Brief:
This is a model of the United Stated Airforce 1962 spy reconnaissance plane. Still the fastest and highest flying plane in the world.

Construction:
When I opened the box I was mesmerized at all the pieces to the blackbird and a few I never used before. This is a Estes Challenger level kit. An appropriate classification since it was. This kit can be built with a ruler, hobby knife and white or yellow glue. I recommend yellow and white glue but more on that later.

The reason this rocket is so challenging is that it is a airplane design not a rocket design. The two most frustrating features for me were the paper shroud and the fin alignment. The paper shroud is what makes the rocket look like the Air Force plane. There are actually two shrouds. One goes over the top of the rocket and the other the bottom. My trim job on the shrouds was were I messed up. Use white glue after you trim the shrouds because yellow sets up to fast and you need to micro adjust the shrouds to get a good look. Since I trimmed the shrouds too much I had gapping were the left and right nacelles went. The fin alignment is also tricky because you cut out a little piece of paper from the Estes instructions and that's all the assistance you get. Make sure to use yellow glue on this part for faster set up. Also be cautious joining the balsa fins the body tube and nacelles to ensure proper alignment. Also be extremely cautious trimming and sanding balsa parts or you will get gapping.

Finishing:
The rocket is not yet finished. I am dissatisfied with the looks. I have primed the rocket grey and need to fill in some gaps with wood putty. I am going to fly the rocket before finishing to see if the Blackbird is stable.

Construction Rating: 3 out of 5

Flight:
The SR-71 flew great for all the balsa hanging off of it. That really surprised me, that's why I left the paint job off of it, I thought for sure it would be bottom heavy. But I did put plenty of nose weight in the nose cone. Because of all the wood on it it really reacts to weather cocking.

I had two excellent flight for this bird but I gust of wind carried it into a pine tree on the second flight. A unbelievably nice gentleman climbed the pine tree to get it back for me. I should have gave him a reward.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
If you like building challenging and historically accurate aircraft then the Estes SR71 Blackbird is for you. Very challenging to build , but some very rewarding flights, plus the bonus of having in your rocket collection the fastest plane on earth!

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

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The Estes SR-71 Blackbird kit is a model of the famous spy/recon plane retired from service a few years ago. This rocket is skill level 3, and difficult to build, as slight misalignments make the rocket spin or turn. 

The rocket came in good condition with all parts in good shape and the balsa fins cut well.The instructions were well-made for the complexity of the kit and templates for aligning the fins were included. 

The construction of the rocket was in several stages -first the outside wings came in 2 odd-shaped pieces and had to be glued together and lots of care must be taken to get these pefectly straight or gluing them to the engine pods becomes very difficult.Then the part of the wing that attaches the engine pods to the fuselage is glued on using the included jigs to make sure they are horizontal. 

Then, 2 pieces of thin cardboard need to be curved over the fuselage tube and onto the inner wings to make the shape, and this is extremely difficult to make the shape look decent.The cardboard comes with small tabs that are to be wrapped over the ends of the balsa inner-wings, but I cut those off as it proved to be too difficult to keep them in place. 

After the shaping cardboard is on, the engine pods are glued on.These are simple to attach, but I suggest CA-ing them on and reinforcing them with epoxy as one good landing will most likely rip one off.Then the top, bottom, and side fins are attached to the engine pods using the included templates to get the angle right.  Much care must be taken to get these straight as any misalignment tends to make the rocket turn a little, and if the outside wings are slightly misaligned the rocket spins (although misaligning them on purpose makes for great excitement!)... and construction is finished. Rating: 4 points (time consuming)

First flight I used a B6-5 and flight was smooth with about 180 degrees of roll although not very high.A C6-5 proved to be much better and the flight was beautiful. Get ready to run though, because flight can be interesting and the rocket can bank and turn if there is wind, and end up a couple fields down.For even more fun launce it at a sharp angle with a small A engine and watch it fly, showing the characteristics of the bird it is modeled after=) Rating: 5 points

Recovery is with a 12" plastic chute, and it's a mission to get it cramed into the body tube with the wadding and get the nosecone on.The actual main-body tube is about an inch inside the cardboard skin of the rocket, so the nosecone just barely reaches the body tube.  The parachute fits tight and it's VERY hard to get the shroud lines in and the nosecone on without tangling things up or putting the nosecone on pinching a line and making the nosecone too tight.For my flights it takes about 5 minutes to prepare the recovery, but it's worth it because a bad landing pops off fins and can knock off the engine pods and break some balsa.If the inner wing breaks from a hard hit, the rocket is gone - not even a gallon of CA will fix it. Rating: 3 points

This rocket really soars and looks impressive on the gound and in flight, but lots of care must be taken if you want to get it back.For those that want their rockets looking awesome before liftoff, there is a lot of wood on this rocket that needs to be sanded/primered to smooth out, or the numerous tiny decals won't stick well.Overall this rocket gets 4 points from me, there are a few things that could be better, like the outside wings being in one piece so it looks better, but it's inexpensive so if you mess up, get another one=) 

Brief:This model rocket has a single stage, which always takes it a little higher than I thought it would.

Construction:The packaging was a box and all the pieces were there. Just by looking at them, you could tell what was going to happen, except for a few. One tricky step is where you install what I think the instructions call "Blackbird Skin" over the main BT, and over until the edge of balsa fins. This step was also different because I had not done anything like it at the time.

Finishing:This model looks great when it's done, but the instructions don't really tell you where to put the decals well enough. Most you can just figure out, and some I just placed somewhere. As with many models, it looks so much better if after you put the decals on you coat it with a clear coat.

Construction Rating: 3 out of 5

Flight:It has been a while since I have flown the Blackbird, but I think that I used C6-3 or C5-3. The parachute is a little big for the body tube, and I cut out the center to make a little more room. I was afraid it wouldn't eject because it was very tight. I used one to two sheets of wadding, and that worked okay. The motor is held in place by a conventional Estes engine mount with engine hook. Despite my attempts to balance the model, it still arched over in flight. I was able to tune this up, but I still can't get it to fly completely straight.

Recovery:The model has what most other estes models have in terms of shock cords and recovery system. I didn't have a problem with the shock cord zippering, but I've only flown it a couple times. The parachute is the standard Estes issue, a cheap plastic parachute. The recovery was a little fast on the account that I cut out the middle, but no damage was done.

Flight Rating: 2 out of 5

Summary:The model has great looks, but is a little tricky in construction in a few places (that's what it's all about) and not the best in flight, but still is a good model.This is a good model to do before heading to Estes skill 4.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5

Brief:
This is a scale model of the world's fastest jet. Estes brought it back in 2003 along with some other military rocket kits. This one was the original vintage version that was given to me by my neighbor. He said he built it sometime in the 1970s, it was missing fins, and in need of a parachute.

Construction:
The newer ones come in a bag with:

• 1 BT-50 body tube
• 2 shorter BT-50 body tubes
• 1 nose cone that looks like front of jet
• Plastic jet nozzles and noses
• 1 18mm motor mount
• Paper Blackbird skin
• 2 sheets of balsa for the wings
• Shock Cord
• 18" parachute
• Launch lugs

Since I didn't build this one, I cannot tell you haw to assemble it. But it did need major repairs when I got it. The balsa is pre-cut and also came with an angle chart for the tail feathers (rudders). The parachute is in my opinion too big for the body tube and looks like it could get stuck but still pops out in flight.

Finishing:
Spray the whole rocket flat black then applying the decals.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
I flew it twice. I set it up on a B6-4 for its first flight. Flew very straight and ejected the chute at perfect apogee. It did drift a bit, so I recommend getting a 15" chute or something smaller because the fit is very tight.

Second flight went about the same as the previous flight but it didn't drift as much this time on the way down. I would still go with a smaller chute.

Recovery:
Recovery is by an 18" plastic chute. I hate trying to stuff 18" chutes into BT-50 body tubes as I get so scared of it not deploying. It uses about 4 sheets of wadding too. It still surprises me when the chute does deploy though. The chute does brings the Blackbird down perfectly.

Flight Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Summary:
This is a good kit for scale modelers. It provides a good thing to look at then fly it. I thank Estes for bringing it back to production.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Brief:
This is the Sport Scale SR-71 Blackbird Model Rocket. It is an 18mm motor with parachute recovery Estes challenge kit. The SR-71 was designed at the famous "Skunk Works" with a mission of high alititude reconnaissance!

Construction:
The Blackbird kit comes in a box with a color picture of the built kit on the outside. I built kit number EST-7003. It is labeled as a "Challenge" kit series with a skill level three. Inside the box you will find three body tubes, a plastic nose cone, two plastic tail/inlet cones and one die-crunched balsa sheet. Also included are two green centering rings, engine mount tube, engine hook, one launch lug, die-cut paper patterns for the wing and jigs, a parachute kit, some shock cord and a rectangle of water slide decals. Two sheets of folded paper instructions are included in the kit box with 26 step by step instructions on 8 pages. The instructions are good and easy to follow. There is even a decal placement chart. This kit was given to me by a friend of a friend so I don't know how old it is, but the box says "made in the US" so it must be vintage!

To build the curved fuselage of the SR-71 Estes uses a body tube with two long fins glued to the sides. You must first glue the fin sections together then glue the fins to the sides of the main body tube. The kit provides two cardstock "jigs" to lay the fins on while they are drying in order to keep them aligned. The jigs are used again on the outer fins to keep them level with the inner "wings". I used aliphatic resin ( carpenters yellow glue). I put a bead of glue on the fin, let it sit for a minute to thicken. While holding the fins in place for another couple of minutes, I aligned the fins with the triangular wing jig.

Finishing:
The wing alignment is rather "fiddley". I was skeptical of its effectiveness but if you have a nice flat table and you are careful with the wing jigs it works fine. The fins came out pretty straight.

The trick in this kit is the center paper fuselage overlay. There is a top and a separate bottom piece. The paper is almost impossible to line up exactly with the balsa fins. Partly because of the poor quality of the die cutting on the balsa. You can use small black spring type paper clips to hold the paper around the edge of the balsa fins. Glue the paper in steps, as per the instructions and take your time, it actually works!

You could scratch build this kit. You would just have to cut out your own< paper pattern for the center fuselage piece. The flat arrow head nose cone would present a carving challenge however.

There are angled card stock fin templates for the top fins with the bottom fins being a different template. The top fins angle in and the lower fins angle outward as per prototype. The die-cut fins required some filler on the ends where the die-cut machine smashed them and the water slide decals weren't very sticky. Perhaps they were just old. They went on nicely but came off after just one night of drying!

Construction Rating: 3 ½ out of 5

Flight:
The recommendced motors are B4-2, B6-2, B6-4 and C6-5. Considering that the box cover weight shown is 3.2 oz. I don't know where they came up with this number, this thing is heavy! Ours came in at 4.1+ . The instructions tell the builder to add ALL of the provided clay in the nose cone. So I did the very first launch with a C6 engine. As far as launching, the model is very conventional and it does requrie recovery wadding. The motor retention is standard Estes wire clip.

The Blackbird looks awsome when finished. In addition it is a somewhat unusual rocket to bring out to the launch pad.

The first flight was loaded with an Estes 18mm C6-3 and four sheets of blue recovery wadding The ignition and liftoff were fine but at an altitude of 50 feet the rocket veered badly down wind and continued up in a smokey angled climb. The ejection charged fired normally and the flight was a success. We were worried that the parachute might be a little small for such a heavy rocket but it worked fine all three times with no damage to the rocket.

Recovery:
Recovery is via parachute and shock cord. The provided shock cord is way too short, so we added 18 inches of some after market shock cord. It was gluded in via the three fold card stock method, just like any other rocket kit. The recovery parachute is good. The included plastic parachute seemed a bit small but it turned out to work fine for this rocket at 4.1 oz.

The second test launch utilized a Quest B6-4. We taped the motor casing with some scotch tape to make up for the smaller diameter. With less power, the Blackbird flew straighter for some reason! This was a great flight with perfect ejection. The next flight on another Estes C6-5 arched over again and the ejection charge burned the parachute a little and the heavy nose cone made a small dent on the top of the fuselage.

Flight Rating: 2 ½ out of 5

Summary:
The SR-71 kit by Estes is a challenge kit. It takes several days to build, because you have to wait for the glue really to dry on one operation in order to proceed to the next step. The die-cut balsa fins would be much better if they were laser cut. As they were, it took some re-sanding, filling and fitting to get them to fit properly. The plastic parts supplied look nice and fit perfectly.

I believe the decals were just old, some of them did not stick well at all. Overall the rocket looks good, it was fun to build. The kit instructions directed the builder to put all of the supplied clay in the nose cone. I'm not sure this helped the stability as it was intended.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5

Other:
The wing jigs supplied in the kit look flimsy and using them is "fiddley" but they do work. We will need to do a center of pressure study on the model to see if we can improve the stability during boost. We might experiment with removing some of the nose clay.