Brief:
Originally a Centuri kit circa 1971-77, the Centurion was perfectly sized to fit in with the Estes Big Bertha and Semroc Vega. With 18mm power and an ejection baffle that all but eliminated the need for recovery wadding, the Centurion was another choice in the crowded field of skill level one birds that were perfect for flights from smaller fields. The Semroc version also includes the ejection baffle, and adds a second parachute for cool dual-chute recovery.

Construction:
Parts list:

• BC-1636 balsa nose cone
• ST-1690 body tube
• ST-16120 body tube
• ST-730E engine tube
• HTC-16 tube coupler
• TR-7 thrust ring
• CR-KV-40 centering ring set (this includes the parts for the baffle)
• EH-28 engine hook
• LL-2A launch lugs (2)
• SE-10 screw eye
• EC-124 elastic cord
• 2 RC-12 12" parachutes

Semroc's instruction manuals are excellent, well illustrated, and all the steps are adequately explained. That said, there is very little else to add about the construction of the Centurion as it is a relatively simple 4FNC build. The baffle also acts as the connector between the upper and lower tubes and the only change I made was to anchor a 2 foot length of Kevlar® shock cord to the upper baffle instead of going with the bare elastic that is provided. (Not that I don't trust Carl's judgment. It's just a personal preference.) The only "gotcha" that I encountered was self-created and a result of not paying attention to the instructions. As a result, my Centurion has the upper and lower body tubes flipped around. Unless you're looking for it, it's barely noticeable.

Finishing:
Painting was blessedly simple. After ridding the project of tube spirals and balsa grain with thinned Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish and sanding and priming with Valspar primer, I painted the bottom section gloss white and the upper section gloss black. Although it isn't mentioned in the instructions, I found that the painting was most easily accomplished before joining the upper and lower halves of the rocket together. (Be sure to mask off the tube connector/baffle or install it after painting.) Decals are minimal, but in this case that's a good thing as they don't detract from the Centurion's clean lines.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight and Recovery:
First flight was delayed several times by high winds that canceled our club launches, and had it not been for a missing launcher, the first flights might well have been made at pseudo-legendary B6-4 Field near my home. As it was, the first two flights were at the VOA on a warm, breezy Sunday in May. Flight #1 was on a B6-4 and proved my suspicion that this rocket would be perfect for small field flights, something that it's likely to see quite a few of before the end of this flying season. Pointedly loaded without ejection wadding, the Centurion wind-cocked off of the pad in the stiff breeze, ejected just as it lost momentum, and floated to within 100' of the pad, a perfect recovery despite one of the chutes failing to open. (The chute was in perfect shape, it just failed to unfurl.) No damage or discoloration was noted on either chute or on the elastic shock cord, so the baffle obviously worked like a charm. Flight #2, on a C6-5, was a carbon copy of the first, only with greater altitude, dual parachute recovery, and a somewhat longer walk into the veggies.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: Cool vintage looks. Baffled ejection. Dual chutes.

CONs: Ease with which I screwed up the placement of the two tubes.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Brief:
The original Centurion was introduced in 1970 by Centuri and was one of the first rockets to introduce an ejection baffle system, eliminating the need for recovery wadding. This is good for long, slow flights, and a nice flier.

Construction:
The parts list:

• Balsa nose cone
• 2 ST-16 body tubes
• 4 Laser-cut balsa fins
• 18mm motor kit
• 2 12" plastic chutes
• Baffle kit
• Kevlar®/elastic shock cord
• Waterslide decals

The instructions for this are typical Semroc, well written and reasonably illustrated. You'll find this is a pretty quick and easy build. It can be put together in 2 hours plus finishing time.

The motor mount is a basic 18mm tube, pair of centering rings, and metal hook.

The baffle is a neat little assembly. You slip the Kevlar® through one hole in a perforated disk then tack it in place. The disk is then tacked to a tube coupler. Another perforated disk is attached to the other end of the coupler. The idea is that since the holes are different size/orientation, there's no clean passage for the ejection particles, and they get trapped in the coupler. Glue the coupler to each body tube, tack on the fins, and construction is pretty much complete.

Finishing:
The paint scheme for this is pretty easy. I first prepped the surfaces by filling grains with Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish (diluted), the tube spirals with a wood filler, and then sanded everything down with 220 grit sandpaper.

With the surface prepped, I followed up with two coats of white primer then two coats of gloss white. I masked off the lower portion of the main body and painted the top and nose gloss black.

The waterslide decals include a Centurion label and some red striping. The stripes are too long for the fin trim so they must be cut to length. They are also too short to wrap around the main body tube so you need to use two strips with a little overlap. The decal sheet was a little too small for this, but it would have been nice if a larger single stripe was provided.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
The first flight for this debuted at NSL2007, a nice venue considering I picked up the kit at the previous national event, NARCON. Winds had settled in around 6-8 mph, and I went for the recommended C6-5. Flight was perfect, and deployment was also perfect.

Recovery:
The kit comes with a pair of 12" chutes, noting for larger fields and/or harder surfaces, you can go with both. Smaller fields/softer grass would only call for 1.

The huge field and dry, hard grass should have pushed me to 2 chutes, but I was trying for shorter walks to get multiple flights in, so went with just 1. It served fine though the landing was a little rough. Still, I suffered no damage and it will fly again.

I did skip the wadding to try out the baffle capability and melted the chute a bit so even with the baffle, you should slip in a sheet or two of wadding.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
PROs: Flies great, quick/easy build, shares classic Bertha styling, baffle is nice feature.

CONs: none.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Brief:
The Centurion is another nice addition in the Semroc Retro-Repro series of rockets. For being a 4FNC rocket, it has some cool extras, namely the dual chutes, ejection baffle and shape of the laser cut fins that lead me to purchasing this rocket. I really like the curved portion of the fin at the rear of the rocket.

Construction:
This kit comes with 2 sections of body tube, 1 coupler, 2 baffle centering rings, 1 balsa nose cone, 1 engine tube, 1 engine thrust ring, 2 engine centering rings, 1 engine hook, 4 laser cut fins, 2 launch lugs, 1 elastic shock cord, 1 steel eyelet, 2 12” plastic parachute kits, 1 decal sheet, and 15 pages of clear and detailed instructions.

This rocket is a very straightforward build. It can easily be done in one sitting following the instructions. The only "gotcha" that I experienced was in the construction of the baffle. I followed the instruction for test fitting the baffle into both body tubes but only one at a time. There was no sanding needed so I glued one end into the body tube. When I went to glue the other section onto the baffle, the body tubes did not line up correctly. I was able to sand it but it would have been much easier to get straight if I could sand both of the centering rings at the same time.

The only other issue I had was with constructing the parachutes. It is tough threading the shroud lines through the holes. I suggest using a toothpick to make the holes after you have applied the tape discs to the plastic instead of a straight pin.

Finishing:
I love the look of the rocket in the recommend black and white paint scheme. I used diluted Elmer's Carpenters Wood Filler to fins and nose cone. After a quick sanding, I primed the rocket with Kilz original primer. After a light sanding, I applied a solid white primer. I masked the rocket to paint the lower section gloss white and the upper section gloss black. The decal that come with the kit are some of the best I have every worked with. You need to trim the red stripe for the fin and piece together the stripe that goes around the body tube. The only other decal is the rocket name.

Construction Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Flight:
I did my first launch at the monthly MASA club launch. I loaded it with a B6-4. Since it has the baffle I choose not put and wadding in the rocket. There was no melting of the plastic chutes so it appears that the baffle was a success but I will use a little wadding with the larger motors. The rocket went straight up and the chutes deployed right at apogee. One of them got tangled and did not unfurl properly but this was not a problem as there was no damage sustained upon landing. This was a near picture perfect flight with the rocket landing only 20 feet from the launch pad.

Recovery:
The recovery system consists of an elastic cord attached to the baffle system and I used default length of the cord. It is attached to nose cone thought the screw eye. The two 12” chutes are also connected to the screw eye. I choose to use swivels to be able to change them out when needed.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
This is a cool looking retro type rocket that is easy to build. It is perfect for the newer builders and offers the great extras for the money. The recommended engine selections give it the ability to be launch on a small or larger field. I am very happy with the rocket and will definitely look for other Retro-Repro kits from Semroc.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Brief:
This rocket is a retro-repro, 18mm, standard 4FNC rocket with baffle ejection and dual parachute recovery system.

Construction:
The balsa sheet was within the instructions and was broken in many places parallel to the grain. One fin was broken into 2 pieces, the other three were broken into three pieces each. Let me hasten to add, I am NOT blaming Semroc for this. This rocket was sitting near the bottom of a rather substantial pile of other level one rockets. I suspect that is was my own careless handling that caused this.

Since other reviewers have listed the individual parts, I will not do so again. Construction was supposed to begin with the traditional motor mount. For me, construction began with my attempts to repair the broken fins. Fortunately, all the breaks were very clean. I used thin CA and they were soon ready to go and probably stronger than before.

Will that done, all the parts were present and accounted for and I was ready to begin in earnest. That brings us back to the motor mount. It was a farily standard affair. The hook is set in the provided slit and taped into place. A thrust ring is glued into the forward end and the centering rings are glued into place.

Next up was assembly of the ejection baffle. This is the first baffle I have ever tried to build or use. It comes as a standard part of the kit. The two baffle rings are removed from their sheet and the hole are punched out. The forward baffle also has a small slit which is used to fasten the shock cord. The supplied cord is a length of sewing elastic. It is not particularly long but certainly servicable. I decided to use 2 feet of Kevlar® to attach to the baffle. This was not because I doubted the baffle's ability to work. I just like long recovery trains. I will use the elastic as well. The Kevlar® was fed through the hole and knotted a few times to prevent it from pulling through. The tail was then laid flat across the back of the baffle and glued down with yellow glue. I gave it a couple of coats.

Then there is the matter of gluing the baffles to the ends of the coupler tube. This was done with yellow glue as well. I was interested to see that the baffles sit on the shoulder of the coupler and not within it. This makes sense but I had always pictured in my mind that they sat within.

The rocket airframe consists of two tubes connected to each otehr by means of the coupler housing the baffle. Care must be taken so that the baffles are centered correctily and the coupler will actually fit into the BTs. Once they fit, it is an easy matter to glue the two sections together. Two things need to be remembered. The direction of the the baffle and therefore the shockcord matters. Also, the instructions suggest laying the assembled airframe down and rolling it around once it is assemble to make sure it is straight.

According to the instructions, the next step is to mount the fins. Since I wanted to use my Art Rose fin jig, I elected to install the motor mount first. The jig depends upon the motor mount to recieve the mandrel. Some glue was swabbed in, the mount pushed part of the way in, some more glue placed and the mount was slid home.

I need not have bothered with the jig. I did not set the screws properly and the result was an abomination. It will no doubt fly and is probably not too noticable from a distance but looking at the result makes me cringe. It reminds me of some of my worst effots as a kid.

Finishing:
Despite my disappointment with the fins, I plugged away at the Centurion. The rocket was filled and sealed with Elmer's FNF® and then sanded smooth. I then primed it with two coats of white and gave it another sanding.

The sanding was followed by 2 coats of gloss white which went down smoothly enough. When the white had a chance to dry, I masked the lower body from the coupling of the 2 BTs and sprayed the upper body with gloss black. I gave the upper body 2 coats as well.

When I peeled back the masking, I was both elated and disappointed. I was elated because, for the first time, I had gotten a perfect masking. There was no leakage at all and the change was crisp and professional. That bummed me out because it seemed wasted on a rocket whose fins I had hashed so badly.

The decals are a simple affair but they are very effective. They consisted of 2 Centurion logos and 4 red stripes. The Centurion logos went on just fine. The decal material is of good quality and I had no problems. The stripes were a bit different.

Two of the stripes are intended to be joined together to make one circuit about the BT just below the black paint. There is more than enough material to do so. The other two stripes are to be placed on either side of a single fin. They were long for the purpose and had to be trimmed to fit.

If I had my choice, the wrap around stripe would have been a single unit and the fin stripes would have been the right length to begin with. That may be picky but it is my opinion. The decals improved the look of the rocket marvelously.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
The recommended motors for this rocket are the A8-3, B6-4 and C6-5. I decided to start small as is my usual practice. I loaded up an A8-3. That was not the best of choices. I also added a bit of dog barf since this was my first experience with a baffle. It climbed to a startlingly low altitude, stopped and started to come down. About 20 feet up, the ejection charge went off but the chute did not have time to open. I got a nice little core sample but there was no real damage.

The second flight was on a B6-4. This was a good flight. It went up straight, the chute deployed at apogee and it came down gently. This time I tried it without any dog barf and the baffles worked fine.

The third flight was on a C6-5. This too was a good flight and recovery. It had a bit of weathercocking but landed near the pad.

Recovery:
This rocket should not be flown on an A motor... period. I should have been able to figure that out for myself. That being said, it does well on a B and very well on a C. The baffle works great and the rocket looks good... if you get the fins on right. I didn't, but it still flew well.

PROs: good launch, easy prep
CONs: A8-3 does not belong on the motor list.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
This is a nice rocket. It looks good and is easy to build. It is fairly forgiving and fles great.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5