Quest X-30

There is a review out on Essence's site at

I've built and flown one. It was a little tricky to build and I spoilt part of the pre-printed shroud, so I resprayed it in a camo pattern. Looked good! Flew well on C6-3s

Regarding the cluster, it already had quite a lot of nose weight, and you will most likely need more.

After lots of successful flights, mine spacked when the 'chute didn't deploy. All the front end is stoved in including the vac-formed nose, so it's not an easy rebuild.

I read the reports on EMRR from the link Doug and Mike provied, thanks guys. It does sound like it's a little tricky but then I like that. I'm glad to hear a positive report.

I figured I'd just measue the weight of the clay Quest provided on my postal scale and then add the weight of the additional engine/engines, mounts,etc. and maybe converting to lead or or washers, depending on the room available. That's all we did when we built the 5 engine Saturn V. On that one, there wasn't enough room for as much clay as it would have taken, so I used a combination of lead and filled the gaps with clay. The X-30 may turn out that there isn't enough room and I'll go with the clay and a single engine.

I figured if it noses in, it's all over and it may be that the weight required to cluster, could exceed the strength of the paper to support it. I'll play with it some before anything is permanent and if that seems to be the case, I'll build it stock. It's just my nature to tinker with things just a bit. I've been thinking of ways to beef up the paper but that's a little tricky too, since it's hard to tell what will cause shrinkage. After building several SR-71's and several Saturns, I know the paer can be a pain.

From reading the EMRR reports there seems to be a common problem with this kit ejecting the motor mount. This is my first Quest kit and the thing that seems the weirdest to me is tying the shock cord to the thrust ring. What's up with that? I think I'll do the normal Estes mount.

Thanks to all. Randy

Yes, you just need to add enough weight to bring the CG back to its original location.

To get more weight in the nose you would need to add lead, as it's already pretty full of modelling clay.

Once built, it was quite sturdy. Paper can be strengthened with CA. Maybe in this case you could coat the inside?

Didn't have that problem with mine.

Tying it to the thrust ring does work, as long as it's Kevlar. Elastic would burn.

Buy 60 of them from Magnum. See the "specials".

Don't use the old style Quest "gripper tabs" on the parachute since they clog the body tube during ejection resulting in big time overpressure.

:) DD