Brief:
While the US senate was trying to wrestle a health care reform agreement to resolution before Christmas 2009, the Semroc team was busily rushing out their own little piece of rocketry "legislation", releasing a bit of a mutated kit called the Earmark.

I won't contend that anything "inspired" this, but it does appear to be based upon the Mark kit, which is one of Semroc's retro-repro series that was based upon the G Harry Stine 1961 design. Instead of fins, you get 3 ears, thus the ear-mark.

Construction:
Components are typical top-quality, including:

• Balsa nose cone
• BT-20 body tube
• CR 20/5 thrust ring
• Laser-cut fiberboard fins
• Peel n stick decals
• Kevlar® shock cord
• [note-no recovery device, intended to tumble]

The instructions represent a new slimmed-down approach Semroc is taking, with construction outlined on one side of an 8.5x14 sheet. The parts diagram is in the center, and 9 construction steps circle around it. This is a very simple construction project, certainly a skill level 1.

I do have to point out one neat feature in the instructions, though--Semroc normally tries to include a little background on the kit design and/or company with their products, and in this case the background on the design is quite entertaining and almost worth the price of the kit itself. It traces the mock history of the design, from the standard Mark, to adding pig's ears, which were abandoned when they found they couldn't turn sow's ears into silk purses, finally settling on human ears.

The crepe paper and latex industry did not lobby aggressively enough, and so the streamer and elastic shock cord were dropped from the final design. For those not comfortable with tumble recovery, Semroc offers a TARP option, though the TARP is 120 square feet, which Semroc claims will likely result in short recovery walks since the rocket won't go anywhere anyway.

One other limited edition option related to the kit is the bailout option. For a mere $15,200,000, you can bailout Semroc and create at least 3 new jobs. If you are interested in obtaining carbon credits for this kit, you'll have to read the instructions--it's far too complex to include in this review.

Having brushed up on the history behind the kit, I managed to build the model in about 10 minutes, plus finishing time. Construction starts with inserting the thrust ring using a pre-marked stuffer (dummy motor casing), marking the fin lines using a template on the instruction sheet, and attaching the 3 fiberboard fins. The nose cone gets a screw eye anchor, and the launch lug is centered between a pair of fins.

Finishing:
I finished this similar to my Mark, using metallic red base coat, with metallic gold for the nose, and black trim stripes on the body tube. The fins get peel and stick decals for the ears. Maybe it was just that I was finishing this while watching the bowl games, but to me the decals looked more like potato chips than ears. I'll probably add a few stray hairs sticking out for added realism.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
First flight was on an A8-3. It can supposedly handle up to a C6-7, though without a streamer or chute, I'd think spotting it would be darned near impossible at that point.

The boost was quite fast, straight up, too fast for me to spot any roll. The motor delay looked like it was more like a -2 than a -3, deploying earlier than expected, and certainly well before apogee.

Recovery:
The tumble recovery worked, as there was no damage at all and it did come down pretty gently, though I'd still suggest adding a few feet of streamer to this, not so much to slow the descent, but to spot the little bugger on the way back down.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
It flies well, is certainly an interesting mutation of the basic 3FNC concept. I especially enjoyed reading through all the instructions/background information. The potato-chip-like ears are cute. I'm not sure the TARP option would be a good idea, but I'd certainly pay an extra $0.25-$0.50 to include a small tracking streamer. Who knows? If the added back in a streamer option, it might eliminate the new bailout promotion being offered.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5