I built a Big Dawg recently, and flew it when my son's Cub Scout pack was invited to Tripoli Nebraska's October launch.

Construction was straight-forward for a through-the-tube rocket. Estes' instructions were very good, however, it appears that the motor tube has been shortened since the illustrations were drawn. They show a three inch tube. The included tube measured 2 3/4 inches, and as a consequence, you may be misled by the drawing illustrating the position of the forward centering ring. Contrary to the illustration, almost no motor tube extends beyond the front of the tube. Go by the measurements, not the pictures! The nose cone came with flashing that needed to be trimmed and sanded before finishing, also the centering rings would not fit in the body tube unless they were turned sideways. They required much sanding before they fit properly. As with any construction project, you need to do a test fit before gluing. Other than that, construction went fine.

As a former model airplane builder from the 60's, I was impressed with the precision of the die-cut fins. The only problem there was that they were thicker than the slots in the body tube, and needed to be sanded to fit. I did deviate from the instructions when gluing the motor tube in. I didn't glue the rear centering ring in until after the motor tube had been glued. This gave access to the motor tube/fin area which allowed me to put glue fillets on all of the inside fin/tube joints. When these were done, I glued the rear centering ring in place. Aero-Tech uses a similar technique on their mid to high powered rockets.

I gave the rocket two coats of gray primer shortly before the launch, but didn't have time to paint it in the black/gold finish that I had planned. This worked out well, I liked the flat gray finish, it gave the rocket a sort of 'militarized' look. Someone at the launch came up and asked me if it was a scale model. It does have sort of V-2 proportions.

I flew the rocket twice. The first flight was on an A8-3, which is a good shake-down motor for a first flight. It doesn't go very high (100-150 feet), but will let you know if everything's working O.K. The second flight was on a B6-4. If you have the space, this would be the minimum recommended motor. It was fast off the launch rod, and climbed high and straight. I had 'reefed' the parachute lines because of the high winds, but in spite of the reef, it still drifted about 300-400 yards. It appeared to come down unscratched, but an over-enthusiastic recovery person (a kid) stepped on it and broke a fin. The fin has been repaired and it will fly again soon.

Overall, I'd rate the Big Dawg a 4. The fit and finish of the parts could have been better, but the problems were fixable. The flights were very good. It flew nice and straight. The recovery system appears to be good enough to prevent damage (the rocket is fairly light). Now I'm eyeing another kit, epoxy, and a 24mm motor mount. With a D or E motor, it might still be airborne when the kids get to the landing site!

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5