Brief:
Squirrel Works is carving a niche for interesting designs, and this futuristic space model is no exception. It flies great on common 18mm motors, and has enough trim and detailing to make for a nice diversion from the typical 3fnc designs.

Construction:
Parts were all very good quality and include:

• Balsa nose cone/screw eye
• BT-50 tube (white/glassine, very light spirals)
• Laser cut balsa fins (4 sets, plus 2 canards)
• 18mm motor mount kit (with engine block/metal hook)
• BT-5 wing pods/tubes (4)
• 1/8" launch lug
• Mylar streamer
• Elastic shock cord
• Waterslide decals

On a 5 scale, I'd rate difficulty on this one about a 2 with the only real challenge being alignment of the multi-piece fins and masking for 2 tone paint scheme. The instructions were well written and easy to follow with a reasonably amount of illustrations.

Construction of the motor mount is straightforward: BT-20 tube + engine block + metal hook + a pair of 20/50 centering rings and you're done.

Construction of the fins takes some care. The balsa parts are laser cut. Rounding the leading edges are no problem, but rounding the trailing edges is a bit tough, due to the curved line. To mount the fins, you first need to mark both the body tube and the 4 pods. There are small outer fins that go on one side of the pods followed by larger "main" fins that go between the other side of the pods and the body tube. If you line everything up correctly, it should look like there are outboard motors inserted into the fins.

After mounting the fin assemblies to the body tube, you then mount a couple of tiny canards towards the forward end of the body tube. On top of these go small pill-shaped pieces that are made from a dowel included in the kit. I found this to be a real pain. The dowel was too tough to cut with a utility knife, forcing a trip to the basement for the Dremel. Next, sanding and rounding the ends is hard to do by hand, so I wound up inserting the dowel into my power drill and using that as a sort of lathe to turn down the ends. This wound up being a lot of work for a couple small trim details.

Recovery cord is elastic attached via a paper tri-fold mount. There was plenty of cord supplied with this kit, which is a nice touch so hopefully there won't be any balsa smiles/dents in my future.

Finishing:
Paint prep consisted of 3 coats of white primer since I went light on the balsa sealer/grain fill. I sanded the first two coats almost completely off, hoping that would take care of filling the grains. (It didn't, but it helped quite a bit.) I then followed up with a couple of coats of gloss white Krylon. After the white had cured for a day, I masked off for the red trim on the fin tubes, pills on the canards, and tip of nose cone. Personally, I hate trying to mask around a cone, and always have trouble holding a straight, even line. If anyone has any tips, please feel free to post them on the EMRR site!

After trimming the red, I applied the waterslide decals. These decals are very good quality. They are rugged enough to be easy to apply without breaking and the clear border material is practically invisible.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
First flight was on a breezy day (10-12 mph) and I started off with an A8-3 to finish off an open pack. It flew fine, got up in the neighborhood of 150-200 feet, and ejected a bit late (at least 1 second but that might have been a problem with my whole pack).

I was running out of daylight and rain was starting to set in, so I didn't get a chance to climb up the power curve. I think this is going to like a B much better and a C on calmer days or in bigger fields.

Recovery:
I thought the streamer was a bit risky versus a 12" chute and was very surprised to see this from the same folks who put a 15" chute in the Astrid, which only weighs about 0.4 ounces more and had me walking a good ways in the similar winds.

Still, the streamer is big, bright red, and brought it down reasonably well on soft grass. In lighter winds, I'd seriously consider switching over to a 12" chute though to avoid damaging the points on the fins.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
Nice design, definitely out of the ordinary, and using excellent quality parts. Squirrel Works makes some nice stuff and is worth a try.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5