Rocket #4 - HobbyLabs SR-71 Blackbird R/C Rocket Glider

33" High, 22" Wide
24 mm Motor Mount (E15-PW)
8 oz unloaded at liftoff; 12 oz with engine

I purchased this HobbyLabs SR-71 Blackbird on EBay for $122.50 before shipping and motors. There wasnt much to do but glue on the fins, attach decals, and put the batteries in. So the rocket was completely uncharted to me when I took it to Ocotillo for it's first flight. I got it down from the first flight, but it crashed pretty bad on the second one. We'll see if I can get it to fly again :)

I could recommend two things anyone should do before shooting this rocket up. First, heed the warnings in the manual ... it is tricky to fly. I was used to dyhedral (angled) wings on beginners r/c gliders. This has flat wings and elevons, and so flies more like a real plane. Specifically, it can easily get into spiral dives :(

Secondly, I'd really suggest painting the plane a different color on the bottom and/or top so that you can see it. Black on black may be great for spy planes, but from 600-700 ft, even with the NASA fin decals, it's really easy to lose perspective about which way the plane is turning. I crashed in a spiral dive, confused about the orientation of the rocket (glider).

Here is the flight log for the SR71.

SR-71 Flight Log
Flight	Date	Engine	Notes
#1	2001-02-17 #12 Ocotillo	E15-PW	approx 600ft nice boost difficult flight safe landing
#2	2001-02-17 #13 Ocotillo	E15-PW	approx 600 ft out of trim boost (spirals) lost perspective spiral dive, crash
#3	2001-04-28 #7 SARA Club Launch Tucson, AZ	E15-PW	spent hours rebuilding and painting it boost to approx 600 ft made a few controlled turns lost control while flying left to right in front of me. fell off the right wing hit the ground at about a 45' angle broke the nose cone, spine, etc would have been a lot of work to fix it fly-to-fix ratio is too high. ripped out radio & servos for use in other project The SR71 is dead! Long live the next rocket!