Brief:
The Blink Family is a trio of skill level one rockets that are similar in design but gradually differ in size. For the sake of comparison, Baby Blink favors the Estes Quark while Mama and Papa are stretched and super stretched versions of their offspring.

Construction:
The kit includes:

• 3 hand turned balsa nose cones
• 3 BT-5 body tubes
• 1/16" fin stock
• 2 lengths Kevlar shock cord
• 2 lengths elastic
• 2 mylar streamers
• 2 engine blocks
• 2 small screw eyes

Instructions were clearly illustrated and easy to follow. The assembly should pose no problem for even the most novice of builders. One problem I encountered was a missing fin template, but that was cleared up with a quick email. The only thing approaching a "gotcha" involved the lengths of Kevlar and elastic for the Mama and Papa Blink shock cords. They aren't equal in length and care must be taken to match the right rocket up with the right recovery system. (I didn't, and had to go back and add some elastic to Papa. My fault.) The only special tool that might be found to be useful is a pin drill to make a starter hole in the hardwood plugs in the nose cones. The nose cones are beautiful, hand turned, and they fit precisely. Nicely done! I didn't think of using the pin drill until it was too late and it was quite a fight getting the screws to tap into the plugs.

Finishing:
Finishing was handled in the simplest manner possible. Before attaching the fins I coated all three body tubes with thinned Elmer's Fill N Finish and sanded to hide the light tube spirals. This also has the added advantage of giving the fins a little something extra to bite onto when they're attached. After attaching the fins, they were also coated and lightly sanded, then the rockets were sprayed with a coat of white primer. The picture on the kit card showed the rockets painted yellow, but I thought a metallic finish would look better and went with metallic gold. This turned out to be a good alternate choice as it allowed the decals to stand out just enough while allowing me to use up some of the metallic gold that I had to buy for my daughter's social studies project. The water slide decals, which is how it SHOULD be, were sprayed with a thin coat of clear acrylic and attached as soon as they dried enough to wet them. They went on quickly and easily and were themselves the unifying thread that tied this group of rockets together as a family.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
Flight was where I ran into problems, not so much with the rockets themselves but with finding time to actually fly them. The Blink Family was built in the heart of soccer season, which filled up the local fields and kept me running to and from my kid's games. When I'd find myself with an open window to fly, the skies would open and it would rain hard enough to make the neighborhood screwball start working on that big boat he's been working on for years. Finally, a month and a half after finishing the build, I got my chance. When I arrived at VOA I found that only three other die-hard Quarkers had bothered to show up because of the winds. Not to be deterred after a 40 mile drive, I loaded the Baby Blink with a 1/2A3-3T and launched it. The flight was typical for a rocket of this size and I might have retrieved it if we hadn't launched as close to the vegetation as we did. It cocked into the wind, then drifted back to the north at ejection. Unfortunately north is where the tall weeds are and it drifted a long way into the briars. Mama Blink had a much more successful flight, also on a 1/2A3-3T, as the winds had shifted and took her back over the flight line to another, closer briar patch. Her mylar streamer made her extremely easy to locate in the brush even though she landed twenty feet back off the access road. Despite drifting quite close to Mama's recovery area, Papa wasn't as fortunate. The 1/2A3-3T ejection charge apparently wasn't enough to completely clear the streamer from the body tube. This wouldn't have been a problem if he had landed in the briars also, but he chose a head first landing on the access road and wound up with major head trauma.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: When isn't it a good thing to get three rockets for one price? Legitimate level one kits that are NOT RTF (Ready to fly) so your kids might learn something about rocket construction. 'Nuff said.

CONs: Family theme might be considered a little corny, but decals are always optional. 1/16" balsa won't stand up to many hard landings, especially on the free falling Baby Blink.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5