Brief:
This is a single stage three foot tall high performance rocket by a new rocket company in Central Illinois. It uses unusual materials which result in a lightweight rocket which is designed to be fully maintained as the motor mount is removable resulting in full access to all parts of the rocket for post-flight inspections. Ouranos means "Heavenward". I ordered the Outlaw Rockets E-Force from an eBay store along with the Ouranos and I built them side by side.

Construction:
Both kits arrived together in very short order, complete, and ready to build. I was very impressed with the attention to detail as the body tubes were already pre-marked and the motor mount was already assembled. The kit came with a BT-80 (2.56" diameter) airframe, a sealed Styrofoam nose cone/bulkhead, very large pre-cut and sealed styroboard fins carefully wrapped in wax-paper, plywood motor mount that uses a 2 liter soda cap for retention (works perfect), a custom made thin-mil parachute with Kevlar® shroud lines, some decals, very extremely detailed and easy to follow instructions that even cover what not to do, a NAR safety checklist, and various other small parts such as motor mount retention screws and launch lugs all carefully labeled in little resealable pill bags.

I built both of these rockets in one evening while chatting with some friends on the internet. I'd do a little building, check on the computer, go back to building, off and on for a few hours. I was really surprised at how fast and easy these kits came together. I did need the instructions at several points as I had never used materials such as styroboard fins and this type of motor mount. In fact, I have never seen any kits quite like these.

The instructions clearly state that the build is to be done with "Liquid Nails". It comes in a tube a building supply stores and requires a caulking gun. It has the consistency of peanut butter and sets fairly fast and very strong. I later finished fin fillets with yellow wood glue and 30 minute epoxy. I would have used wood glue only for the fillets but I started to run out of time as I wanted to fly them the next morning, otherwise the epoxy would not have been needed.

Finishing:
I shot both rockets with some Kilz white primer. I then used some gold plate on the E-Force and Corvette yellow on the Ouranos LV-34 X. These rockets look really nice when painted as the fins are very large and smooth. They take paint well and look great when done.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
The first flights were on September 11th at Rushing Park in Katy, Texas at an event with the Challenger 498 model rocket club. I selected the recommended motors, an Estes E9-4 for the E-Force and an Aerotech F21-6 for the Ouranos LV-34 X.

The E-Force took off fast and high on the E9 and weather-cocked a bit. We had slight NE winds and it turned a little northerly. Recovery went well and it landed about 500 feet North of the pad in a dry drainage ditch and much to my surprise when I found it, it was standing up on the fins!

The Ouranos LV-34X took off real fast on the F21 and also weathercocked a little in the same direction. Unfortunately, the ejection charge was not powerful enough to eject the chute as I used too much dog barf wadding that was still in clumps and it diluted the charge too much. The rocket with nose cone ejected came down about 700 feet north of the pad and sustained minor damage to the top of the airframe that can be repaired. This failure was not the fault of the rocket, and I have learned not only to use less dog barf but to break up the clumps. The rocket still had half of what I put in it when I got it home to inspect it.

Recovery:
I can not comment on the recovery systems that came with the kits as I did not use them. They look to be more than sufficient yet I had some spare nylon chutes that I clipped in at the last minute the morning before launching these.

Flight Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary:
I am very pleased with both the E-Force and Ouranos LV-34 X rocket kits. They were inexpensive, arrived very fast, and I really enjoyed building them. I learned about different materials and construction techniques that I have never seen before. The rocket kits were advertised as being "based on 15 years of experience and testing", and I believe that. Its quite obvious that someone has refined these kits in great detail. They remain simple to build and come out strong. The finished models are very interesting looking with the large fins, yet are very light, and I am very impressed with how you can easily remove the motor mounts after flights. In fact knowing that I would be able to take the rocket back apart with a simple small Phillips head screwdriver when I got home, I didn't even glue the shock cord onto the motor mount I just tied it onto a nut at the top of the motor mount. Taking the mount out after flights lets you see what happens inside a rocket after it has flown. That's a very nice feature. I am impressed with these kits, they were well worth the price, and were fun and educational to build. I highly recommend them.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5