The rocket is 46" tall and 1.637" in diameter. It uses a plastic nose cone and balsa fins. It uses a plastic nose cone and balsa fins. Both 24mm motor mounts have motor hooks. There are two couplers to allow the booster to connect to the sustainer and another to connect the two sections of the main body tube. An elastic shock cord and a 18" metallic mylar parachute make up the recovery system. There is also a single water-transfer decal sporting the name Lightin' in black, purple and yellow.

CONSTRUCTION:

There are four pages of construction instructions but I get the feeling that a page or two was missing. Each step is accompanied by an illustration that helps ensure a successful build. The instructions are in logical order, however, they seem to stop right after connecting the parachute. There is no mention of finishing or this application of the single decal or flight instructions. It bought another Custom kit at the same time and looked at it's instructions and found that kit's instructions touching on everything that seemed to be missing. The kit is rated skill level 3.

Assembly of Lightnin'™ was basic and straight forward. The fins are cut out of a sheet of balsa that had been premarked. There are a total of eight fins that are all exactly the same, four for the sustainer and four for the booster. Care needs to be taken in aligning the booster fins to the sustainer fins.

The recovery system is a standard 3-fold paper mount for the elastic shock cord which is then tied to nose cone. The shroud lines are cut into three equal lengths and then are attached to the pre-cut mylar parachute using round stickers. The parachute is then attached to the nose cone.

To start the finishing process I used CA to seal each of the balsa fins. I then used Plasti-Kote primer to fill the tube spirals and to make the entire rocket smooth. I then painted the entire rocket with a gloss black. The sample paint scheme on the packaging shows the upper section painted in a midnight blue and the remainder of the kit painted in black. Lastly, the decal was placed onto the rocket.

Overall, for CONSTRUCTION I would rate this kit 3 points.
 

FLIGHT/RECOVERY:

Loaded the Lightnin'™ with a D12-0 booster and a D12-7 sustainer motor as recommended by Custom. First flight was excellent to watch. The booster carried the rocket to about 100 feet and had a perfect transition to the sustainer. The sustainer was carried to apogee and ejected the parachute. The rocket fell rather quickly but was recovered with no damage to the rocket. The reason it feel so quickly was that two of the shroud lines pulled out from under the stickers holding them to the parachute.

After it's maiden voyage, the booster no longer slid into the sustainer without a lot of force. This was remedied by some light sanding of the coupler tube. Then after replacing the parachute with an Estes' 18" parachute, the Lightnin' was ready to go again.

The second flight also had a successful staging at about 100 feet. The sustainer continued on and showed some oscillation as it slowed to apogee. However, at apogee the parachute was deployed. Unfortunately, due to a brisk wind, the kit was carried away. It was carried so far that it was lost in neighboring trees. Not to be found.

For FLIGHT/RECOVERY, I would rate this kit 2 1/2 points primarily due to the recovery system. The kit flies great and if I hadn't lost it, I would use a spill hole to control the descent rate.

Overall, the Lightnin'™ is a good looking two-stage rocket that flies on "D" motors. This makes it a nice kit for someone looking a higher powered two-stage rocket but still be quite easy to build. I give the kit an OVERALL rating of 3 points.