Brief:
Quest Lightning Kit, Skill Level 1, 14” parachute recovery, plastic fin unit, Length 18.5 Weight 3 oz, Max Altitude 1200’, motor list A6-4, B6-4, C6-5, C6-7

Construction:
I was looking for an easy and cheap kit to start my nephews on. I wanted a Level 1 kit with a plastic fin can to make the building as easy as possible. My nephews have very short attention spans and I did not want them to get bored while building and I wanted to finish them in one evening. I thought about some of the Estes Kits but they tend to run a few dollars higher per rocket than Quest. Also I have never built a Quest and wanted to check out the quality.

I ordered the kits from Discount Rocketry and got them right away, I opened them to check them out and found all of the parts present in each kit. I was pleased with the quality of the parts and the instructions. I found these kits to be on par with the Estes kits that I had built.

My nephews came over and we got started, this kit does not have the dual cardboard centering rings but a longer, hard cardboard tube that slides down over the motor tube and engine hook. This makes building the motor mount very quick, easy and effective. The motor mount was set to the side to dry and the fin can was glued on after a bit of Star Wars viewing we went back to the kits and glued the motor mounts in. I really like the Kevlar® string with the Quest kits; it beats the old tri-fold Estes method. We then cut out the parachutes and added the strings. I added some fishing swivels to the kit to keep the parachutes from tangling. We had a good time applying the decals and they both came up with their own styles.

Finishing:
Other than the decals, there is nothing else to do to finish the rocket. I guess you could paint it if you wanted to, but it looks good just the way it is. Start to finish it took us less then 2 hours to build with the glue drying time included.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
We had waited until we had a nice windless day to launch. We started with the A-8-3 and had some nice slow flights, we moved on the B6-4, got some good, air and then moved up to the C6-5 and these puppies really flew. We flew each rocket 4 times and never had a problem worse than my bad parachute deployments, my fault. They flew straight and true each time and are ready to go again.

I found the kits to be very robust as two of the flights the parachutes failed to open and the rockets did a tumble recovery and came out fine, ready to fly again.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
The only part of the rocket that was a small problem was the motor tube getting squished by the motor retention wire. The way this centering ring is on the middle of the tube there is nothing to protect the end of the motor tube. The retention wire had a bit too much bend to it and without an engine in the mount it bends the tube at the end. You need to be careful with this or you can end up ruining the motor tube. Pros: Cheaper then Estes, quality parts, easy to build and flies great. Cons: Motor retention needs adjustment, decals could be cut out.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5