Model Rocketry

[RedWolf]

I was curious as to whether any of my fellow CFCers are (or have ver been) involved in my newest favourite hobby - model rocketry.

Has anybody here ever built or launched a model rocket?

I've attached a launch photo of my latest launch. It's a two stage rocket of my own design (although built with raw Estes parts) which uses a D engine as a booster stage and a C for the upper stage. It's called it the "RedWolf II" (the original RedWolf is officially listed MIA however the booster stage was recovered and reused on the newest model seen here)

The launch went off quite successfully and the rocket soared to an incredible height - we even lost sight of it (except for the smoke trail) until the red parachute deployed. I have a rather good MPEG of the launch sequnce actually.

The real problems started during the recovery stage when I realized that the wind was too strong, the rocket was too light, the parachute too large and the altitude TOO HIGH. The rocket (dangling beneath a 2 foot nylon parachute) drifted over an incredible distance and ended up wrapped around a power wire as I looked helplessly on.

Anybody else have any experiences? Better yet photos?

(By the way I'm currently working on the RedWolf III as I type this post.)

 

[Shadylookin]

i've made and launched a rocket, but i didn't design it only followed instructions. it ended up getting stuck on a roof. but it looked cool going so high and far away

 

[PresidentMike]

It's funny you picked now to post it: I launched my rocket three times today! On the last flight the motor burned a hole in my parachute, so I've got some maintence to do before I fly it again. Weather permitting, I'll blast her off again tomorrow.

The last launch today was a little interesting. I used A motors on the first two, but then switched to a B for the third. The rocket got up to a nifty height, but then it started to plunge straight to the ground. I was screaming for the cone to pop and the parachute to deploy; I thought for sure it would splatter. Then, at about the last possible moment, the chute came out and it floated to a soft landing.

I'm no where near as accomplished as you: I bought a Quest kit and spent an afternoon putting it together. But the feeling as you watch it fly into the air is incredible. I know what Goddard felt like when he set off that first liquid fueled rocket nearly a century ago.

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by PresidentMike
It's funny you picked now to post it: I launched my rocket three times today!

Really? Designed it yourself? How did it go? Any pictures?

I had to show SOMEBODY as my girlfriend didn't seem suitably impressed by the whole siuation.

She calls it a "phallic symbol" and finds it quite amusing that I plan to build the next one "bigger and more powerful!!"

 

[PresidentMike]

Originally posted by RedWolf

Really? Designed it yourself? How did it go? Any pictures?

I was editing my original post as you were writing this. It's a simple kit rocket, but still a lot of fun. I'm really just an enthusiastic beginner, but I enjoy it.

No pictures unfortunatley. Like I said, I plan to send her up again tomorrow. I was planning on taking some photos, but I haven't got a digital camera, so I'm afraid I won't be able to post them.

How much time did you spend designing and building your rocket?

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by PresidentMike


I was editing my original post as you were writing this. It's a simple kit rocket, but still a lot of fun. I'm really just an enthusiastic beginner, but I enjoy it.

No pictures unfortunatley. Like I said, I plan to send her up again tomorrow. I was planning on taking some photos, but I haven't got a digital camera, so I'm afraid I won't be able to post them.

How much time did you spend designing and building your rocket?

I'm just an enthusiastic beginner as well but I'm just oo stupid to start small - which is why I keep losing them. You after all got more launches out of one rocket then I've gotten out of two.

hard to say how long it took really - not a lot of design work - just a little bit of thinking about how to make the two stages work because estes doesn't document that feature on their engines very well. The internet is a good source. I didn't do a lot of design work as far as aerodynamics go - however I did do stability testing on it (via the string method) before launch and discovered that i would have to rebalance it before the launch which I did... Probably what made the launch as straight as it was...

It's hard to get pictures of them - I don't have a digital camera either but my friend has one worth quite a bit of money - he had it set up to take 5 pictures at the second of launch but he only managed to get 2 before it has skyrocketed out of the cameras view - it turned out well as you can see - not blurry at all - the attached photo was a little blurry because I had to compress it to attach but the original hi-res photo is REALLY good.

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by PresidentMike

The last launch today was a little interesting. I used A motors on the first two, but then switched to a B for the third. The rocket got up to a nifty height, but then it started to plunge straight to the ground. I was screaming for the cone to pop and the parachute to deploy; I thought for sure it would splatter. Then, at about the last possible moment, the chute came out and it floated to a soft landing.

Thats scary stuff - when we lost sight of mine and it didn't seem like the chute was going to deploy I was thinking "well thats just great - the nose cone didn't pop so what we have hear is an unguided bomb thats coming right back down and none of us can see the damn thing". hankfully it DID deploy eventually.

Originally posted by PresidentMike

I'm no where near as accomplished as you: I bought a Quest kit and spent an afternoon putting it together. But the feeling as you watch it fly into the air is incredible. I know what Goddard felt like when he set off that first liquid fueled rocket nearly a century ago.

The best part of the launch for me is the noise and the smoke as it WHOOSHES skyward. have you ever seen an "amateur rocket"? Those are the big ones with the large engines and they shoot upward on this big pillar of dark smoke.... They're REALLY cool although they seem to expensive for my budget.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Why don't you guys sumbit a request to enter the X-Prize? ( www.xprize.com )

 

[MarineCorps]

launched rockets as part of a scince project.

 

[G-Man]

When I was in the 6th grade I was one day every week in a more advanced school. We could take three classes - I chose music, robotics and physics. In physics we once built such rockets and then launched them. But they were all kit made. I wanted to build more but in Israel there are (not surprisingly) pretty strickt rules on building rockets, plus launching them is a problem as well unless you go down hundreds of miles to the desert...

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by Aphex_Twin
Why don't you guys sumbit a request to enter the X-Prize? ( www.xprize.com )

No thanks! I wouldn't get in any rocket that I've built!

I've lost 2 for 2 remember?

 

[Hitro]

Still trying to improve it so that it can hit London.

 

[Siegmund]

I had a couple model rockets, out of kits, as a kid ... I found them interesting curiosities, but never did get into it seriously. Still am intrigued by the possibilities though.

It was sort of inevitable I'd have to try it sometime - after years of wondering what those rocket engines were for that I walked past as my dad and I picked up new stuff for our model railroad.

 

[Mrogreturns]

As a kid I was planned to make a rocket motor using an aerosol can as the propellant source. Luckily my dad found out about it and stopped me before I killed myself

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by Mrogreturns
As a kid I was planned to make a rocket motor using an aerosol can as the propellant source. Luckily my dad found out about it and stopped me before I killed myself

Thats a good thing... We once planned to put a full pop can into a camp fire in hopes of watching it rocket skyward spewing boiling liquid and white hot shrapnel but our parents stepped in and stopped THAT experiment before it got started.

Thank god for parents. They stop you from doing stupid stuff when you're a kid.

 

[Pongui]

I made a few cheap-kit rockets with friends, as a youngster.

But now I'm a grown-up.

Aerosol spray powers the spudgun (yes it fires potatoes) I keep in the islands. I've heard of propane-fired setups, but for convenience the best propellant, IMHO, is Right Guard Gold Antiperspirant. Lobbing spuds at the neighbour's metal roof is a friendly rural way to announce one's presence from across the inlet or over intervening forest. It may be a crude form of communication. Or a lovely nighttime art form with glowing survival-sticks jammed into the soaring spuds.

 

[Plexus]

Originally posted by Aphex_Twin
Why don't you guys sumbit a request to enter the X-Prize? ( www.xprize.com )

Man, if I had the money and the knowhow, I'd go for it.

 

[guyincorner]

i used to do it almost daily until one of my bigger exploded after it it went 5ft and went my direction so......

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by Sean Lindstrom
I made a few cheap-kit rockets with friends, as a youngster.

But now I'm a grown-up.

OUCH! That hurt!

Originally posted by Sean Lindstrom

Aerosol spray powers the spudgun (yes it fires potatoes) I keep in the islands. I've heard of propane-fired setups, but for convenience the best propellant, IMHO, is Right Guard Gold Antiperspirant. Lobbing spuds at the neighbour's metal roof is a friendly rural way to announce one's presence from across the inlet or over intervening forest.

My younger brother once made a potatoe cannon that fired using compressed air. It had a ball valve and an air chamber and he used a bike pump to fill it - then aimed and opened the valve. It would just THUNK out of that PVC pipe and it soared....