Construction Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
Flight Rating: | starstarstarstarstar_border |
Overall Rating: | starstarstarstar_borderstar_border |
Diameter: | 1.52 inches |
Length: | 23.00 inches |
Manufacturer: | LOC/Precision |
Skill Level: | 3 |
Style: | Sport |
Brief:
The LOC/Precision Aura is a tough, quick building, inexpensive, midpower model
rocket with streamer recovery.
Construction:
The kit came in a bag with: 1 heavy duty body tube, 1 thick plastic nose cone,
3 pre-cut 1/8" ply fins, 1 shock cord mount and elastic shock cord, 1 5ft
long streamer, 1 29mm MMT tube, 1 1/4" launch lug, and 2 paper centering
rings.
The kit goes together fairly quickly as the instructions are on the header card that comes with the kit. The instructions have only the steps you need in order to build the kit, meaning they tell you the order and "odd" steps that are not normally in a kit. I do not like the shock cord mount--it is a nylon braided string that you fold, stick a piece of tape to, and epoxy into the airframe. You can use the streamer only if you peel off the glassine layer of the body tube and fiberglass the fins on tip-to-tip. I didn't do this and I now have to reattach the fins every time I fly it. (I tried using a chute, but it just gave me a long walk.) The fins go on easy and the body tube is pre-marked. Everything fits and it is the sturdiest thing around when complete.
Finishing:
Finishing is easy until you get to the nose cone. I sprayed three coats of Kilz
primer on, then flat white, then orange on the body, and yellow on the fins and
nose cone. The nose is annoying because the paint doesn't stick!
Construction Rating: 4 out of 5
Flight:
For a rocket's first flight, I either deck it out or go soft. I went soft with
a D12-3.
I put on a LOC 18" chute, but the lines burned away and it just fell to the ground. Damage was not bad as the nose just stuck in the ground and a fin got buried and snapped off. It made 8 more flights then tried the chute one more time. It just gave me a long walk over a fence and into a parking lot where a car almost ran it over.
Recovery:
The recovery is fine, and it is just like how Tom Wolf describes the failure to
deploy the parachute after the ejection seat fires in a jet fighter: it begins
to be so fast that you'd think it is a missile! The kit needs mods to survive.
The kit would get a 5 for flight/recovery, but the streamer takes that away.
Flight Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary:
PROs: It gets up there fast and is very sturdy.
CONs: It gets down fast and the shock cord should be mounted to the rear centering ring.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5
The Aura was my first rocket from LOC/Precision and I would consider it their entry level kit considering the size, ease of build and price. It is a basic three-fin-and-a-nose-cone (3FNC) kit with a 29mm motor mount. Although the kit comments indicate that the "kit is recommended for those with previous model rocketry building experience", it is a very easy kit to assemble. The ...
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E.S. (February 1, 2000)