Had an hour to kill so went to hang out at the local mom and pop hobby store. The have the usual slowly shrinking display of quest/custom/estes that is slowly being taken over by RC Car stuff. Anyways...what a pleasant surprise...for the first time in a few years there were several kits that looked terrific. The estes missile kits- paveway, cluster bomb, etc are great...varying skill levels, seem to require actual assembly, reasonably priced...that's a nice change from the past several years. Estes also had some sport models that were also a nice change from 3fnc...a satellite destroyer or something with three externally mounted pods on a piston that come down separately, and another e2x dual boost glider...certainly takes e2x to a new level. Quest had some real nice new kits, too, for the first time in years. I bought a Harpoon (i think...its in the other room) that reminds me of Launch Pad kits. It is begging to become a two stager. They also have a boost glider that is reminiscent of their old space shuttle kit of the 70's. It could use a better paint scheme, but looks like a nice kit. I honestly could have walked out of there with five new kits...although sanity prevailed and i only got two! Anyway, this is an amazingly encouraging trend that will hopefully continue. Has anyone built any of these kits yet?
Art T South Jersey Area Rocketry Society NAR# 34201 L1