Brief:
The Star Destroyer is a big plastic model of the classic workhorse of the Empire, and a "Flight Probe" which holds the engine, parachutes, etc.

Construction:
The Star Destroyer is not a complex model. It is essentially two projects - one is a simple 34" x 1" finless rocket - body tube, shock cords, parachutes, nose cone, engine mount. The other is a simple plastic kit, comprised of only 14 parts, that need to be plastic cemented together. You can remove the nose and center engine of the display model and slide the flight probe through the kit to make it ready for launch.

Flight Probe: The flight probe is 34" long, with a short engine-mount tube and two longer main body tubes. The two main tubes are connected with a plastic coupler which has slots for two shock cords to be tied. After tying the shock cords to the coupler, the instructions say to pass the cords through the second tube and then put plastic cement on the tube, being sure not to get any plastic cement on the shock cord. This is far easier said than done. A second pair of hands to hold the cords taut would have helped, but this was a surprising tall order in any case. The nose cone comes in two halves, and the instructions have you fill the whole thing with clay - it's the most nose weight I've yet seen.

Plastic Body: The plastic kit is very easy to put together. I found troubling that the two halves of the kit don't fit together perfectly - there is a very slight gap between them. This gap disappears when the decals are applied, however. The crack-and-peel stickers fit reasonably well, and are applied to the sides and back of the model. One sticker was damaged in my kit. The body is clearly a toy - not meant to look that much like the movie Star Destroyer, but it still looks very cool sitting among my 3FNC rockets.

Finishing:
The only finishing required is the application of about 30 stickers to the side, back, and top of the kit so the untextured parts of the body look like they have windows and other details. There is no painting or sanding required. I did just a little bit of sanding on the nose cone, where the halves came together.

Construction Rating: 3 out of 5

Flight:
The Star Destroyer uses a D12-3 motor. The Star Destroyer is very heavy for an Estes kit - around 250g 8oz) without the motor. I think it may have been designed with their E15 as their target engine. Though I had forsworn composite motors as too expensive, this kit would fly much better, I think, 24x70mm composite motor.

The 'Destroyer is a pain to pack for flight. The body tube is only a 1" dia. BT-50. It has going through it two ¼" flat elastic shock cords. Into this, the instructions say to put in SIX squares of wadding. Then you have two 18" parachutes to stuff in there. The coupler which the shock cords attach to is substantially thicker than an ordinary coupler, so there is no way for any of this material to go further than 15" down the body tube. If I were building this rocket again, I'd go with one shock cord and a single, 24" parachute. The shock cords are, of course, very short.

On its first day of life, I flew it twice on D12-3s. The first flight, I angled the rod about 10 degrees into the moderate wind. The 'Destroyer went up less than 100 feet, arcing all the way, and was half-way back down to the ground when the ejection charge went off. No problems after that, and no damage. The second flight, I straightened the launch rod. No problems this time - the rocket went up with a slight spiral. I would guess it went up about 200 feet, and ejected at apogee. It's so heavy that I needn't have worried about excess drift.

Over the next week, I took out one of the shock cords, and tied the two together to make one decent-length cord. I also went ahead and replaced the two 18" chutes with one 24" chute. I flew it twice more. The first flight was fine - the D12 got it up a couple of hundred feet. It weathercocked into the wind a bit and ejected at apogee. The second flight was fine, until ejection. Both the parachute and the engine were ejected. The engine came straight down, while the rocket drifted a ways. I sent a couple of kids after the rocket while I scoured for the engine - I didn't want smoldering black-powder to do anything bad. I couldn't find the engine, but I miraculously stumbled onto the engine hook, which I seemed to have not fastened with sufficient glue.

Recovery:
As mentioned before, the Star Destroyer uses two thick rubber-band shock cords, tied to a tube coupler. These complicate preparation, but worked fine in flight. The wadding can't cover the bottom of the cords, so I am concerned that the cords will be damaged by ejection material. I was thinking of perhaps putting in a piece or two of wadding through the bottom of the rocket, just ahead of the engine to minimize this.

Flight Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary:
This is a large rocket that people like for its recognition factor. I grew up with Star Wars, and I can't help but like flying a Star Destroyer, even if it does have an annoying flight probe. A D12-3 is sufficient for this rocket, but don't angle it at all. It won't go far. If you are a bit ambitious, you might consider putting in some outboard mini-engines - the nozzles are already there. The worst thing about this kit is stuffing both parachutes and shock cords into the tube. One shock cord and a 24" parachute works better, I think.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5