Dr. Zooch Ares I-X

A few weeks ago I told my son a bedtime story about the Estes Space Shuttle glider rocket I had growing up.  My usual stream of consciousness thought process kicked in and I had to check the internet to see if the things were still available.  As I suspected they weren't made anymore, but you could find unopened kits for around  $150 on eBay.  Alternatively, the Dr. Zooch line had something of a similar concept for just under $30 at Apogee.  Being a skill level 5 kit I knew it was not going to be a simple build.  My Quest FLV was a level 3 and it didn't turn out perfect, but the stuff I messed up on was the rather new phenomenon of body wraps.  So I figured to bridge the gap I should pick up a level 4 kit.  Since the FLV is based on the concept for the Ares V I figured the Ares I-X would make a good choice so that I can have my own Constellation Program fleet.

Am I glad I made that choice!  The Dr. Zooch kits are a totally different animal than most kits available today.  For starters the directions are wonderfully sarcastic and written by what appears to be a jaded engineer.  There are no kit specific parts meaning specially designed plastic parts.  Just about every part has to be formed and adapted to fit together or look the way it's supposed to.  There is also a lot of paper modeling which I do not have much experience with.  I learned a valuable lesson with this that I'll take to future Dr. Zooch kits that you should not tape a wrap together when leaving it to dry.  I pretty much ruined the appearance of the graphics along the seam because of that.  But I'm pretty sure a glossy paper wouldn't have done that.

Despite my learning curve the model turned out pretty well I guess.  Another thing I tried was to make initial application of the fins using gel super glue.  This was a very strong bond but I still made fillets of wood glue.  If I lose a fin it's not going to be at the joint.

My son was very impressed and immediately asked when we were going to launch it.  I'm running low on B engines so I asked him what rockets we should launch next and limited the selection to three.  He said we should take the Ares I-X, the Estes Bullpup, and the Porta-Potty.  After going through the engine stock I don't think I could get two launches out of the Porta-Potty, but we could get two out of the Big Bertha I built for his pre-school.  Although if I can get to the hobby store to pick up some more engines that could change.  Interestingly he did not want to launch his pencil rocket.  I warned him that it was a high flier and could very easily be lost on that narrow field we use.  He quite wisely said that he'd rather wait till we can launch it in a bigger field.  He's a smart one!

Our plan is to go to the same park we've been using this Saturday.  I'm trying to work out a time to go check out some land that I could get access to.  If that works out I'll be able to move beyond B engines and start really flying these things!