Estes-Cox Corp Estes Rocket-Mini Mosquito

A simple rocket to build.

These are great fun! They go way farther than I expected. Definitely recommend.

The item came with no body or nose parts, only the fins!!

I had a number of these as a kid and never saw any of them ever again after launch. If you can believe it, we've launched this little guy NINE TIMES now and still have it. Every single fin has come off at least once and the nosecone blew off once, but we always manage to find all the parts and glue it back together. We launch from the rocketry area out at El Mirage Dry Lake (34°37'27"N 117°33'30"W), and our search technique is to have everyone "freeze" and be completely silent as soon as we see the tracking smoke. With three sets of ears listening we always hear the "bonk" of the rocket hitting the lakebed, which gives us a bearing to where it landed. There's just no chance of seeing it come down- it once landed within ten feet of the launch pad and no one saw a thing.

My boys got me back in the model rocketry hobby a month or two ago, aka blowing money on Amazon for every kit in the book. It was bound to happen and I gave in to the irresistible qualities of this little rocket. It showed up on a warm afternoon a week ago and I quickly assembled it and gave it two or three coats of primer. Hey! I wanted this thing as smooth and aerodynamic as possible! Turns out I did too good a job slicking it up. Then I applied a coat of metallic black paint. It was perfect. I even promised my oldest son he could borrow it for his display at school on his report on model rocketry. The warm weather continued and sadly today as I type this review of a fun little rocket, my son has no rocket to display next week and I am anxiously hoping the replacement shows in time. And this time I will be using engines from Quest that are a 1/8A size. I also will not be launching this one on its maiden flight in a 10mph spring zephyr! In my defense, I used a 1/4A3-3T engine for the maiden flight. However, it was apparently aerodynamic to a point of reaching near earth orbit even on the pipsqueak engine. Good thing I didn't go for broke and use the A10-3 I had with me, the prez would right now be trying to assure Moscow that the hit on the space station was NOT a deliberate attack! So grab one (or ten) for yourself! It's a ton of fun to build and launch. Just don't set your heart on getting every one back that you launch. And stick with still days and small engines!