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 ½ 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 ½ out of 5

Brief:
QModeling makes their upscale replica rockets big with long satisfying builds using a huge number of parts (roughly 80 parts in this kit). The Mega Snooper is no exception. This is a great kit.

Construction:
This kit is rated skill level 4. Having recently finished the daunting QModeling Andromeda, it actually seemed a bit easier. On the other hand, the instructions list among the additional needed items: "A Brain or Two". Definitely don't leave yours behind! My instructions listed 77 major steps, not counting various sub-steps. The most challenging part was the aft engine pod area with the radiator fins and several hand-made conic shapes.

Assembly is sufficiently complex that I can't detail the whole process here. Roughly, the plan goes like this:

• Nose cone (all 4) and transition prep.
• Jig assembly. QModeling provides extremely clever multi-purpose jigs to help with some of the more complicated alignment tasks. Once you've used jigs in a major build, you'll consider them to be a feature that you'll be willing to pay a bit extra for next time you're shopping for a kit.
• Motor mount assembly. QModeling uses its specialized hexagonal bracing system instead of traditional centering rings. This also provides an interior lattice for through-the-wall fin mounting.
• Construct the outer pods and landing assembly. This is the fun part, with all sorts of springs and special things.
• Upper and lower engine pod transitions. These are quite hard and require experience or great care to get a good result. These are made by gently and slowly rolling card stock to the desired cone shapes. There are all sorts of things that can go wrong, including irregular shape, ugly seam, poor fit on tube or centering ring, etc. One nice design feature is that the upper portion of the lower cone fits inside the bottom edge of the upper cone. This helps you hide what would otherwise be an ugly joint. I could continue with more details, but suffice it to say that there are no easy steps here. It takes a lot of putty and sanding afterwards to get a perfectly clean look.
• Attach all fins. These fit onto the landing pods, on to the upper airframe, and through the walls for the main fins.
• Recovery system and launch lugs. Because of all the odd transitions, two launch lugs are glued on the upper and lower fins away from the main body tube.
• Finishing and painting. Of course, on a kit this complex, you should definitely do all the filling, putty, and sanding before assembly. My paint was more orange than what was suggested. The kit has a lot of decals. Aligning the stripes on the fins is a bit tricky to do by eye.

The beauty of this QModeling kit (like their others) is the planning that goes into the assembly. The instructions and figures are pretty clear. The build sequence is extremely linear, which prevents you from getting confused about where you are heading. And I love jigs! They help so much with getting all the right angles and placements.

For me, there were only two problems I encountered. First were the radiator panels on the engine pod. I got the opposing cones, rings, and so forth done quite well, but those 8 little fins were really tough. CA wouldn't stick and I kept knocking one off as I tried to apply pressure to another. The results were a little messy to sand smooth with all of the little nooks and crannies. I'm happy with the result, but it is not flawless.

The second, more serious problem involved the retracting spring-loaded landing legs. I painted the whole kit and applied the decals. Trying to show my wife how cool those legs were, I suddenly found out that they were locked in place by the paint. The fit between the leg and its centering ring leaves absolutely no extra room. Therefore, absolutely no paint could remain on the leg if the leg is to slide through the centering ring passage. There was no way I could sand down the legs enough, and I wanted them painted anyway. To fix the problem, I used the Dremel to drill a ring of small holes around the leg entry. Then I used my knife to knock out the remaining bits to form a much wider, irregular hole which was wide enough to allow the legs to slide. The better way to fix this is to drill out these leg-centering rings before assembly. I would recommend that the diameter if the inner hole should be about twice as large as the diameter of the leg. Alternatively, you could finish the legs with graphite, pencil lead, stain, or marking pen.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
The first flight was on a cool day at the prairie with gentle winds. I had only my short rod (48in) whereas the instructions wisely stress using a 72in rod. So I chose a E28-4 reload to provide an extra takeoff boost. Liftoff was quick, and the rocket climbed strongly but slowly enough for us all to get a good look at it. The rocket was very stable. Having seen this launch, I think the E28 is a great motor. I would never fly it on a D12 and am reluctant to use an E9, but Chan reports good success with the E9 motor. I'm going to try a F21 next.

Ejection was at apogee. I had added a second parachute to the recovery system. To do this, I began by adding several extra yards of Kevlar® between the lower and upper body portions. Then I tied about 8 feet of Kevlar® from the main string outward. At the end I attached a parachute. Then I added another 8ft string and another identical chute. Ideally, it would look like a "Y" coming down: two chutes above and all the rocket dangling below in two parts. Both chutes fit in the body tube, but there wasn't a lot of extra space.

One of the chutes failed to open and fluttered as a wad of nylon during descent. The other chute was fine. (Next time, I'm going to let the two body parts descend separately with their own chutes.)

Recovery:
I think that the unopened chute had some sort of dampening effect because during the last couple hundred feet down the rocket had almost no swing. I thought there was a serious chance that I could stick the landing! Alas, no such luck. However, it did land legs-first and gave a nice bounce before falling sideways into the prairie. There are so many parts to break that it would seem almost impossible for such a big ornate rocket to land unblemished, but mine did. The flight and recovery were perfect!

When I got home and removed the motor casing, I noted that it was sticking out the rear about 1.5in extra. Apparently the engine hook had broken free and slipped backward a bit. I had used a motor spacer to compensate for the length of the reload, but there had been a little empty wiggle space (1/16in?). My theory is that this helped ejection shoot the casing backwards into the motor hook and knock it free. The damage is invisible and easily repaired.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
Once again QModeling has hit a home run. The Mega Snooper is a kit for the serious builder, and it will attract lots of attention on the ground. Flying it is just as fun, but skip the weak E9 motors and head straight for the good stuff.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5