The CiCi is a traditional canard-style boost glider. The canard is the name for that smaller front wing, or horizontal stabilizer. A canard-style glider is simply a glider where the canard is forward of the main wing. A boost glider is a glider that boosts straight up like a rocket, and then ejects some part, usually the engine, to change into a glider. This is as opposed to a rocket glider, where no parts are jettisoned, but rather other changes are made (moving the wing surfaces, changing the angle of elevons, etc. ) to make the transition from vertical boost mode to horizontal glide mode.

Upon opening up the zip-lock-bag-style package of the CiCi, I was first surprised by the fact that the instructions consisted entirely of a single 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, printed on one side only! This was particularly surprising for this rocket, considering that the Deltie, also from Edmond's Aerospace, had a 10+ page booklet for instructions. Although sparse, the instructions here are obvious and straightforward. Unlike most rockets, the order of assembly for the CiCi is largely irrelevant. The instructions are fairly complete, except that they never mention trimming the glider, or the supplied lump of clay and what to do with it. Basically, the instructions seem to assume that you have trimmed a boost glider before. The second thing that I noticed about the kit contents was that a piece was missing. The instructions say that there is a small, triangular piece of wood, curved on one side, that can be used to mark a straight line on the engine tube, but there wasn't one in my kit. No big deal, there are of plenty of ways to mark a straight line on a tube. The third thing that I noticed was that another piece was missing: the launch lug. Again, not a show-stopper, since I have some extras lying around, but a rather inauspicious beginning.

The kit itself is quite nice, with thick, sturdy balsa parts that have been precision cut. All parts fit well, and there was absolutely no confusion about how to assemble the rocket. Construction was simple, quick and easy, with no fuss. Full assembly took me about 1 hour, but could be done much faster. Make no mistake, the quality of the parts is first-rate, and the kit was well thought out. The only time I deviated from the instructions was with the clay. I added a small amount (about the size of pencil eraser) to inside of the corner formed by the main (rear) wing and the left vertical stabilizer. The purpose here was to make the CiCi tilt left a little bit in flight so that it would glide in circles, rather than in a straight line. You want it to glide in circles so that it stays on the flying field. (Note that these pictures were taken before I added the clay. )

The instructions don't mention it, but I attempted some hand-tossed glide tests prior to flight. Hmmm. . . it glides ok, but flies and lands in a rather nose-down attitude. Nose-down enough that the balsa nose cone hits before the front edge of the canard. Perhaps a small amount of weight in the rear might help. I added a small amount of the supplied clay (again about the size of a pencil eraser) to the inside of the corner formed by the fuselage and the main wing. More hand-toss glide tests. Hmmm. . . a slightly better glide attitude and landing, but still noticeably nose-down, and there was no discernible arc to the left (so that it will glide in circles). I added just a tiny bit more clay to the inside of the corner formed by the main wing and the left vertical stabilizer. After a couple more throws, I still couldn't discern any arc to the left, but I didn't want to add too much weight for fear of adversely affecting the flight characteristics. Time for some real flight tests.

It was a pretty nice day for launching rockets. Moderately windy, but not too bad. I was anxious to try out the CiCi, so it was first in line. I figured the light weight of the rocket, combined with the moderate wind and the fact that this was the maiden flight, dictated using an A8-3.

It was a good, quick boost, as you can tell from the blur it gives in this photo, even with 400 speed film. In spite what this photo of the early flight path might indicate, it was, overall, a fairly straight boost to, oh, maybe 150 feet or so (I didn't measure it). Even though it arced over on its back after burnout, it make a smooth, controlled transition to right-side-up glide. The glide was ok, but still with a bit of nose-down attitude, and it definitely falls faster than a Deltie. It made about 1 3/4 circles before landing. . . with a crack. Uh-oh.

As you can see from this photo, it snapped clean in half on landing. Note that although it's photographed here on cement (for clarity), it did land in the grass when it broke. Disappointing, but not the end of the world. A bit of thin CA, and she'll be good as new.

Also visible in this photo is the slight blackening in the forward half of the center of the main wing. This is just soot from the black powder, not scorching of the wood. A bit dirty, but not a safety concern.

Unfortunately, the second flight, under nearly calm wind conditions, was an exact duplicate of the first. The A8-3 gave a good, straight boost, with a nice transition to glide, a decent but slightly too rapid, nose-down descent, and a landing with a crack. Broke clean in half again, this time about 3mm further rearward (CA is strong stuff).

Warning! Do not try the following with your model!Being a bit of a tinkerer, I thought I'd make a more serious attempt to fix that nose-down attitude. So, prior to the third flight, I sanded an airfoil into the top of the canard. I left the bottom of the canard completely flat. I left the bottom of the canard completely flat. The idea was to have this canard generate more lift, and thereby lift the nose in flight, giving a flatter glide. Hand-tossed glides didn't show any visible difference, but I was confident that it would be noticeable at speed. DO NOT TRY THIS WITH YOUR MODEL! The airfoil was much too severe, and caused the model to arc over under power and plow into the ground at full speed! Ironically, the damage was only slightly worse on this flight, with a small piece breaking off of the canard as well as the model snapping in two at the usual spot. If your model also breaks on landing, and you want to try to airfoil the canard to help that situation, start with a very slight airfoil, and perform actual launches before sanding any further.

Overall, I give the CiCi a 3 out of 5 points. The kit itself gets a 4 out of 5 points, having high quality parts, but missing a couple minor pieces. The instructions should include trimming instructions, but were otherwise adequate, despite their brevity. The construction gets a rating of 4. 5 out of 5 points being simple and straightforward. The flights (before the airfoiling, at least), were both excellent, rating a 4 out of 5 points. Of course, the big downer was the recovery, particularly the landing damage, which is easily fixed, though not easily avoided. The recovery gets a 1. 5 out of 5 points.

I'll probably repair the CiCi again when I get a chance. If you're looking to buy your first boost glider, I'd have to recommend the Edmond's Aerospace Deltie. But, the CiCi certainly has the potential to be a great boost glider, perhaps as your third or fourth boost glider model.

Brief:
The Edmonds CiCi is a small, very easy to build boost glider that ejects the spent motor casing when the ejection charge goes off. The parts are laser cut and fit together perfectly.

Construction:
Here's the parts list:

• 8 laser-cut balsa pieces
• 1 balsa nose cone
• 1 motor tube
• 1 l/8" launch lug

That's it!

The instructions were illustrated and very easy to follow. The instructions consist of a single one-sided 8.5" x 11" sheet.

All of the glider parts are laser-cut balsa and they fit together perfectly. The parts are entirely cut out, with no trimming or separating from a balsa sheet needed. It would be possible to end up with some parts misaligned but taking care to make sure the pieces don't "droop" out of alignment until the glue is dry is simple enough. In fact, I pretty much just held them in place by hand for a few minutes and that was good enough to keep everything aligned until the glue was dry.

One possible "gotcha": When the nose cone is installed, it looks like it's partially blocking the vent hole in the side of the motor tube. To supposedly "fix" this, I carved quite a bit of balsa from around the nose cone shoulder in order to open up the vent hole. After I did this and glued the nose cone on, I contacted Rob Edmonds by email, who told me that the vent hole is supposed to be about halfway obstructed by the nose cone shoulder. Oh well. As it turns out, this doesn't seem to make any appreciable difference either way. My sons and I have built three CiCi's, have flown two of them, and the motor ejected just fine from both of them.

The motor tube is glued to the top of the front of the fuselage. It is possible to misalign so it's not pointing precisely straight ahead. The launch lug is glued onto the side of the fuselage and against the motor tube, so the lug is automatically aligned by those two parts.

I've managed to build CiCi's with the vent hole on the same side as the launch lug as well as on the opposite side but that doesn't seem to make any difference in flight. I'd probably recommend having the vent hole on the opposite side from the launch lug, but I don't recall what the instructions say to do.

I used Aleene's Original Tacky Glue (in the gold bottle) for all construction. It's similar to Elmer's white glue but is thicker and supposedly doesn't shrink when it dries.

Finishing:
I absolutely love the finishing of the CiCi. There is none! Flying them bare and without being airfoiled is recommended. That's right up my alley.

You can "finish" the CiCi by coloring it with a marker or highlighter if you like and for the sake of improved visibility.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
My first CiCi flight was on an Estes A8-3. My main problem was not knowing how loosely the motor should fit in the motor tube in order to eject properly. I probably spent ten minutes, using very slightly larger and larger strips of masking tape on the motor, to get it just tight enough that it wouldn't fall out on the launch pad with the igniter clips hooked up.

Flight was perfectly straight up to maybe 100 feet, although I'm a poor judge of altitudes. The motor ejected perfectly, didn't hit anyone, and the glider performed a nice flat glide into the grass.

Second flight was on an Estes C6-5. Boost was good but the CiCi arched over considerably before the motor ejected. The glide was again very nice and the landing was in the grass.

Third flight was on an Estes C6-3, as I thought the long delay of the C6-5 had caused the glider to arc over before ejecting the motor. On this flight too though, the glider arched over quite a bit before ejecting the motor and transitioned into a nice glide down into the grass once again.

Recovery:
There was no damage whatsoever other than some grass stains on the leading edge of the wings. No burning or scorching, no cracked or broken fuselage, nothing.

The only possible CON would be the fact that the motor is ejected from the model and free falls to the ground. Every CiCi flight should probably be a head's up flight for this reason.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
I really like the CiCi. These flights were trial runs for an upcoming Cub Scout event, the Pack 1283 Rocket Launch 2005 coming up this June. I've purchased enough CiCi kits for all of the Cub Scouts in my den to build one for himself. Rob Edmonds has a great pricing program for schools and scouts. Just go to his website to take a look.

Main PROs: Very simple to build, perfect alignment of laser-cut parts, cool flight profile.

Main CONs: Ejecting the motor to freely fall back to the ground at burnout. This doesn't particularly bother me, but I know some people object to "spitting" a rocket's motor without a streamer.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5