I got one of these about a year ago, and finally finished and flew it, so here's my commentary. First off I must say that calling this a skill level 3 is ridiculous. It's at least a 4 maybe even a 5, but I guess Estes doesn't want to scare people off too much, oh well...
After seeing many opinions about whether you should upgrade the mount to 24mm, I decided to build it stock. Mainly because I had seen one fly on a C motor and it flew fine. I was convinced that if you just build it light, it would do fine. The other thing was I don't mind if it doesn't fly too high because here in NJ many times you are stuck with a small field. And of course, if it didn't work out, there are always the 18mm D motors as a possibility. So it is stock except for one thing. That cheap rubber tubing they give you for the leg hinges ripped, so I got some silicone R/C fuel tubing and it is a lot stronger, but more on that in a minute. I painted as I went, not getting too crazy with primer or sanding sealer, just one coat. And the paint itself I was able to limit to 2 coats for the red and blue, and the silver went one fine in just one coat.
So it was done after many painstaking hours and the moment of truth came last week. Here is the glamour shot on the pad.
And liftoff on a C6-3!
Well, it boosted to about 150-200 ft I would say, but on ejection, one of the chute shroud lines snapped. The Outlander came down a bit fast and one of the legs bore the impact of the not so soft landing. Unfortunately, post flight inspection revealed the leg hinge tube had ripped, despite them seeming very tough. I didn't build it to have access to the internal parts for repair, so nothing I can do for now, but it should be fine with 3 of 4 working, and it will not affect the flying ability.
Overall, I like this rocket a lot. It certainly is the most bizarre and one of the most impressive rockets in our fleet. I'm mostly a scale guy but I must admit this one got a lot of oohs and aahs from the kids and adults at our launch! Certainly it's a good small field flyer if you decide to build it stock, just go easy on the finishing.
Glenn