Brief:
Humorous rocket poking fun at government earmarks. You should get a good laugh out of the manual.

Construction:

• 1 - Nose Cone (BC-722)
• 1 - Screw Eye (SE-10)
• 1 - Kevlar® Thread (SCK-24)
• 1 - Body Tube (ST-765)
• 3 - Fins (FA-19)
• 1 - Thrust Ring (TR-7)
• 1 - Launch Lug (LL-122)
• 1 - Spacing Tube (MC-727)
• 1 - Humorous Instruction Manual

The Earmark's manual is very funny to read and also easy to follow when you actually build the rocket.

1. Mark the body tubes for fin positions using a door jam or angled piece of aluminum.

2. Tie the Kevlar® thread to the thrust ring and feed it through the motor spacing tube.

3. Glue the thrust ring into the body tube and set the spacing using the spacing tube so that motor casing protrudes 1/4 from the end of the rocket.

4. Remove the fins from their fiber sheet and very lightly sand. Then apply CA glue around the edges of the fins.

5. Glue the fiber fins on to the body tube at the pre-marked line.

6. Once they are dry, apply fillets to the fins.

7. In a similar fashion to the fin prep, add fillets to the launch lugs.

8. Feed the cord back through the body tube and out the top end and then tie it to the nose cone. (As there is no parachute and no streamer, you are done at this point, unless you want to paint it...)

Finishing:
Finishing is quite easy.

9. I primed mine with ColorPlace gray primer. (Three thin coats and then sanding)

10. I painted the body tube ColorPlace Fire Red and left off the black stripe pattern shown in the artwork.

11. I didn't have any yellow paint, so I painted the nose cone with aluminum colored ColorPlace spray paint.

12. After drying overnight, I applied the "ear" decals.

13. Used a black Sharpie marker to color the edges of the fins.

At this point my contstruction and finishing was complete and we headed for the launch site.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
All three flights went great. I used one A and then two B motors. Without a streamer, I did not want to risk losing it. This little rocket really gets up there, even on B motors.

Recovery:
Amazingly enough, recovery when great on all three of our test flights. Chan's suggestion of a streamer for tracking is a good idea. Just a short, shiny Mylar streamer would be great for tracking.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
Very cool rocket with nice humor in the instrcutions. All around fun to build and fly.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5