Brief:
This is a stock Cluster-R 2.6 inch diameter Army Hawk missile. It is 43 inches long and weighs approximately 25 oz. The only modification I made was to replace the stock parabolic nosecone with an old Estes Honest John nosecone. The rocket has a 29mm motor mount and four 1/8in. glassboard fins.

Modifications:
The first thing I did was to remove the shock cord mount and the 12in damaged section of tube. I then went to an old corpse of mine...an Aardvark 2.6in. AMRAAM that lawndarted on its maiden flight. I removed an intact 13in section from the payload and (after some surgery) the coupler came out too. I then re-glued the coupler, reattached the shock cord and set the NC on. Cool. There was only one problem: this only took me about an hour and I was still bored with the look of the rocket so I decided to spice things up a little. I had an Estes Honest John kit that I never had and never would finish. I stole its nosecone but the shoulder was about a half inch too long. I epoxied the bottom half of the NC to the new payload section. When that dried I drilled six holes through the BT/NC shoulder area and threaded some machine screws through the holes. Then I attached some nuts to the screws on the inside, re-added nose weight, and completely assembled the NC. The overall affect was super strong and wicked cool looking. Then to finish it up I painted everything except the "new" payload section chalk board green. When this paint dries you can really draw on it with chalk. I then renamed this monster "Holy Hawkamoly" to match the new paint and original name.

Construction:
The only reason that this is a mod kit is because I did not write a review on it when it was bone stock. My modification of this rocket actually started out as a repair. After several stock flights on anything from G35s to H128s, the upper 12in of the BT was starting to show severe wear. I figured since I was bored and the rocket needed it, why not give it a face lift while installing a new upper body.

My pros were a basically new unique (to say the least) rocket and a salvaged NC.

The cons were that I had to rip off the old lugs and add new ones with standoffs so the NC would clear the rod and the new NC would undergo more direct pressure under flight and the NC walls were a little flexible.

Flight:
I have flown my repaired bird twice. Once with a G104 and again with an H128. The rocket flies a few feet less than before the repairs due to the new NC but not too noticeable.

Summary:
All in all this a great rocket. my most stable bird. The original kit built like a tank. I highly recommend the original but if you get it, I suggest you make it for middle separation because it comes as a standard NC ejection rocket. Still I have to say I like the overall improved look way better.

Other:
When I built the original kit I learned one thing: the original instructions tell you to glue the supplied shock cord to the inside of the airframe. I highly recommend you add a piece of Kevlar® no longer than half the length of the airframe and mount it to the centering ring.