Picture courtesty of The Launch Pad

Brief:
The Scimitar is a Launch Pad original design that is modeled after military surface-to-air missiles. This rocket is a complex two-stager that uses a cluster of three D motors in the booster and a single D in the sustainer, and includes a nifty on-board battery circuit to ignite the second stage. There are lots of exterior details included in the plans that allow the builder to create a good looking scale-like model.

Construction:
The Plan Pack came in a manila envelope with a cover sheet pasted to the front showing a drawing of the rocket and listing basic details such as length, diameter and recommended engines.

Inside the envelope are two stapled sets of instructions on standard letter-size paper. Part one contains the written Assembly Instructions, and refer to the second part containing the diagrams. These assembly instructions are broken down logically into discrete construction steps, and warnings and other potential gotcha's are printed in bold lettering to make sure you take note. These plans really need to be read through and understood before pulling out the hobby knife, because they are detailed and not always intuitive. At some points in the plans alternatives are presented, and these are best decided upon before beginning construction. The last page of this part are Launch Procedures that will help you achieve perfect launches involving clusters and/or staged flights.

The assembly instructions guide you step-by-step through each phase of construction, right down to rolling your own body tubes. All dimensions are given, and you can substitute commonly available commercial tubes and couplers if desired.

The second part of the plans contains the materials list, another list of the supplies and tools needed to complete the rocket, and many pages of excellent diagrams that correspond to the assembly instructions.

A common characteristic of Launch Pad designs is they are very light for their size. This is accomplished by using Estes-weight materials, and very little (if any) over-building is done. Some believe that this makes for less-than-rugged models, but we have flown several of the Launch Pad kits and they've held up very well to years of use.

Another feature of these kits and plans are the use of paper parts to achieve desired and interesting profiles. The Scimitar has a boat tail and air intakes formed of heavy paper. Shaped balsa is used to create built-up fins, intake diffusers, access panels and conduit runs. A method of using pinheads to create 'rivets' is included for even greater detail.

Although these are 'builders' kits that require greater effort on the part of the modeler to complete, the plans give enough information to ensure success to anyone who follows the directions. Details such as chute templates, shock cord mounting and even how to attach a snap swivel to the chute lines are included.

An experienced modeler will be able to modify these plans with ease to fly as a single stage or upgrade the engines, but care must be taken to make sure you don't alter the CG/CP relationship too much. Real military missiles are often intentionally borderline unstable, and their modeled brethren sometimes exhibit the same characteristics. We've had more than one flight where the answer was (obviously) not 'more power' or 'bigger kick'. I think these designs are susceptible to wind gusts as they come off the rod (or rail - rails are good for these rockets).

This brings up the biggest omission in these plans - the CP. All manufacturers should note the CP of their kits in the instructions. If you have determined the CP for your kits, please send 'em to EMRR for the library, so all rocketeers can benefit.

Overall, this plan pack is a good value. Building it strictly according to plan will teach you some new skills and methods you may not have used before in rocketry. For those who modify most everything (I'm in this group), the design is interesting and a good starting point for your customizations.