Brief:
Another "retro" kit re-introduced bigger and better than the original. QModeling has put together a beautiful kit that's fun to build and draws lots of WOWs at the pad.

Construction:
The components come tightly packed in a triangular Priority Mail tube. In my kit, they might have been packed a bit too snugly, as a couple small balsa brace sections were broken. Unlike their first kit (Mega Vega), this kit does not come with a parts list, however, like their first kit, most parts were bagged in smaller sub-assembly batches, eliminating a lot of the searching for components.

Body tubes are top quality, highlighted by a 24mm foil-lined motor tube. Fin stock is hard 1/8" balsa. Nose cones (4) were all beautiful cast resin with hardly a blemish. Numerous other smaller parts for landing gear pods.

Recovery system is a major upgrade/enhancement to their previous kits--this kit comes complete with a Top Flite 30" nylon chute, 9 feet of 200-lb Kevlar®, and a 9" square Nomex® heat shield, by far the best package I've ever seen in a "standard" kit.

Assembly starts with making a fixture/jig that is used throughout the process to make sure centering rings are squared, tubes & fins are aligned, etc. I found this to be a nice touch, though the illustrations made it a bit confusing, as some of the angles weren't obvious unless you've read ahead to see how the fixture is used.

As with their other kits, the motor mount assembly is comprised of very intricately laser-cut balsa pieces, forming a ring around the motor tube (similar to the Estes E2X plastic enclosures, although lighter and stronger). I was glad to see that the Kevlar® cord is now mounted directly to the motor tube through the forward centering ring (a noticeable improvement to the paper shock cord mounting technique used by other manufacturers). Fit and finish were excellent throughout the assembly.

After completing the motor mount, the primary fin/landing gear assembly begins. QModeling kits use functioning spring-loaded shock absorbers in the landing gear, so this assembly represents a quite a bit of work. The pods are BT-20's with a spring and dowel assembly, held in alignment by 2 centering rings. Using the jig helps keep things positioned accurately. The assembly is then completed by bonding the fins to the wing pods.

Final assembly consists of making a cardstock shroud, mounting the fin/pod assemblies, and then mounting 8 decorative lower fins (see picture) and 3 forward trim fins.

Finishing:
Finishing is fairly easy on this, as the paint scheme calls for a single color (red). I applied a couple coats of primer, followed by a very unsuccessful attempt to go for a metallic finish. I wound up going back to basic red Krylon for the finish.

The decals are waterslides in all white. Caution should be used when applying these, as they have the highest tack of any waterslide decal I've ever used. Once the decal touches the paint, there's very little chance to realign/slide it, and I wound up scrapping two stripes (applying white stripes via hand painting).

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
For the maiden flight, I chose to go with an E9-4. The recommended D12-3 sounded a little too wimpy for such a large, heavy rocket (a tad over 10 ounces). I flew in light winds (3-5 MPH). Flight was slow and straight--I just love the slow-burn E9's! Deployment was right at apogee, though the chute did not fully deploy due to the very long (9 foot) Kevlar® line getting caught around the landing gear. It wound up coming down fairly hard, though on soft grass. This is a very sturdy rocket, and suffered no damage.

I've since flown it two other times, all on E9-4's and had one more tangle and one perfect flight.

Recovery:
This is a beautiful flyer. I might go with a slightly shorter shock cord in the future, but otherwise have no problems with this.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
Another awesome "clone"! It's bigger and better than the original, rugged enough to handle dozens of flights, and a real beauty to look at. The functional landing gear is a very cool feature.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5