Brief:
Inspired by Star Trek, this futuristic spaceship design will draw a crowd at the pad and flies surprisingly well. At $60, it's a bit on the pricey side, but it is made with quality components and design and is challenging and enjoyable to build.

Construction:
I ordered my kit via the Sirius Rocketry website with their flagship Saturn V kit. There was a delay of a couple days mainly due to the complexity of packing up the Saturn kit, but within a week I had the Atlantis piled deep within my ever-growing build queue. After allowing it to properly age for a month or so, I pulled it to the front of the line and cracked into it.

The parts list is fairly extensive, so the following is a somewhat abbreviated version:

• Balsa nose cone and metal screw eye
• BT-55 tube
• 10" BT-50 motor tube and D-size metal hook
• (4) BT-5 pod reinforcement tubes
• Assorted wood dowels for trim
• Vacu-formed side pod halves and cockpit top
• 1/8" laser-cut plywood fin and top deck stock
• 24" mylar chute kit
• 3/16" launch lugs
• 4 waterslide decal sheets

My kit was short the chute, which was quickly replaced when I pointed it out. The tubes were among the best I've ever worked with, which took a lot of the work out of finishing. The quality of the vacu-forms was very good though the edge lines of the pod halves were not very clearly pronounced, leading to a somewhat sloppy fit and potentially hefty rework for the sake of appearance.

This is labeled as a skill level 4 kit and I would agree with that assessment. Working with the vacu-forms is probably the most challenging aspect to it, and the unusual design and assortment of trim details adds to the overall complexity factor as well. Excluding some special circumstance rework (more on that later), I invested about 30 hours into this and came out of it with a pretty resectable finish. On the low end, it can probably be built in about 12-16 hours without worrying about the cosmetics, which would be a real crime on a kit of this calliber.

While most instructions say "read the whole thing first" yet are still ignored, a thorough reading is a definite must for this kit. It really helps you get a sense of how things go together and helps avoid some basic mistakes along the way. I still have the weird feeling that the thing is upside down, but that's just the way it is and I'd inevitably have wound up getting top and bottom confused without having the end product in mind as I went.

The instructions were well written and the illustrations were fairly helpful although oddly placed. In a couple of instances, I found myself reading something on one page and having to refer to an illustration on a different (usually previous) page. On the plus side, there were also plenty of helpful tips on construction and finishing techniques right down to specific brands and colors for paint and clear coat.

Motor mount assembly is routine: slot the tube for the D-hook and slide on 3 centering rings. One of the rings needs to be notched for slipping the hook out of the way. Give yourself plenty of room on that slot. The assembly is finished up with the attachment of a Kevlar® shock cord anchor, which runs most of the way up the tube before switching over to elastic. A very nice and durable approach that is unlikely to cause the zippers that I've run into with designs that take the Kevlar® all the way out the body tube. The finished assembly then goes into the single piece body tube, another nice touch that probably makes this a pain to ship.

Marking the tube is accomplished using a wraparound guide. In addition to the basic lines, there are areas in the tube that need to be cut out for through the wall fins.

The "belly fin" is actually an assembly of a center piece, two side pieces, and an antenna dowel sandwiched in between. An oval-shaped "antenna dish" completes the assembly. This assembly becomes the first of the 3 primary fins.

The two side fins are mounted through the wall. The gap between the BT-55 and the BT-50 motor tube is small, so the tab is fairly short. There are a pair of "side decks" that are trim fins, tucked in above the side pod fins. A pair of dowels lining the underside finish the lower trim, and a funky-shaped top "deck" with a vacu-form bridge completes the top trim. The end result leaves lots of little nooks and crannies which are a challenge to paint.

The pod assembly was the most challenging aspect of the kit. You start by bonding together two BT-5s which are slightly different lengths for a tapered end effect. These serve as reinforcments to the vacu-formed pod halves on the inside. The halves are cut from the vacu-forms, and even under bright light I had trouble determining where the ends were. I went conservative (thick), and wound up with a lot of sanding to trim them fairly flush. After the sanding, I fit them over the tubes and found a couple of spots where there were slight gaps. Anticipating this, the kit includes styrene stock for cutting patch strips. You then have the option of leaving the strips as is for an accent stripe, or sanding them flush for a smooth look. I went for the smooth look and even after 3 nights of tinkering/sanding/filling, still wasn't quite satisfied with the look and moved on despite a few small gaps and seam lines showing.

Once the pods are assembled, you cut slots through the BT-5 and inner pod half for through the wall mounting to the side fins. These were a real pain to tack in place and keep aligned but worth the wait. I made the mistake of using yellow glue and would recommend medium CA for this instead, which will speed up the bonding. Finally, each pod gets a small trim fin mounted to the bottom surface.

Attaching the nose cone and chute completes the assembly.

Finishing:
With such light tube spirals, I didn't bother with anything other than a light coat of Plasti-Cote primer, which was actually applied and sanded down before starting construction. I also didn't seal the plywood although I did give it a good sanding with 220 then 400 grit paper.

For paint, I went with very light coats being paranoid about runs and overspray around all the crevices. I wound up using 4 very thin coats of primer, two gray followed by two white along with sanding and touching up a bit between coats.

The recommended color scheme for this is a light gray (True-Value Easy Color "Silver Fog"). I'm really anal retentive and trekked 30 minutes across town, passing at least 10 other hardware stores and/or big box stores along the way to our city's only True Value store. Naturally, they don't carry "Silver Fog" but did carry a darker "Pewter Gray", which I went with. Overall, it was a bit darker than I'd have liked and it would have been better with a light gray or even white.

The pods get hand-painted interior trim in navy blue and a small area painted copper. The antenna and radar dish also get a copper touch ups.

Finally, you get to the real cost driver for the kit: the decals. There are 4 sheets of waterslides. In anticipation of more work than I can typically stuff into a weeknight after work/dinner/life and before bed, I approached this in batch mode, cutting everything one night, followed by a night of application, and a planned third night of micro-sol to seal them in. Night one was no problem, just lots of cutting. Night two started well, the first sheet of decals was among the best I've ever worked with, absolutely clear, tough enough to avoid stretching when sliding off the paper, and easy to smooth out for a wrinkle-free finish. Moving on to sheet #2 though, I ran into problems--the decals were opaque, didn't stick as well, and when I rubbed them smooth the ink started to rub off. I contemplated whether or not it was worth buying a replacement sheet while moving on to sheets #3 and #4 and found they were just as bad. In fact, the decals from sheet #2 even started peeling off and curling. Horrible decals, absolutely ruining what had up till now been a very enjoyable project.

I emailed Dave, who was that very night experiencing the same problem with a kit he was prototyping. To make a long story less long (too late for short), he had drop shipped a batch of decal paper to his printer and no one in the chain caught that the paper supplier had switched from a thick/obvious tissue liner to a thin/hardly noticeable liner and the liner was not removed. My decals were printed on tissue. It took us about 3 days to sort out the scope and cause of the problem. Within a week replacement decals were in my mailbox. The replacements were perfect. Fortunately, the bad decals were such trash that it only took a few minutes to flake them off.

While the decal experience indicates a hit to the quality score (although not the fault of Sirius), I can tell you that I was very impressed with Dave's efforts to make everything right. The replacement decal fiasco probably wiped out any hope of profit on the kit (as many kits were certainly affected), but he won me over as a repeat customer.

The new and improved decals are protected by 5 very thin/light applications of Krylon clear coat. I've had very mixed results with this and confirmed with Dave before trying it that he actually applied this stuff. I'll say there were no compatability problems. The clear coats maintains a nice glossy finish.

Construction Rating: 4 out of 5

Flight:
The recommended motor is a D12-5, but for first flight Sirius suggests a D12-3. This is probably in case you come in above the 9.0 ounce target weight (as mine weighed in at 9.5 ounces), and an overly long delay could deploy too far past apogee. (photo courtesy of Scott McNeely)

With the big fin area and weight of the rocket, I was expecting a slow flight. It surprised me by shooting up fairly quickly although it weathercocked a good bit into the 5mph winds. Deployment was definitely early and the -5 delay would have been a better fit. I'm not too good at estimating low altitudes, but I would put this in the 350-300 foot range.

Recovery:
The chute is made by Rockethead Rockets and is very good quality for a mylar chute. In this price range though, I would have expected a lightweight nylon chute. The chute held up fine to the early deployment and the rocket descended at a reasonable rate, landing at the edge of our short grass portion of the field. Based on its landing angle, I would be worried about damage in the future though. It came down first hitting a side pod, which is fairly rugged, then kicked right over on the 1/8" dowel antenna, which sticks out a couple of inches at the bottom of the belly fin. I'm going to kick around a couple of ideas but will try to come up with a yoke recovery harness for flight that will keep it off the antenna.

Overall though, it suffered no damage other than a little powder streak, which I'm going to buff out before flying again and will protect it with a coat of wax as well.

Flight Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Summary:
I was very impressed with this kit. Not so proud of it that I'll never fly it again but proud enough not to want to overdo it and risk damaging it. It's definitely a craftsmanship kit and its highly unusual design draws a lot of looks at the pad.

PROs: Exceptional quality of components, great design, outstanding customer service, and replacement decals were superb. I especially like the fact that it can fly on relatively affordable D12 motors rather than having to spring for $8-12 per flight for composites.

CONs: High price, poor decals slipped through the system, vacu-forms were great quality but lacked sharp edge lines.

If you can afford it, get one while you can. It's a fairly limited run kit and waiting for another run of kits could take a while.

Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5

Brief:
I saw that Chan Stevens , a top-notch builder and reviewer, already reviewed this kit but I wanted to add to it by going a little further into the construction and offer more construction details. It’s not a “second opinion” review, rather one to complement Chan’s review.

Construction:
Engine Mount: Right of the bat I chose to make a modification to my build. Since this was a larger model, I chose to install an Estes motor hook capable of accepting an Estes E engine. If you do this, it also means that you’ll need to do three things: add a slight bit of nose weight, build it strong, and use a spacer to use the recommended D engines. To use an E engine clip, make the engine mount exactly as shown except move the cut for the hook from 2.50” to 3.25” from the rear.

Belly Fin Assembly: I sanded the inside edges of the fins to make them fit to the body tube better and give it a cleaner look. The downside to doing this is that the two side pieces sit slightly lower causing you to sand some of the surfaces so that they align up again. I used a small drum sander on a Dremel to sand the assembly after it was glued to the body tube.

The other modification I made here was to the antenna dish. Since the antenna is mounted on an angle and the notch for the antenna is cut straight, it doesn’t fit well to the antenna dowel. To solve this, I sanded the notch in the antenna dish on an angle. I then chose to sand an angle in the antenna dish for a neater, more antenna-like appearance. If you chose to do this, only sand the backside. You need to leave the front flat because a decal is placed here later.

Once the belly fin assembly was mounted to the body tube, I sanded the antenna sides to fit in the hole. The antenna is slightly wider than the hole in the fin assembly.

Top and Side Decks: The plywood used in this kit is made from basswood. This strong yet light material is prone to warping. Mine was fine when it came out of the kit, but over the few days it sat on my bench, it warped. The side decks were a particular problem because the warp in the wood would not have allowed me to keep them straight along the centerline. Luckily there is a quick and easy fix for this. The property of bass wood that makes it warp, is the same property that makes it easy to straighten it out. Slightly moisten the inward side of the warped piece. Don’t wet it, you just need a slight amount of moisture. This causes the wood to swell on the moistened side. This swelling will cause that side of the wood to expand and force the wood back. If you use too much moisture, you’ll warp it too far or cause it to twist. The before and after pictures show the results. Once it is straight, glue it to the rocket.

I had the same problems with the top deck, but I chose not to try to fix it. This piece is so long that I didn’t want to chance it. Instead, I used the slight warp to my advantage. I chose to mount the side up that would cause the two ends to be in contact with the tube. I then only needed to hold down the center until the glue set.

Pods: The most important thing here is to take your time. This is a difficult part of the build and is the coolest part of the kit. Make them look nice! I started mine much sooner in the build than the directions told me to. This allowed me to work on them for a while and then continue to go back to them rather than spend the whole build waiting on this step. Since nothing in the build actually needs to be done before you do these, doing it this way works well. You’ll want to get them just right before you cut the slots for the fin.

The instructions give you some options when building the pods. Chan took the harder, more time-consuming approach. It looks like his efforts were well rewarded. I was not able to get such a nice fit.

I chose to make each pod, start to finish, separate from the other hoping I would learn from doing the first pod and make it easier for the second pod. It’s very difficult to know where to cut the pods when removing them from the sheet. I ended up cutting a bit too much on my first pod.

Once you have the pods to your liking, you need to glue the inner tube assembly to the inner side of the pods. I chose to use an epoxy paste for this. Make sure you get some glue around the area for the fins or the plastic will be loose after you cut them. Since you want the tubes in full contact with the inside surface of the pod, I chose to lay a thin hardcover book on them while drying.

Once the pods are dry, you’ll need to start sanding them. Sanding the seam down flat worked pretty well at this point. Next I wicked some thing CA into the seam. This ensured a good bond along the seam and started filling in the gaps. While drying, there’s a point where the CA sands the same as the styrene. If you wait too long the CA will become harder than the styrene and will be difficult to sand. I used the styrene sheet provided to finish off the seam.

One of the tools I use for detail sanding is emery boards. I buy packs of them at the dollar store. The grit is about right for detail work and their straight flat shape works well in many instances. Sanding the seam on the pods is a perfect application for them.

I covered the end of the pods with a piece of the styrene sheet. Cut a piece from the supplied styrene sheet and bend a crease as shown. Using model glue, glue the piece to the end of the pods. Once the glue is set, trim and sand for a seamless fit.

Finishing:
The kit comes with a balsa nose cone. The one that came with the kit is as nice as they come, but I don’t like balsa nose cones. My problem with them (especially the larger ones) is that you seal, sand, prime, sand, fill, sand to get a good finish. After all that work, a slight bump dents it. The other thing is that you can never get the shoulder as nice as a plastic one. I replaced it with an exact replica made from polystyrene. This also gave me some space to add the nose weight need for E engines.

I was in the same boat as Chan when it came to finding the gray paint, so I did go with white. This turned out to be a mistake. Some of the decals are very slightly gray in color themselves. This causes the clear areas to be noticeably different than the paint. Be sure to trim the decals as close as possible. Some of the decals just barely fit on the surface where they are to be placed.

Brief:
According to my records, my Refit USS Atlantis has been sitting in my build pile for about a year. That jives with my memory. It was one of the first kits I ordered and it has been intimidating me ever since. I really wanted to build it but I wanted it to look good too. Finally, I decided to give it a try, not because I think I can do it justice but because I want it so bad. Besides, I'll never develop the skills if I don't actually try.

Construction:
Construction on this one started out as all such projects should but too many do not. I gave the instructions a thorough reading. That certainly ratcheted up the intimidation factor. Don't get me wrong, the instructions are well written, very thorough and chock full of helpful hints and tips, but they did confirm that this was going to be an intensive build.

The first actual build step is the building of the motor mount. I made the motor tube as directed, located the centering rings and engine hook and came to a screeching halt. I searched through the bag and the instructions and found no mention of a thrust ring. Neither did I find the actual ring. It may not be needed but, I like them. I have a few rockets that have omitted them and always notice wear where the engine hook is used as the sole means of blocking the motor. Accordingly, I cut a ring off of a spent Estes E motor and used that as a thrust ring, mounting it with yellow glue and spacing it with a spent D casing.

With the thrust ring in place, I cut the slit for the engine hook and then glued on the three centering rings. The forward and aft rings each have a notch. The forward one allows passing of a Kevlar® thread and the aft one accommodates the engine hook. The middle ring has no notch and is located at the midpoint. The end rings were mounted flush with the ends of the motor tube and all were secured and filleted with yellow glue.

After the glue on the motor mount is dry, the instructions call for the fitting of a Kevlar® harness around the motor tube. The end of the Kevlar® is then fed through a notch in the centering ring. Instead of doing this, I decided to add a baffle system and anchor the recovery system to that. I chose a FlisKits BAF-55.

Since there was no recovery system associated with the motor mount to worry about, the next step was to actually install the motor mount into the main body tube. It was secured in place with yellow glue and with the aft ring flush with the aft end of the tube.

The kit came with a wraparound fin marking guide. I generally prefer these to the end alignment guides that some favor. Sirius has gone a step further than most of the competition though. Theirs is printed on its own sheet. You do not have to butcher the instructions to use the guide.

I cut the guide out (you still have to do a little trimming) and wrapped it around the BT. I aligned the belly centerline with the engine hook and taped the guide an 1/8" forward of the end. I then transferred the lines to the BT and labeled them. I slid the guide off for the time being, as it would be needed again in a later step, and all of the lines were extended the length of the BT using a door frame for alignment.

With the lines extended, I again slipped the wraparound guide onto the BT and ensured that its marks lined up with those on the tube. This time the guide was taped in place flush with the end of the tube. The purpose for putting it back on was to use it to cut the slots for the warp engine pylons.

To ensure the cuts would be straight, I taped a steel ruler along one of the lines for the cutout. Then using multiple passes, a razor knife was used to cut the BT. You must be careful not to cut too deep and penetrate the motor tube. When one line was cut, I repositioned the ruler and cut another. Finally, all that was left was the very short cut at either end of the slots. I cut these by simply inserting the razor knife until its width completed the slices. These are by far the straightest cuts I have made in a tube to date. The guide was then removed.

The first of the fins to go in place is the belly fin. It is actually composed of 3 pieces of plywood. The first central piece is the largest and has a notch in the leading edge to accommodate a dowel. The other two pieces have the same lower profile but only extend to just above the slot for the dowel. Taken together, they form a slot for the dowel.

The center fin is installed first. I used a needle to prick a set of holes along the line it was to be mounted on. This was so that the glue could form "rivets" that penetrate the BT. I then put some yellow glue on the root edge of the fin, pressed it place and immediately removed it. I then let both glue trails dry so that I could form the double glue joint. When dry, I applied some more glue to the root edge and carefully placed the fin. The instructions warn that you should not try to form a fillet at this point.

The reason you are warned not to fillet the fin yet is that the two outer pieces still have to be applied. When the fin was dry, I applied glue to the interior face of the outer piece and the root edge and pressed it into place on the central fin. I noticed that both of my side pieces were ever so slightly warped and did not want to sit flat against the central piece. I could find none of the clamps that are hidden around the disaster area I call a workshop but I did notice the battery leads to my battery charger. They did the clamping just fine.

The battery clamps came off after a day and it was time to insert the wooden dowel antenna into the pocket formed by the two side pieces and the center piece. It was glued in place with yellow glue and periodically checked to make sure that the dowel was aligned with the BT and parallel to the BT.

The dowel antenna was followed by two rounded decks, one on either side of the tail assembly. They too were fixed in place with yellow glue.

Another, longer dowel is provided as an antenna that sits on the tail assembly. This was put in place with yellow glue. Note well the side that the instructions have you mark: I marked as indicated and then made an "assumption" and glued it on backwards. Fortunately, I discovered my mistake before it has set up and was able to correct it.

The dish antenna is up next. It is an oval disk with a notch in one side to accommodate the first dowel antenna mentioned above. The disk is glued to the 3 layered tail assembly and helps to support the dowel.

All of the wood assembly up to this point had been fairly easy, but I was worried about the next step: inserting the fin/engine pylons. These were to go in the slots I had cut earlier. I was confident that the slots were in the right place but was worried about alignment. The engine hook was not perfectly centered in the slot of the centering ring and when I had sighted along the tube, the asymmetry tended to throw off my perceptions. This rocket would not work in my Art Rose fin jig so I had to do it by eye.

I decided to use 5 minute epoxy for this step and do the pylons one at a time. Accordingly, I mixed a small batch and began to ladle it into the slot. I then inserted the pylon and did my best to ensure it was at the proper angle to the tail assembly. When the epoxy had set, I mixed another batch and did the same for the other side. When both had set, I mixed a third batch and used it to fillet the joint with the outer BT. They turned out to be easier than I had feared.

After the pylons were in place, I turned to what I thought would be another easy section, the two side decks. There was nothing really difficult about them except that there was a slight bow in the wood. One is applied to each side of the BT. For this, I used a safety pin to drill rivet holes along the application line and put them on with a double glue joint of yellow glue. I actually started at one end and held that in place until the deck would not move. When stable, I gently bend the wood to apply some more glue and then set the remainder in place, holding it until it was dry. The process was repeated on the opposite side. It turned out not to be difficult, but it was tedious.

From the side decks I turned to a simpler task, however, it was the first one involving any of the vacuum formed parts. The top deck is plywood and extends most of the length of the BT. On the deck, however, is mounted the bridge, reminiscent of the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise. This is vacuum formed plastic.

The instructions suggest that you use a sharp pencil to trace around the vacuum formed parts. This makes it much easier to see the line along which cutting should occur. I then used an X-Acto knife and made about 4 passes to get the part cut out. Sandpaper was used to clean up the edges and to make sure of a flat mounting surface. The bridge was then mounted to the wood with a very small application of tube type plastic cement.

In addition to the two dowels provides for the tail assembly, there are 2 more long ones to serve as conduit. These were easily applied along the marked lines with yellow glue.

The launch lugs came next. The kit actually came with one and instructions to cut it into a longer segment and a shorter one. The shorter one was then glued in place at the back of one of the side decks and the longer one in place even with the aft end of one of the conduit dowels.

By the time the lugs were in place, the bridge was sufficiently dry so that the top deck could be glued into place. I again drilled rivet holes along the length of the alignment line and glued it in place with yellow glue.

The warp pods of the engine derive their strength from a pair of body tubes glued together inside of each pod. Each pair consists of a shorter and a longer tube. Each pair is glued together with the forward edges aligned. Yellow glue was used.

The vacuum formed warp pods were cut out in the same manner as the bridge and sanded likewise. A pair of the tubes was then set in place in the plastic and glued with a small bit of tube type cement. When dry, the opposite side of the pod was glued on with liquid type plastic cement.

Then came the most tedious part of the whole build. The edges of the pods were sanded down. Periodically, this would "break into" the glue joint and the assembly would have more of the liquid cement applied and tape would be put on to hold it closed until it dried. Then the whole process would be repeated over and over again until the join lines disappeared. Eventually, I got to the point where I did not want to remove any more material but still had some fairing to do and putty was used to build these places up. That resulted in even more sanding.

When I was satisfied with the pods, I needed to cut the slots for the pylons. An X-Acto blade was used in multiple passes to cut out the plastic. The process was continued until the tubes were broached and cut as well.

The warp engine pods were attached to the pylons with 5 minute epoxy. I did one side at a time and mixed a small batch. This was ladled into the slot on the pod so that it would cling to the area where the pylon would hit the opposite wall of the tube. The pylon was then slid into the slot and held straight until the epoxy set up. Another small batch of epoxy was then mixed and used to fillet the joint between the pylon and the outer edge of the pod. When dry, the opposite side of the same pod was filleted and the entire process was repeated for the opposite engine.

PROs: Not as difficult as it looks...and it looks great.

CONs: Vacuum formed plastic takes some time to get used to working with, but it can be done.

Finishing:
Finishing of this model actually started during construction. As the plywood pieces were assembled, they were sealed with balsa filler coat with rounds of light sanding. This resulted in an exceptionally smooth finish after the fifth coat. I decided not to try and fill the spirals, although I very much appreciated the advice for a good way to do so in the instructions because they were barely visible. The quality of the tubes was excellent. The nosecone was a little rough and I started off by using some balsa filler coat on that as well. After 2 coats, however, it was apparent that it would need many more and I sped things up with Elmer's Wood Filler. With that, I thought I was ready to prime using Kilz. I figured the Kilz would fill in any spiral that might be visible.

Accordingly, I set the Atlantis up in the booth and my first problem became readily apparent with the first coating of Kilz. The Kilz brought out a few hairline cracks in the joints between the sides of the plastic warp pods. I realized right away that I needed some more filler.

The second problem became apparent as I went back to my desk and started rummaging around waiting for the Kilz to dry. I found a pair of parts I had forgotten to install. These were 2 plywood rails that are applied to the bottom of the warp pods. I immediately began to seal them with filler coat.

When the Kilz had dried, I gave the rocket a sanding and then applied the 2 rails with 5 minute epoxy. I also applied putty to the cracks.

When the putty was dry, I had to sand it down smooth. The result was ugly but the finish was smooth. After painting, I felt it should look very good.

The rocket was then put back in the booth and given another coat of Kilz. It was then sanded some more.

After sanding, the entire rocket was sprayed with a light coat of Rustoleum Silver Metallic. After the first coat, you could barely tell that the rocket had been painted--it puts out a very fine mist. That was fine with me. Every few hours, or when I could get back to the shop, I would give it another coat and it did build up over time. A total of six coats were applied but they are more like 2 "normal" coats.

After I thought I was finished with the silver paint, I looked more closely and found that there were some unpainted places in the shadows of the intricate woodwork. I sprayed these areas and let the rocket dry for another day.

The first of the trim that I attempted were the rhomboids molded into the engine nacelles. I taped of the edges with cellophane, a big mistake (I should have known better) and paited with Tamiya copper using a brush. There were several problems with this. The main one is that the cellophane did not produce a good seal and there was some leakage. I had a plan for this. The second problem stemmed from my own clumsiness. I fumbled the brush and in my attempts to catch it, splattered some paint. To make matters worse, I also smudged some with my fingers. Much was cleaned up with a paper towel but some copper staining remained. When dry, I planned to touch up using some of the sprayed silver paint, sprayed into a puddle, and brushed on.

I also painted the radar dish and antenna of the superstructure with the same copper.

I decided to use some bright red paint to highlight the dots running along the outside of the nacelles. I used Model Master and applied it with a brush.

While staring at the red dots and pondering the relative drying time of acrylics and enamels, I decided that I wanted to do something with the 2 dowel "conduits" on the ventral side. I masked them off and painted them copper as well.

Each of the engine nacelles has an elongated area on each side which you are instructed to paint blue. I masked the areas and brush painted them with Tamiya metallic blue. The color looks good but, on lifting the tape, I found the same bleeding problems I had experienced with the copper. Again, I planned to take care of this problem before adding the decals.

My method for dealing with the paint blunders seemed simple enough. I took the spray can from which the original silver had come and sprayed a big puddle into a paper plate. I then brushed the paint onto the blunders. Coverage was not as good as I had expected. I had to put on a "first coat" and let it dry before tackling it again.

The touch ups with the brushed silver spray did not go perfectly but they certainly improved things. While I was at it, I brushed a bit of blue onto the bridge assembly to make it stand out better.

Before the major task of applying all the decals could begin, I needed to "smooth out" the graininess of the metallic paint finish. This was done by spraying with Rustoleum clear. A total of 3 light coats was applied.

One of the more intimidating parts of this kit is the sheer number of decals. There are four sheets and I knew when I began that my decal application skills are merely adequate. This kit was going to push my limits.

I decided to start simply and add the name and hull numbers to the nacelles. There are four instances of this decal, two in black and two in red. The instructions indicate placement but not color. I elected to put the black on the outer faces and red on the inner.

Since it was on the same sheet, I decided to go with one for the tail assembly next. I cut it out and it was a tight fit. I had to do some trimming to keep it from overlapping the edge.

Next up were the wing pylons. These require 4 decals (each side, top and bottom) and differ only in their being mirror images of each other. They went on without too much fuss.

The upper deck, aft of the bridge is one long decal. To look right, the "bull's eye" needs to be centered in the circular section. This sounds easy but there is some asymmetry which makes it just a touch more difficult that might be imagined. The decals forward of the bridge went on with the same attention to the misleading asymmetry.

The tops of the side decks each got a decal and the bottoms got a longer version. One of them had to be trimmed to fit around the launch lug.

The tail assembly had already gotten its main decal, but the instructions provide for another one on each side higher up on the 3-ply area. For me, this was confusing because it was obvious that the decal would not fit as outlines, and I don't mean minor trimming here. The lower part of the decal has to be cut off and applied below the horizontal projection. This is not difficult but it gave me pause because everywhere else, the decals were marked with a dotted line where they were supposed to be cut and this one had no such dots, leading me to the conclusion that I was not understanding something. I finally cut it and applied it. Whether I am correct or not, I am satisfied with the result.

The antenna dish got a grill pattern over its top half. On the forward section of the BT, from the bottom, there are 3 principal decals. The aftermost features a yellow circle and more of the patterning that has predominated on the bottom of the hull. Near the nosecone there is a pretty cool looking Atlantis logo. In between these two is a hull number. On the top surface, near the front, goes a much bigger hull number.

With the decals applied on the top and bottom of the rocket, the 2 sides were left to do. These consisted of 3 longer decals on each side forward of the side decks and then a few small "detail" decals. Several were just logos and one on each side consisted of 3 colored squares.

After all the decals were dried, I set the Atlantis up in the spray booth and began applying light coats of clear. I gave it a total of 4 coats. With that, the Atlantis was ready to fly...the next day.

PROs: This is a good looking rocket but the decals take it to a whole new level. They really make a superior kit awesome.

CONs: getting those nooks and crannies painted can be hard but the effort is worth it.

Construction Rating: 5 out of 5

Flight and Recovery:
The day of the maiden flight of the Refit Atlantis arrived and it was prepped with a D12-5. People wanted to see this one. On takeoff, it weathercocked a bit but was very stable. It ejected and recovered not far away. I wanted to try it on something bigger.

A video of the flight can be seen here.

The landowner was kind enough to open a gate and let me on his property but warned me about Sweetie. It turns out that Sweetie is a dog but I was not worried because Sweetie was a dachshund. Sweetie seemed...sweet until I went past the gate and then she became a hellhound. It's humiliating, really, I never thought I would ever meet the dachshund who could outrun me. I bet she was funny looking, but I was too busy looking where I was running. At least I got my rocket back.

A video of the second flight can be seen here, but don't blink.

PROs: This one is bound to look good, no matter what. Seeing it in the air is even better.

CONs: It is prone to weathercocking but that is the hazard of all that area aft. Without it, it would just be another rocket.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
I love this one. It looks cool. It was challenging but not impossible. I am actually proud of it, not something I say about too many of mine in terms of appearance.

I'm glad I waited to get started...I didn't have the skills to build it when I bought it. I hope it has a long career.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5