Construction Rating: | starstarstarstarstar |
Flight Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
Overall Rating: | starstarstarstarstar |
Manufacturer: | Vaughn Brothers |
Brief:
The Javelin is a single stage 29mm rocket with a nice sleek 3 fin design.
Construction:
The Javelin comes with a nice set of directions and LOC-type 2.56" tubes, 62" total length. Three G-10 fins for through-the-wall construction are provided. The rocket has a good size payload section which could easily house an altimeter although I didn't build it that way. Plywood bulkheads and centering rings are provided and are good quality. A steel eye bolt is provided for the upper bulkhead to attach the shock cord to. A good length of elastic/braid shock cord is provided as well as a piece of nylon cord for a shock cord attachment loop. A nice long plastic nose cone is provided and fits nicely with the overall sleek outline of this kit.
Instructions provided are good for an experienced builder and a nice overall engineering type drawing of the rocket is provided. Nice if you have to re-build any of the rocket from some flight mishap! A straightforward build makes a sturdy kit. I added two "T"-nut motor retainers on the rear centering ring since I am not a fan of "tape" motor retention.
This was to be my Level 1 rocket so I took my time and did a thorough job of fin fillets using a mix of milled glass with 20 min. epoxy. This was my first G-10 fin rocket and I was careful to sand the fins with 150 grit sandpaper where the fillets would be to make sure good adhesion was obtained with the epoxy.
Finishing:
Pretty much standard finishing, tube spiral filling required. I painted my rocket with a bunch of primer coats, primarily to fill those spirals! Then gave it a bright yellow paint job with a black gloss nose cone and hornet like stripes coming down the upper part of the airframe, it looks cool!. No decals were included.
Construction Rating: 5 out of 5
Flight:
My first flight with this rocket was my Level 1 and I chose an H128 White Lightning RMS motor. The launch was straight and fast! It went ~2100' (based on the Rocksim simulations).
My next flight was with another H-128 and this time things went sour, a failed delay insulator caused a motor burn-through when the thing was ~150' up. This zippered the upper airframe but the rest of the rocket was intact despite a free fall without a chute from 150'. I cut out the damaged section, added a coupler and a new segment of airframe and it was ready to go again.
The next flight was on a G75 Black Jack, one of my favorites. This was a really nice moderate speed flight that went ~2200' (see photo).
Recovery:
Nylon 24" purple chute that is just right for the rocket. I would down-size if I was putting an I200 in the thing so I would get it back, it's a light rocket (28oz).
Flight Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary:
Nice sleek sturdy kit that flies great.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
This is a nice mid-power kit. I used it for my L1 cert. A single stage bird that recovers via 'chute This kit is pretty straight forward. It was the first HP type kit that I had built so I did not understand the instructions real well at first in regards to the "LOC-type" attachment in the body tube for the shock cord mounting. Other than that the kit goes together easily and is ...
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