Brief:
Quest's Bright Hawk is a good example of a Skill Level .5 rocket. (It's listed as a Skill Level 1, but its plastic fin can makes that a bit of a stretch.) Big and sturdy with a brightly colored plastic fin can and nose cone, it might be one of the better rockets currently available to gradually step up with if your previous experience has all been with RTF rockets.

Construction:
The kit includes:

• Main body tube
• Plastic fin can
• Plastic nose cone
• 18mm engine mount kit
• 12" parachute kit
• Kevlar® shock cord
• Elastic shock cord
• 2 Medium sized snap swivels
• Stick on decal

I bought this to be a quick build and from that standpoint I can't say it was a disappointment. I built the kit as I cooked dinner one Thursday night, stirring the macaroni one minute and gluing in the engine mount in the next.

Assembly involves only a few steps, with the construction of the engine mount being first and foremost. This is where the rocket loses some points. The centering rings are so flimsy that they feel like they're made from something slightly sturdier than heavy bond typing paper. I shored them up with a liberal slathering of thin CA, but the overall effect of the completed mount isn't terribly inspiring from the standpoint of strength.

A Kevlar® shock cord is included as a part of this kit as with all Quest kits. While this is a nice touch from a durability point of view, the elastic that comes along with it is less than adequate. After two of the first five flights I had to repair "Questes dents" in the top of the body tube. Because of this I'd suggest adding some elastic from your mother's sewing basket.

At this point, all that is left is attaching the plastic fin unit to the body tube. All I found necessary to complete this was some thin Testor's Plastic Cement. I placed a few strategically located drops around the inside of the fin unit, slid the painted tube in, and several hours drying time later I was rewarded with a solid bond. I attached the parachute and shock cord to the nose cone with snap swivels, and just that quickly the Bright Hawk was complete.

Finishing:
It was easy, almost to a fault. Tube spirals looked to be non-existent, so I just primed and painted the body tube with Valspar gloss white. Unfortunately the tube spirals were there, I just hadn't seen them under the Kraft paper. Not wanting to put a ton of effort into the finish, I just left things as they were and applied the decals. Nothing fancy but the end result is a sharp looking, brightly colored rocket, and I can't wait to see it fly.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
All five flights were made using an Estes B6-4 on legendary local B6-4 Field. (Or Woodfill as some of the not-in-the-know locals call it.) I had an hour to kill before sundown at the end of a string of beautiful days and recruited my son and the rocket crazy son of a friend to help with the button-pressing to allow me to get some launch shots. All five flights were perfect for the confines of B6-4 Field. Because of some father-son baseball pitch and catch, we were forced to launch further from the center of the field than I would have liked, and I would pay for it with the loss of my Goony Max on the day's second flight. However, the star-of-the-day Bright Hawk lead a much more charmed existence. All five of the flights were angled similarly back over the baseball fields and all rode the prevailing breezes back to, and past, our launch site. Four of the flights were in doubt as to landing in the trees until the last thirty or so feet from the ground, and two actually scraped branches on the trip down. Even with the full chute, none of the flights wound up snagged like the Goony. Only the fifth flight landed without incident when the breezes died down just before liftoff. All five flights showed nice, stable flight characteristics and achieved respectable altitude considering the field limitations that we were under.

Recovery:
As mentioned, we experienced some damage on two of the five flights from the nose cone rebounding back into the top of the body tube. The possibility of this is fairly great if built stock but can be lessened by substituting some sewing elastic from the local craft/hobby or sewing store. Most of my flights also came close to hanging in the trees that ring the field but that was due to pad location and my insistence on flying with a full chute instead of cutting a spill hole in it. (I like it's looks.)

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
The Bright Hawk is a pretty good rocket for the step from RTF to Skill Level One. The only things missing from being a great kit is poor quality centering rings and too short a piece of elastic. While neither of these is instantly or surely fatal, either could cause malfunction or damage. Most of us have extra elastic in the parts bin, but actual Quest-sized centering rings aren't that easy to come by. A coating of thin CA helps add some strength, but Quest would be better served by replacing the thin rings with their regular ones.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5