Brief:
A great 2.2x upscale of the 1970's Estes classic that is capable of flying to nearly 1000 feet on 24mm motors.

Construction:
Parts were tightly packed in a plastic bag with a header card showing handwritten production number. Despite tight packing, there was no problem at all with component quality. Parts list includes:

• Cast resin nose cone
• BT-60 body tube
• 4 Laser cut balsa fins
• 24mm foil-lined motor tube
• Motor mount/centering ring assembly
• 9" x 9" Nomex® heat shield
• 30" Top Flight ripstop nylon chute
• Kevlar® shock cord
• Water slide decals
• 3/16" launch lug

The Qmodeling instructions are very good and include plenty of illustrations. An added touch is that they're broken down into sections with estimated times, so you can plan the construction out around your real life, without having to worry about being in the middle of a tricky assembly when it's time to haul the kids off to the latest event.

Construction starts with the motor mount assembly. If you're not familiar with Qmodeling mounts, this will be a bit of a challenge as they are much more complicated than usual. The assembly consists of a series of mounting rings carefully spaced along the motor tube followed by balsa fin braces that support location of through the wall fin mounting. These are very precisely cut parts and fit very well but you need to be especially careful about the alignment of the parts for correct placement of fins and the motor tube. Once everything is glued together, the assembly finishes up by tying/gluing the Kevlar® shock cord to the motor tube.

Sanding/sealing of the 4 fairly large fins can take some time but is worth the effort. Once prepped, the fins are then bonded to the motor tube through the wall and fillets applied along the body tube. The fit was perfect and alignment is not an issue with the fin braces.

Construction finishes up by attaching the launch lug and prepping the nose cone. Note that the dimension listed for placement of the launch lug is incorrect and would result in decal and paint problems. Rather than the recommended 5 9/16" from tube bottom placement, I would suggest at least 7" or 7-1/2" placement.

The nose cone retention appears flimsy, consisting of simply CA'ing a wooden disk into the bottom of a resin nose cone and then gluing in a screw eye, but I've built 5 assorted Qmodeling kits and never had one fail.

Finishing:
For the finish, I filled the tube spirals with Elmers Fill 'n' Finish, then went with two coats of Plasti-Cote gray primer, sanding in between. The result is a completely spiral-free finish. I then followed up with the standard paint scheme of gloss white body, gloss black nose cone, and orange base/fins.

The kit I received came with waterslide decals, including one with a bright yellow "33" for two of the fins. Against the orange paint, the yellow decal was practically invisible. The instructions referenced a stencil which could be used to paint on the "33", but I didn't seem to get one. It turns out that the stencil was held up in development and when I inquired about it, I promptly received a couple of adhesive stencils fresh out of the test lab. These stencils are laser cut Avery adhesive labels. They are custom cut to fit the fin and the "33" is burned just enough to cut through the label without tearing through the backing. I could then stick the label to the fin, and pull away the "33" portion, exposing the area for painting. The result was a perfect, crisp masking job, and the best idea I've ever seen for a stencil!

The water slide decals were very good, although I found they are the type that doesn't agree with Krylon clear coat, so I wound up having to replace them. (The first batch crazed badly.)

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
The maiden flight was on clear day with winds of 4-6 mph and I chose a D12-3, fearing the 30" chute would cause too much drift. The Rogue climbed a beautifully straight path although it spun just a bit on the way up (indicating a slight fin cant and less than perfect motor mount assembly job). The 3-second delay proved a bit early and the Kevlar® line got tangled pretty badly, catching the chute lines. With only a partial chute deployment, it came down fairly hard but landed in tall, soft grass and was recovered without any damage.

For the second flight I went with a 5-second delay, which was a bit too long. Comparing the two, I'll stick with the 3 second delay as it will be less likely to zipper. Recovery on the second one was much better though, as I moved the chute attachment closer to the nose cone (roughly 2/3 of the way along the line).

Recovery:
The Nomex®/Kevlar®/nylon chute recovery package is as good as it gets in modrocs, but is overkill for this rocket. I'd go down to an 18" chute, and a 4" x 4" Nomex® shield for this size tube. The 9x9 is simply too large and poses a risk of blocking chute deployment.

Flight Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Summary:
This is an outstanding upscale and a terrific kit.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Brief:
The Estes Rogue on steroids! Same great looks but little chance that you can fly this one from your local athletic field. I won this for participating in an EMRR contest and started building it immediately. This is my third Rogue, the first being a BT-55 upscale and the second a 1:1 clone.

Construction:
The parts list:

• Nose cone
• Nose cone plug
• Eye hook
• Body tube
• 4 laser cut fins
• Kevlar® shock cord
• Parachute heat shield
• Nylon parachute
• Launch lug
• Forward centering ring
• Engine mount tube
• 4 fin braces
• 4 engine mount rings
• Thrust ring
• Rear centering ring
• Engine hook
• Snap swivel
• Decal
• "33" stencil

I'd seen and heard of the incredibly impressive laser cut engine mount that is the heart of a Q-Modeling kit, and as a result, felt a bit intimidated when I opened the bag. That lasted about as long as it took to read the instructions. While it looks like an incredibly complicated puzzle, it really isn't quite that demonic if you take the time to identify the pieces and pay attention to how they fit together. That said, the finished mount is almost a modern art piece, and the way that they allow the fins to line up is inspired engineering indeed.

Finishing:
The amount of finishing required to ready the completed Rogue for painting was minimal. Tube spirals and wood grain were nearly nonexistent, so both the body tube and fins were treated with a coat of Valspar primer and a quick hit of thinned Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish. After sanding I re-primed the rocket using white primer then sprayed the fin can area with several coats of my aged, no-name fluorescent orange. When this had dried I masked off the fin can and sprayed the remaining body tube with Valspar gloss white and the nose with Valspar gloss black. Decals completed the look, and with the exception of the almost invisible "33" decal, they look great. (My kit came with a mask to paint on the "33", but I have yet to give it a try.)

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight:
My first flight with the big Rogue was interesting in that for a moment it looked like it was going to be the last flight. The Estes E9 is a great motor for this rocket, and for the first flight I opted for an E9-8 because that was all that I had in my range box. (The folks at QModeling recommend an E9-4.) The comparatively slow liftoff and long burn of the E9 is perfect for this rocket and the extra four seconds allowed the rocket to take a nose down attitude at ejection. Everything about the flight had been perfect up to that point but then things changed. There are two major rocket killers in the VOA: the access road, to which I have lost several rockets, and the Rocket Eating Tree, to which I have yet to lose a rocket. That looked like it was going to change because my Rogue was falling directly at the tree. Short of a .50 caliber machine gun there was little I could do except watch the slow descent of the rocket as it drifted to its death. Then a miracle occurred. It missed the tree. There was much rejoicing.

No one was more shocked than I was. At the last moment the wind stopped and allowed the Rogue to drop straight to the ground instead of following its previous path high into the branches of the tree. Clearly I had done something to make a rocket deity smile upon me. This happens so seldom that I decided to make a second flight.

Flight #2 was with another E9-8 and was a carbon copy of the first, except that the recovery flirted with the other great rocket killer, The Path of Eternal Peril. The Rogue landed within two feet of the path, and I decided that I had pushed my luck with the rocket deity enough for one day.

I have since flown it on Estes E9-6's exclusively, with one flight being perfectly unremarkable except for a long recovery walk, another being remarkable because the rocket shredded the chute and fell to earth without damage, and the last because contact with an access road during recovery on Day #1 of NSL 2007 chipped a fin. Tough bird, and I have yet to not be impressed by the performance.

Recovery:
The Rogue's recovery system seems to be bulletproof. I was initially concerned by the lack of an elastic shock cord in the kit, but that fear disappeared after the first flight. Without any elastic there is little or no chance of the nose cone rebounding into the fins or body tube. With the wide range of power in todays recovery charges, it's great to be able to not worry about rebound damage with each flight. The Nomex® chute protector is another nice touch and has done its job flawlessly.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: I love the Rogue, have previously upscaled it myself, and never get tired of the look. All Kevlar® shock cord. Killer motor mount. Nomex® chute protector.

CONs: My "33" decal is all but invisible.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5