Brief:
This is a new Cluster rocket from Estes which has a payload section and a nice parachute recovery system.

Construction:
The kit was complete and well organized. It uses basic Estes components except for two transitions which are new. These are used to expose two BT50 tubes just forward of the fin area. These tubes form the motor mounts and are supported by 4 paper motor mount rings.

This rocket was relatively easy to build overall. The only tricky part was to make the transitions from the BT70 tubes to the inner BT50 tubes. The plastic transitions need to be test fitted several times before gluing to ensure that the tubes all fit properly. I used gorilla glue instead of the plastic cement to glue the plastic transitions to the paper tubes.

The payload transition was a little loose and wobbly and needed a wrap of tape to get a nice firm fit. the nose cone was also loose and a wrap of tape made it fit just right.

Finishing:
Pros: Good instructions, good fitting parts overall

Cons: I thought the Transitions to expose the inner tubes were not required. The aft one leaves an exposed gap around the exposed tubes that would increase the drag.

The other cone is the fins. For me they stick out to far behind the main tube and look like they will need some repair after a few flights.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
I have flown this rocket 3 times now all on D12-5 motors. All three flights have been successful.

An odd thing happened on the first flight. Only one of the two motors attained ignition at lift-off. However, the second motor did ignite a few seconds after lift off. This caused a little trouble when the first motor ejected and the second was still in thrust mode. It appeared that the rocket blew up at that moment however everything worked out fine and after the second motor ejected a big puff of white smoke.

Recovery:
The recovery system is the standard Estes elastic cord and plastic chute. This all worked great.

I will replace the elastic with Kevlar® string when the time comes. Hopefully prior to the flight when the elastic breaks.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
The rocket looks great on the launch pad although I did not do the paint scheme that Estes has on the package.

Good straight flights with a nice recovery.

This would make a great present for a 12 to 14 year old that wants to move up in difficulty.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Brief:
A unique 2 D sized, cluster engine rocket, with a 24" parachute recovery system. This is a large, beautiful rocket. The look had to grow on me a little, my first impression of the look was only so-so, but once it was finished and sitting on my desk. I had totally gotten into this unique look. I can say, that I don't have another rocket quite like it in my fleet.

Construction:
The 36D starts out with a large BT, then a plastic transition to two smaller BTs, then another plastic transition back to the larger BT before reducing again. This really gives this model an eye catching shape!

Construction was straightforward, and easy to follow. Extra care had to be taken during parts involving the plastic transitions. Good construction habits such as double checking instructions, measuring, marking, and re-measuring - are a must when inserting the two BTs with upper centering rings into the upper part of the rocket.

Finishing:
If the you decide to finish the rocket like the picture, it will require some careful planning, and some patient masking. This really is one sharp looking rocket... photos don't do it justice. I choose not to pre-paint anything. After final construction, I painted the black first, then blended the red up top by the nose cone. A few days later I masked the black for the red fins and transitions, then free handed a gray blend at the lower transition. Once thought out, the finish is not terribly difficult to achieve, and is well worth the effort.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
The two D engines make for a spectacular launch. This rocket has flown straight up, several times under varying conditions. A pair of D12-5s seemed to work the best.

Recovery:
I choose to use an 18" home made, nylon parachute - instead of the supplied 24" plastic parachute. Even with the reduction in size, the rocket stayed up there quite a while, and required a bit of a hike to recover. I would definitely recommend the 18" over the 24", unless you want to go for a walk.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
This is a well designed, attractive rocket... and again, no other rocket I have looks quite like it. It is one the straightest flyer I have in my fleet. A very graceful, picture perfect flyer.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Brief:
This is a big hammer-headed rocket for double D-engine power and recovers with a big parachute.

Construction:
Kit came in the typical plastic bag. Consists of:

• Plastic nose cone
• A plastic transition
• BT60 payload section
• 2 BT50 motor tubes
• 2 AR2050 centering rings used as thrust rings
• 2 different lengths of BT70

• One serves as a fin can
• Other serves as a recovery system bay

• 2 motor-retainer hooks
• 2 sets of cardstock centering rings
• A heavy rubber band shock cord
• 2 different sizes of launch lugs (quarter-inch and three-sixteenths)
• Sheet of laser-cut balsa fins
• 24" preassembled parachute
• A pair of plastic shrouds to taper the BT70s into the dual BT50s

I attached the fins with thin CA and filleted with white glue. This is one that really REQUIRES either laser-cut fins or a different fin shape. The fins were all curves. Another virtue to laser-cut fins is that the process seems to require HARD balsa which makes for sturdier fins.

It plugged together very well, all told.

Finishing:
I deviated from the given color scheme, opting for the simpler one shown in my picture. I used tube-type plastic cement as balsa filler on the fins then basecoated the tubes black with spray enamel. The nosecone, transition and shrouds received a coat of red, some from a spray can and some from a bottle of Testor's acrylic.

Very nice waterslide decals, but they were so thin I had trouble with one set intended for the fins and decided to just paint that fin black.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
Flew at my friend Darrell's place.

Flight #1 was on two D12-5s. Stuffed four squares of Estes tissue wadding down each motor tube and laid four more on the floor of the BT70 parachute bay. Jeez! TWELVE SQUARES of wadding per flight! Time to seriously consider a pair of baffles for this bird. Flew like the devil was after it. Straight and true to about 1000ft. Then drifted quite a ways under that 24" chute which popped right at apogee.

Flight #2 was on a pair of D12-7s, with an 18" chute replacing the 24". Same twelve squares of tissue. Really nice straight boost to 975 feet or so, parachute deployment just after apogee which resulted in much less drift under an 18" chute. Lesson learned - use an 18" for normal flights and save the 24" for payloading.

Recovery:
The 36 D Squared came with an Estes rubber band shock cord and their traditionl trifold mount. I went back to an old way - slotted the tube twice across its long axis, threaded the cord through and glued the outer surface. Need to use an 18" parachute for flying with empty payload bay and save that 24" for payload lifting. This beauty is big enough to hold an egg and DEFINITELY powerful enough to lift it.

Flight Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Summary:
Main PROs: Big rocket, easy to see, fairly easy to build, monster payload area.

Only CON: Expensive to fly, both for reasons of two "D" motors and lots of wadding needed. Baffle, baffle, who's got a baffle?

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Brief:
Two 24mm motor cluster, skill level 2, payload section, parachute recovery.

This is a strange looking rocket that only gets stranger the more you think about it, but it is a good performer. It's not too difficult to build but a bit more challenging to paint if you want to use the default scheme on the facecard.

Construction:
Construction begins with the marking of the BT-50 motor tubes. Each tube is marked in 4 places and the second mark from the end is slit with a razor knife for the engine hook. Before placing the hook though, a thrust ring is inserted and glued into place with the provided spacer tube.

With the thrust rings in place, the engine hook is inserted into its slit and a retaining band is slipped on to the appropriate mark and glued into place.

The kit comes with 4 cardboard centering rings perforated for tandem 24mm motors. I poked them out of their framework and sanded off the inner and outer nubs with sandpaper. The bottom ring, the one with an engine hook slot, was slid into place along both motor tubes and aligned with the first mark. The other centering ring was slid onto the other end of the tubes and lined up with the last mark. The rings were glued into place with yellow glue and filleted.

The rocket has two transitions that are meant as fairings betweens sections of BT-70 and the twin BT-50 motor mounts. These come in the form of a single symmetrical plastic molding that must be cut in 4 places. 2 cuts remove a short piece of "spacer" separating the 2 halves and the other 2 cuts remove the excess plastic that fits into the BT-70s. These cuts were made with a hobby saw and the rough edges were treated to some sandpaper. After they were cleaned up, the 2 transitions were slipped onto the assembly around the BT-50s.

With the transitions in place, it was time to mount the remaining 2 centering rings. These are in all respects identical to the first two rings. They needed a bit of sanding to fit around the BT-50s but fit into the BT-70 just fine. They were placed at the marks called for, filleted, and allowed to dry.

While posting a build thread on TRF, I heard that this kit has a history of problems with the transitions fitting into the BT-70s and a workaround described. When I checked I found that indeed the transitions do not fit into the BT-70s. The solution was to cut a pair of notches into the inner sleeve of the transitions, allowing them to be compressed a bit. With that done, the transitions fit fine and were secured with CA.

By the time I heard this, the transitions were already on and the notches had to be cut "on the fly". They are not pretty but they did work.

I decided to skip the entire rubber band and tri-fold travesty and try a FlisKits baffle designed for the BT-70. I started putting that together and then had to wait for it to dry. While it was drying, I worked on the upper section of the rocket.

The upper section is really quite simple. It consists of a plastic shoulder to transition from BT-70 to BT-60, a length of BT-60 and a plastic nosecone. I cleaned the flashing off of the plastic, sanded a bit and fit the pieces together. Although they are meant to form a payload bay, I never fly payloads and used CA to hold the whole thing together.

The next task to tackle was the fins. There were 3 balsa fins that were pretty thick and most notably tough as iron. When I try to sand a profile into fins, I always worry that I am going to snap them. This time I worried about having strong enough sandpaper. They should be sturdy!

I rounded all edges except the root. Then, using the lines transferred from the fin marking guide, I placed the fins with CA. After letting the CA cure, I began filleting with yellow glue.

Then the baffle from Fliskits was ready to install. I found that it fit perfectly in the BT-70. Installation consisted merely of swabbing a glue ring in the body tube and pushing the baffle down into place, making sure that the Kevlar® was oriented in the right direction (towards the nosecone).

Another item that still needed to be addressed was the installation of the launch lugs. There are two of them. One is located on the lower BT and the other on the upper. A line had been marked earlier and I glued them on with the aid of a rod to keep them aligned. That left me ready for finishing.

PROs: Fairly easy cluster build

CONs: Tri-fold and rubber band mount, Fairing shoulders do not quite fit and must be modified

Finishing:
I still had not picked up any Elmer's Wood Filler so I started off the finishing by sealing the fins with sanding sealer. I made sure to shake the bottle well to get all the particulates suspended and started to paint it on. After 2 coats, I gave it a light sanding and applied another 2 coats of sealer. Upon inspection I realized that I needed another 2 coats for a total of 6.

Priming was done with Kilz. I applied a total of 2 coats and then sanded.

The first paint to be applied was Testor's gray. I did not paint the whole rocket, just the lower part where there would be some gray transitions.

Red was the next color to be sprayed. I masked off the areas that remained gray. Again, this was fairly easy and caused no problems. Those could be expected with the black because the black was to be blended into adjacent colors.

I masked off the areas that were supposed to stay red and then set the rocket up on the turntable in my booth. I decided to try and eyeball the black. The middle section was easy because the transitions are sharp and the rocket was masked. Gradually transitioning from gray to black and from red to black was another matter. It was done completely by trying to control my aim and the distance to the target.

It actually turned out better than I had feared but there are a few areas that will see the application of sandpaper to try and remove some of the black. This was my first attempt at something like this and I can only get better at it, right?

I used #600 sandpaper to remove some of the black overspray near the top of the fin can. It did not do a perfect job but from any reasonable distance, the original problem is now hard to see. I decided to let it go at that.

At the end of the paint phase, I was a bit disappointed. It did not look terrible but the rocket did seem kind of plain. Thankfully, the decals to care of that problem.

I was very pleased that this Estes kit has forgone the crack and peels in favor of real waterslide decals. I no longer take that for granted after getting the trashy stuff in my Maxi Brute Honest John. The pleasure only went so far, however.

I started with the silver flames that go on the fins. I found that the decal material was very stretchy and difficult to place. After floating off the backing, it wanted to rip the surface instantly and brushing out the bubbles was time consuming. This was true for both sides of each of the fins. I was not looking forward to working with the big decals on the payload or nose section. The bid decals went on easier though. They slid right into place and were smoothed out with a minimum of fuss.

When all is said and done, the decals really dressed up the rocket to where it looks pretty good. Mine is not as good as the face card but it is perfectly acceptable to me.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
For the maiden flight, I loaded a pair of D12-5s. That almost cost me the rocket. It took off in a flash and just kept going straight up...way up. When the chute deployed, it had plenty of time to drift a long way. I got the right vector for where it came down or I never would have recovered it. My direction was right but the range was way short. When I did find it, it was in great shape and ready to fly again.

For the second flight, I loaded a pair of C11-5s. It too had a perfect but not so extroverted, flight profile. I actually managed to get it back without crossing any highways or barbed wire fences. Again, it was in perfect shape.

PROs: High performer.

CONs: Easy to lose do to extreme height.

Recovery:
As mentioned in the build, I used a FlisKits BAF70 baffle in this rocket. It performed flawlessly. In place of the 18" plastic chute, I used a 15" nylon.

Being a bit suspicious of the baffle, I used a small bit of dog barf for the first flight. I need not have bothered. I did without on the second flight and the system worked perfectly.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
This is a cool rocket that is a good and easy introduction to clusters. It's also nice in that it looks a bit out of the ordinary.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5