Scale: 1/48 - about 1.5"/4cm long when built

Parts: 10 resin

Instructions: 1 double sided sheet

Decals: 1 small water slide sheet (silkscreened); markings for the F4D that carried the rockets

Molding Quality: 10 Beautiful molding!

Detail: 9 - The rocket has simple shapes without much detail. What detail is there is very good

Accuracy: 9 - Reasonable for the scale

MSRP: $15.00 USD (~€17.10 EUR) available from New Ware Models

Overall Rating: 9+

The goal was to orbit a small (2 pound) satellite. Six rockets were launched. Although not likely, two might have successfully reached orbit.

New Ware's kit is listed as a conversion for Tamiya's 1/48th scale F4D Skyray. I think it can be thought of as an ordnance kit. It is simply the rocket which attaches to one of the plane's pylons like a drop tank.

The rocket has ten beautifully cast resin parts. No bubbles to found on any of the parts. I was especially impressed with the four tiny, delicately molded engine nozzles. By the nature of the subject, there isn't much surface detail.

The rocket appears to be accurate in shape based a couple photos I've seen. It is more accurate then the Peter Alway drawings in my opinion. Getting the calipers out, I found the kit's dimensions to be very good. Those dimensions that I could check, where well within .01". I'm not really that anal, but I couldn't resist checking. Above all, the kit LOOKS like a NOTSnik rocket!

Also included is a set of decals for the carrier aircraft. It has aircraft numbers and 'CHINA LAKE' markings appropriate for the Skyray. These are to be used with the stencils and national insignia decal Tamiya provides.

The instructions have good painting and marking directions based, I think, on a photo of the chase plane.

There aren't a lot references on the NOTSnik, but there are some. I would recommend checking out (or even joining) the Yahoo space-modelers groups at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/space-modelers/messages. Notsnik has been the subject of discussion on this group and there is some useful reference info in the vault archives.

Assembly looks pretty straight forward. The only tricky part appears to be cleaning up and installing the engine nozzles in the correct place and angle.