Brief:
Neubauer Rockets MegaDagger is loosely based on one of the kits that got me hooked on rocketry, the Estes Sky Dart. This kit is much more though... About 40% more that is! The glider is a 24mm upscale of Neubauer's SkyDagger kit. After boost, the rocket's power pod rear ejects and returns via parachute while the glider gently loops back!

Construction:
I got my MegaDagger directly from Jim Neubauer at a DART launch about a month after the kit was released. It came packaged in a plastic bag with a full color header card. All of the kit components were present and in good condition.

Included with the kit were:

• 1 BT-55 Glider body tube
• 1 BT-50 Power pod tube
• 1 Plastic nose cone
• 1 1/8" Laser cut balsa fin set
• 3 Centering Rings
• 1 Thrust ring
• 1 Engine hook
• 4 1/4" launch lugs
• 1 12" parachute with shroud lines
• 1 Nylon bolt
• 1 1/16" elastic cord
• 1 galvanized pipe
• 1 Vinyl decal set
• 1 Coated paper shroud
• 1 Elevator clip
• 1 Instruction set

The build starts off by assembling the wing from the laser cut, tabbed pieces. They go together easily without any muss or fuss. Be sure to make sure that you have the right layout before touching the glue. The tabs are offset and only go together one way. Yeah, that's experience talking.

The next bit of assembly is the rudder. It gets pieced together much like the wing but without the tabs. After the glue has set, the plate for the elevator set screw is glued in to it.

While this is drying, the wing is epoxied onto the main body tube.

After the wing is dry, the paper shroud is added around the underside of the wing. The shroud is heavy, glossy coated paper that should hold up for many flights. Personally, I would have been tempted to leave it off if Jim Neubauer had said that the rocket needed to have it in place or the boost would arc over sharply.

I have deviated slightly from the instructions at this point. They say to paint the rocket after adding on the adhesive strips to hold the elevator in place. Past experience leads me to believe that the strips will hold a lot better if applied after finishing.

Next the power pod is assembled. One of the centering rings is notched to allow the motor clip to move freely. This ring is glued to one end of the motor tube along with the elevator clip. The motor clip is held in place with masking tape for now.

At the other end of the power pod things get serious! The other two centering rings are glued into place sandwiching the section of galvanized pipe between them. This is an elegant solution to the question of where to stick the needed ballast for the power pod!

Finally, the parachute is assembled and a section of the shroud line is wrapped around the power pod to anchor the chute to the pod. This is then saturated with Superglue to strengthen it.

The pod comes in right around 3 ounces, most of it being the ballast.

Finishing:
As the MegaDagger is reminiscent of the old Estes Skydart, I did something near unthinkable... I primed and painted a glider! I know, I hear a lot of you cringing at the thought of painting a glider. Usually that would be me too, but the Sky Dart was the first boost glider I ever saw as a kid and I wanted to replicate it as closely as possible, which means paint.

I stared out sanding all of the balsa down with 220 and then 400 grit sandpaper. I then used only one coat of Kilz primer and sanded it down almost to bare wood. One reasonably light coat of gloss white Krylon later the MegaDagger was ready for the elevator and decals to be installed. The elevator is held in place by vinyl hinges. It was a piece of cake to install. The vinyl decals are very nice quality and easy to use. The one downside to them compared to waterslide decals is that you have to be very careful about placement. Once they are down, they're down for good! The only complaint I have about the decals is that the one for the rudder is almost as large as the rudder itself so there is no room for error on placement.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
As with all gliders, the MegaDagger must be trimmed before flight. The MegaDagger is exceptionally easy to trim out. The instructions suggest a range for the CG and all that has to be done is to add ballast to the nose or tail until the glider balances in that area. After this, the angle of deflection must be set on the elevator. I set mine about half way up with the nylon bolt. After several test tosses I felt that I had it just about right with the elevator deflecting almost to the full extent possible. The only way to know for sure was take the next step and actually launch it!

Having seen another MegaDagger nearly fly away at DART launches before on a D12, I decided on a C11 for my model's first flight. The model is quite easy to prep for flight. Fold the parachute as flat as possible and wrap it around the power pod and insert it into the rear of the glider. Make sure that the elevator clip has caught. Pull the elastic cord into the elevator slots and pop in a motor and you are good to go!

For a bit of fun for the flight, I hit up the other DART MegaDagger flier for a simultaneous launch. We loaded up the rockets and launched! As his glider was previously trimmed out, he felt confident to launch on the larger D12 motor. Both MegaDaggers leapt skyward, boosting fairly straight. My motor burned out and ejected the power pod at a couple of hundred feet.

Recovery:
It's glide was not bad but not perfect. I still had too much nose weight. I need to dig a bit of clay from the nose cone so that I can reduce the amount of deflection of the elevator.

The larger D12 motor boosted my friend's rocket to nearly twice the altitude. It is a pleasure to watch a large, properly trimmed glider fly, and the MegaDagger has a great amount of crowd appeal.

The short delay C11-3 and D12-3 motors are perfect for the MegaDagger. The heavy duty 12" parachute gets the power pod down quickly without any damage.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
The MegaDagger is a classic design. It's clean lines and good performance make it a kit that everyone should build. The tabbed pieces make assembly nearly foolproof and quick. I completed the building (but not finishing) of my kit in an afternoon.

There are a couple of typos in the directions, but that is not unusual for the first production run of smaller manufacturer's kits. Jim Neubauer has posted notices that the second run kits have been revised a bit in this area.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5