Brief:
Square tube rocket with square tube fins and parachute recovery.

Construction:
Square body tube, 4 square tube fins, solid pyramidal nose "cone", and square tube launch lug. Basswood centering "rings" with metal motor clip, Kevlar® shock cord, and water slide decals. In addition kit includes: fishing swivel for chute attachment, assortment of sanding papers, emery board, and glue-applicator Q-tip.

This is a pretty straightforward rocket to build. The instructions include step-by-step photographs (some in color). If you've built a few rockets before, the directions aren't needed, but I will say that the writing of the instructions left me baffled in a couple places. If this was the first rocket you'd built, my guess is that you would be pretty confused. In particular, the directions for placing the launch lug would be much more clear with a diagram or arrows in the picture.

The square tubing is very stiff and strong. Plus, gluing square tube fins to a square body gives you a very large bond area. This rocket is built like a tank.

Finishing:
The outside surface of the square tubing has very deep and wide spirals and it has a washboard finish (little ridges every 1mm or so). I used a lot of wood filler and still ended up with imperfections showing through. This may say more about my skill level than anything else, but finishing these rockets smoothly is a much larger challenge than standard tubing.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
I've flown this model 5 times so far. The kit recommends B4-4, B6-4, and C6-5 motors. I used a B6-4 twice, a C6-5 twice, and although I wouldn't recommend it, I also flew it once with an A8-3.

In all 5 flights the rocket flew straight up, no noticeable weathercock even though I had 10-15 mph wind (probably because the fin area is small). On the B6-4 and C6-5 I had 4 for 4 good deploys and great flights. I flew the Quest How-High altimeter on one of the B6-4 flights and measured 194 feet. There is no payload bay on this rocket. I was experimenting with wrapping the How-High in tinfoil and wadding above the wadding and parachute. Details will be posted on the Rocketry Forum.

The rocket seems to take-off slowly and is fun to watch, particularly on the C6-5.

I ran some wRASP altitude predictions for these motors using different assumptions for tube diameters (since the "tube" is a square) and will post those on the forum as well. (Best agreement between computer and real-world are Drag Coeff=0.9 and "diameter" = 1.66".)

Recovery:
All deploys were nose-down well after apogee. I think that the C6-3 would be the best motor, and that's what I will fly next time.

The A8-3 flight deployed the chute 1/2 second before impact onto a hard baseball diamond. The chute did not have time to open and slow the rocket. One square tube fin hit the ground pretty hard and bent its edge by 1/8". I simply bent it back and took it back to the pad for the next flight. Did I mention this rocket is built like a tank?

I used 4 sheets of Quest "blue wadding" extra loosely wadded up in this rocket for each flight.

After 5 flights the rocket remains in excellent condition.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
This is a very different looking rocket because it is square and has square tube fins. It is built very solidly and I expect it will fly 20+ flights at least. This kit components and "extras" in the kit were high quality.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5