| Construction Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
| Flight Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
| Overall Rating: | starstarstarstarstar |
| Published: | 2023-12-07 |
| Manufacturer: | Animal Motor Works |
Brief
I bought this kit from AMW at LDRS 36 at MDRA. They told me it was the first Blue Baboon kit they had sold.
It is a blue fiberglass 3 inch diameter kit with a black fiberglass nose cone and fins. It is a dual deploy kit with a 54mm motor mount tube.
Components
It has a fiberglass spiral wound black nose cone with a black fiberglass tip pre-glued to the nose cone.
The payload tube is a spiral wound, blue, 3" diameter tube.
The coupler is 7" long and a 1" switch band tube included.
The booster tube comes with precut slots for the three fins.
The fins look like two pieces with a slot between but are actually a single piece fin designed for through the tube construction.
The motor mount tube, centering rings, av-bay caps and nose cone coupler and end cap are all fiberglass. The tubes are blue fiberglass, and the rings and caps are the same 1/8" black fiberglass as the fins.
There are no other parts included in the kit.
Construction
I had not issues building this kit.
It did not include any instructions.
The parts all fit quite well. No excessive sanding or modifications were required.
There were no "gotchas" involved, but only if you know and understand construction of fiberglass HPR kits. You could introduce a "gotcha" if you didn't assemble thing correctly.
Finishing
There were no decals with this kit and no instructions on assembly or finishing.
I have never painted this kit since it is made of nice blue tubing and black nose cone and fins.
Flight
There are no recommend motor for this kit. You can put anything up to the longest 54mm motor that will fit in it. It is a HPR kit so the buyer should know what minimum motor can be used.
How hard it is to prepare for flight is going to depend on how you build it, how you build and outfit your av-bay, etc. I set up my nose cone with a 38mm MMT inside to hold my GPS transmitter.
I reached 11,660 ft with a Pro54 6G K motor. It flies straight and true with no wabble, coning, or tilting with the wind.
Recovery
There was no recovery included in the kit. I use a 12" drogue chute and a 53" golf umbrella as a main chute. No problems or issues with recovery.
Summary
This has become one of my favorite rockets. It's a great L2 rocket for the east coast with limited COAs and recovery areas. It will get up to near 15,000 ft on the largest available 54mm motors that fit the kit. It's tough and dependable. Years of flights and transporting half way across the country hasn't impacted it at all. I would highly recommend this kit.
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