Brief:
A great scale model of the U.S. Air Force's Advanced Medium Range Air-Air Missile (AMRAAM) AIM-120. Nothing very special. It has been Out Of Production for a couple of years.

Construction:
The AMRAAM came boxed and undamaged. It included:

• 1 Nose Cone NC55
• 2 BT55X11 Slotted Body Tubes
• Tube Coupler
• 2 Clay Weights
• Engine mount parts (18mm)
• Recovery parts (18" Parachute)
• 8 Precut fins on balsa sheets
• Balsa Conduit Strip (extra decoration)
• Launch Lugs
• Sheet of 34 decals

This was a BETA Series (Skill Level 1) rocket from Estes.

The only tricky part I had was aligning the 2 body tubes together so I didn't have crooked fins, otherwise construction was nice and easy. I finished the kit in about 1.5 hours.

PROs: Ease of build, good quality of parts. Very sharp looks after decals.

CONs: Alignment was tricky, so many decals,

Finishing:
PROs: Easy to paint. Mine came out absolutely beautiful. My best job with spray paint. Looks very good when finished

CONs: There are lots of decals. I misplaced some of them.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
First and only flight so far was on an Estes B6-4 on New Year's Day. I actually got this flight on video.

Preflight prep is typical Estes. It uses around 4-6 squares of wadding and a basic engine hook for motor retention.

The flight was very straight with very little weathercocking, however, it drifted a little.

Recovery:
PROs: 18" chute brought it down in one piece. No damage.

CONs: None.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
This is an excellent rocket kit. I recommend it to just about anyone.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5