket.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: versatile engine selection, easy construction, nice motor retention CONs: none

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5