Brief:
The Sparrow is a small flying wing rocket glider that Starlight bills as a "Skill Level 2". I love to launch gliders, so finding one that appeared to be nearly foolproof at such a low cost is a treat! The wingspan of this glider is 11 inches.

Construction:
The components of the kit came in a poly bag and were in good condition when I opened the kit. The fin stock was good quality and pre-cut to size. The nosecone balsa was slightly fuzzy though. The launch lug was paper without the "normal" outer wrap of glassine. The short length of body tube was cleanly cut and in good condition.

The instructions for the kit were straightforward and without any "gotchas". The first step is to glue the nose cone into the body tube. I did this with Titebond yellow glue, making sure to coat the back of the cone before inserting it to protect it somewhat from ejection gasses. The next step is to attach the wing tips perpendicularly to the main wings. After the glue has dried, then the wings are flipped over and glued to each other, thus producing the necessary dihedral. The wings again were bonded with Titebond but tacked in place with CA. Finally, the body tube and launch lug are glued to the wing assembly.

Finishing:
Usually I launch my gliders without paint. The Sparrow comes with a nice clean looking design and decals, but I chose to go with my normal approach. The light tan of balsa and paper makes it a little tough to find your gliders when they land in the sand of the local launch field here, but it adds no weight...

I sanded the wings smooth and rounded and tapered the edges. I filled the fin seams with lightweight spackle and sanded again. Since the nose cone was balsa and a little fuzzy, I coated it with a couple of coats of CA, sanding between. This helped make it much smoother and more resistant to damage.

Construction Rating: 3 out of 5

Flight:
After several test tosses, I had the glider trimmed out with a bit of clay glued in place in the joint of the right wing. The glider had a shallow glide with a slight turn to it so that it would hopefully circle and not fly off into the sunset...

Like most rocket gliders, the Sparrow is a cinch to prep. Just stick the motor and igniter in and you are ready!

This little glider really gets up and moves on the recommended 1/2A motor! I lost the glider off the pad--it was moving so unexpectedly fast! Sorry, no launch pictures on this one! I just can't keep it in the frame at takeoff, even after several tries! I caught up with the glider right before it kicked the motor casing with a bang! The glider had a nice straight boost on this flight but seems to weathercock slightly when there is a breeze blowing.

Recovery:
Like most flying wing designs, the Sparrow is a little tricky to trim. I still haven't gotten it to the point where it will "linger" in a smooth, slow glide. In my initial glides, the descent has been fairly rapid and somewhat steep although the glider has taken no damage so far. It looks like a little bit more tail weight is probably required for the boosted flights than what is for the hand tossed test flights. A little bit of ejection charring and build up is showing up in the body tube, but this is not unexpected and is easily sanded out.

Flight Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary:
The Starlight Sparrow is an extremely easy to build rocket glider, probably getting its skill level 2 rating more from the touchiness of trimming the glider than from difficulty of construction.

As of the time of writing the review, the list price for the kit is less than $6.00 and it can be found at discount retailers for below list if you look around. This is a great value for what you get with the kit. It's practically foolproof as an introduction to gliders and a lot of fun.

The only minor CONs to the kit are that the nose cone was a little rough probably due to the balsa being a little soft and it was a little more difficult to trim than expected.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5