My Estes Odyssey-Ready for flight - Thoughts on the kit

Awesome job. Hope there is enough room in there for a good sized chute to give that Bird the gentle landing it deserves.

absolutely beautiful

Along with my "old" Geo-Sat....today was a day of maiden flights! This was flight #2 for the day. It was nice and calm. It is funny...I had to use a plastic chute. BABAR's comments above were prophetic....all my nylon chutes were too big for the BT-55. It is time to get some thin mil chutes! Having said that...all that work on this rocket and all the work on the finishing was riding on that plastic chute! I was nervous! i used a D12-3 and it was perfect. i will try an E18-W later.
The boost was very nice and it did arc over as it coasted....this made it look great in the sky! the delay was perfect and to my relief the chute came out perfectly. I noticed that the top "pod/ray gun thingy" was missing when I picked it up. CRAP! I walked the "flight path" and eventually found it! the break was very clean and I have already glued it back plus did a touch up on the paint.....I can hardly tell!
The one thing about "space-plane" rockets with all kinds of "spacey-cool-glued on-fun-doodads" is that they can be knocked off easily. This is just a reality. But I am SO GLAD I found it.
Another thing.....I SUCK at taking video so dont expect anything spectacular....i tried. In the meantime...the pre-launch photos are below.

One more thing.....The tight/small volume of this rocket with the "robust" ejection charge from the D12, IMO, lends itself to high possibility of damage at ejection. To (try) and prevent this, I will make the shock cord much longer and attach the chute a little further down from the nose. If you use an AT RMS....dial back on the powder! I found the ejection from my D12-3 on my Geo-Sat launch (other thread) very violent/robust. Just my two cents...
Andrew

Congrats! The only thing better than building a very complex model is puckering up and letting it fly.

Andrew, that is one impressive model you have built !!!!

That's a great, clean build!