Little bit of a story with this bird. I bought this at a Hobby Lobby half off sale with the sole intent of selling it on eBay for more rocket funds.
I never like the look of the kit, after sitting on the shelf for a week it really began to grow on me, until eventually I caved in and built it.
This is one of Estes' Skill Level 4 kits, which means it's more difficult to build. I didn't think the build was all that tough but finishing the rocket was complex.
I searched the web and found that this rocket was done in many different color schemes, I came across this one and good documentation/pictures of it and chose to go with this paint scheme.
It was difficult, everything had to be painted and masked off, as you can see there are many seems where the black and white paint comes together, not to mention measuring everything out ahead of time to get the correct placement. After paint was completed there were a few decals to be placed on and it was finished.
This is a 4" diameter rocket and Estes shows a finished weight of 12.5 ounces, ours was built stock with no extra modifications using CA glue and it came in finished at 14.3 ounces.
I then began to understand all the horror stories I'd heard from others on this kit when flying it. The D12 and E9 motors they were putting these up on just didn't have enough power to lift the weight, or overcome the drag produced by a 4" rocket.
About this same time Aero Tech (AT) came out with a new 24mm F motor. The F21 White Lightening.
We acquired some of these motors and decided to give it a try. Just before our flight we watched another one of these go up under D power and it was a marginal flight at best.
We loaded up an F21-6 and let her rip, she came up off the pad quickly and straight with no problems for a great flight. This is the only motor ours will go up on in the future, they're a good match. This should also technically put this bird in the Mid Power category.