Brief:
The Quest E-Z Boost Glider is pretty much your standard boost glider kit with one major exception: the glider works right out of the package. Quest has taken advantage of the technology that allows laser cutting of balsa parts, and the resulting kit takes a lot of the guesswork out of building a kit like this. This can be a huge help for someone who has little or no experience with boost gliders.

Construction:
THe kit includes:

• Body tube
• Motor mount tube
• Nose cone
• Motor hook
• Thrust ring
• 2" launch lug
• 24" streamer
• Kevlar® shock cord
• Elastic shock cord
• Trim clay
• Streamer hang tag
• Laser cut pod pylon (lite-ply)
• Laser cut balsa fuselage
• Laser cut balsa wing
• Laser cut balsa rudder/elevator set

This was a very simple and enjoyable build. I finished the basic construction in a little over an hour and could easily have had the rocket flyable overnight. Directions are easy to follow, well written and are spread out over two pages. After gluing the engine mount and shock cord mount together with Elmer's Wood Glue, I tacked the pod pylon and launch lug to the body tube using LocTite Gel CA. Once these had set, I again used wood glue to make fillets.

Glider construction was a simple matter of gluing the laser cut balsa parts together with wood glue. The pieces fit like you'd expect laser cut balsa to fit, and the only thing you need to concern yourself with is alignment as they dry.

Finishing:
Finishing is great, because there is none! The body tube for the booster is pre-colored and the glider should be colored with nothing as that only adds more weight. Sharpie markers are a much better idea. No decals are included, nor are they needed.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
Sometimes things sound good at first, then not so good after you've had time to give the matter serious thought. Such was the case with my decision to try flying the Q E-Z with a B4-2 engine on fabulous B6-4 Field. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind I knew that flying it on that combination on a breezy day was going to risk losing it, but did I listen to myself? No! That's pretty much why my review is based on only one flight. (But it was one cool flight.)

As is the norm, my rocket activity in the city limits drew the attention of some of the neighborhood kids, which always is nice when you don't feel like chasing down your rockets on a breezy day. The two who witnessed the flight of the Quest E-Z Glider had seen several other flights on the day and weren't quite sure what to make of the glider and booster. I stuck a piece of masking tape around the launch lug to keep the booster off of the blast deflector and attached the clips to the B4-2. One of the kids "volunteered" to press the button for me so that I could get a picture. (A good thing as it turned out.)

The Quest E-Z Glider left the rod flying an arrow straight path and didn't deviate from that path until ejection. At ejection both the glider and pod began drifting rapidly to the south over US-27 and the trees that line the field. The pod dropped rapidly and the glider circled lazily. I was still looking up and didn't initially realize how far they had drifted. I was thinking that they had a whole baseball field for recovery until the glider drifted behind one of the trees and one of my trackers yelled that it looked like it was still going up. I realized that he was right just as the glider left my line of sight behind the tree. I went to the left and tried to pick it up again, but all I could see was blue sky. The tracker then yelled that he had found the pod and made a dash for US-27. Sure enough, the pod sat in the northbound lane, right in the area where tires normally would crush it, but for a change, there was no traffic either way. I stopped my tracker and began jogging toward the pod, sure that at any moment a car was going to crest the hill and kill the pod. That never happened and I managed to save the pod but the glider was long gone.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: The Quest E-Z Glider makes your entry into the boost glide world a painless one. No finishing required. Surprising performance.

CONs: My glider is gone--But what a way to go!

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5