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events that took place.
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Day 11 - Record
Flight
Brotanek II ready to go.
Posing next to "OO" prior to record setting
flight.
okay, just one more kiss for the road ...
And there it goes.
Coming back down. Ground was reached 31.5
seconds after blast off.
Jordan with a blue paint job. Perhaps we
should have used a dark blue to make it easier
to see.
Little Man II after a 145psi flight. You can
see the re-enforcing tape on the lower part of
the picture.
Second take off for "OO"...
... ended in a pretty spectacular fashion.
It took about 15 minutes to repair before it
flew again.
Date:
26th August 2006 7:15am - 9:00am
Location:
Denzil Joyce Oval. (launch site #4) Where exactly is that? Click the
above link to see a Google Earth
place mark. What is
Google Earth?
Equipped with whistles. This one
goes pretty high. This rocket
remained in the same configuration
as the last flight day.
Spek III
2
L
This was the same rocket as the
last flight day equipped with a
digital video camera module.
The rocket remained in the same
configuration.
Jordan
1.25
L
A rocket that has flown many
missions. It has remained in the
same configuration since last launch
day.
"OO"
2 x 1.25
L
This is a 2 bottle rocket joined
at the base, with a parachute
recovery system. The rocket remained
in the same configuration since the
last launch day, with improved
support for the parachute in the
nosecone.
Brotanek II
1.25
L
This rocket has also been around
for a while. This rocket remained in
the same configuration.
Team Members:
PK and GK.
Number
of launches: 13
Welcome back to our frequent visitors
from London, and Latvia, (you know who you
are :) Why not send us an email if you have
any questions?).
Events
This was a good flight day again. We
managed to set a couple of personal
records again. "OO" set the first one by
taking 31.5 seconds to come back to
earth. That's 30 times longer than our
very first flights with the horizontal
launcher, and about 6 times longer than
our first vertical launch.
The second record was set for
highest launch pressure. Little Man II
was launched with a pressure of 145psi
(~10 bar). Prior to launch we
re-enforced its widest section with
about 3 loops of Gaffer (Duck) tape.
It flew nice and straight and whistled
well. One thing that is apparent that
the whistles only work at certain air
speeds, too fast or too slow they don't
whistle.
On "OO" 's second flight the
parachutes didn't deploy, and it came
down at full speed from around 100m. It
spectacularly exploded as it hit the
ground with lots of pieces of rocket
flying everywhere. That would have done
some damage if it landed on something.
Surprisingly we managed to repair "OO"
in the field for one more flight, and it
held up remarkably well. It's amazing
what a bit of tape and pliers will do.
:)
On its third flight of the day it
went well, except one of the parachutes
became tangled and did not fully open,
luckily the second opened fully and
brought to rocket to a safe landing.
We tried an air only test with John
John and a fairly restricted nozzle. As
expected the rocket didn't perform very
well, but because we were at the end of
the battery charge, we couldn't quite
get the pressure we needed.
The remainder of the flights were
good and I think we have solved the bad
nozzle problem from last time.
Flight Record
Launch
Rocket
Pressure (PSI)
Notes
1
Spek III
120
Good flight,
equipped with video camera. Good
landing.
2
"OO"
120
Perfect flight, very
high and straight, parachutes
deployed well and just after apogee.
Rocket landed not far from the
launch pad. New record of
31.5seconds flight time.
3
"OO"
120
Very high and
straight, parachutes didn't open,
spectacular explosion on impact with
bits flying everywhere.
4
Brotanek II
140
Straight up but a
bit wobbly. Chute deployed at
apogee, good landing.
5
John John
130
Good flight, 1/2
full of water.
6
Jordan
120
A bit of a wild
start, but overall a good flight.
7
Brotanek II
120
Okay flight, chute
deployed early and the nosecone was
ripped off from its line.
8
Little Man II
145
Highest pressure to
date. Little Man II was reinforced
in a section with Gaffer (Duck)
tape. Went pretty high and straight
up. Good whistles on the way up and
down.
9
Little Man II
20
Air only - to
straighten out the bottle. Altitude
about 1m.
10
"OO"
110
Field repaired from
flight #3, good straight flight,
parachutes opened past apogee, but
one chute was tangled. The other
slowed is sufficiently for a good
landing.
11
John John
102
battery running low
on the compressor, good flight.
12
John John
80
Little bit of water
and equipped with a narrow nozzle.
Unremarkable flight.
13
John John
?
Air only with a
narrow nozzle, using up the last of
the battery power - altitude ~5m.
Notes to self
Buy a bigger battery.
Day 12 - Crashes
Paul wanted to try to video tape a launch.
He did a pretty good job.
"OO" watering the oval.
Rockets flight tested on this day, with the
exception of Jordan.
New nosecone on Spek III. You can see the
camera sticking out.
New spring loaded parachute deployment
mechanism on "OO"
"OO" now only has one parachute.
..3...2...1...you know....
"OO" post landing. You can see the disk of
balsa wood on the nose of the rocket. It
supports the parachute during takeoff.
Rocket is going mostly vertical, but you
can't quite say the same for the photographer.
Date:
27th August 2006 7:30am - 8:15am
Location:
Denzil Joyce Oval. (launch site #4) Where exactly is that? Click the
above link to see a Google Earth
place mark. What is
Google Earth?
Conditions:
Great weather, cloudless sky, mild
temperatures, slight breeze.
Rockets:
Name
Capacity
Notes
Little Man II
1.25
L
Equipped with whistles. This one
goes pretty high. Remained in the
same configuration since last flight
day.
Spek III
2
L
This was the same rocket as the
last flight day equipped with a
digital video camera module.
The rocket remained in the same
configuration.
"OO"
2 x 1.25
L
This is a 2 bottle rocket joined
at the base, with a parachute
recovery system. Since last flight
day one of the parachutes was
removed and a spring mechanism was
fitted to the nosecone. A weight was
added to the nosecone too.
John John
600mL
This is our smallest rocket and
has performed well. It was tested
with a 7mm nozzle on this day.
Team Members:
PK, GK, AK, Paul and John.
Number
of launches:7
This was a short campaign, mainly to test
"OO" 's new parachute deployment system. We
also tried a couple of smaller experiments
to see their effects. We had to terminate
the day short due to other commitments and
also the fact that a football team was going
to use the oval for their training. Although
we had the firepower to keep them off the
field, the reload time was too long and our
position would have been over run.
Events
Parachute problems: The first
rocket for the day was Spek III. I had
made a new more streamlined nosecone for
the rocket to make sure it had the least
amount of drag. The camera was all
primed and rolling. On the way up while
the rocket was still going pretty fast,
the nosecone came off and the parachute
deployed and subsequently was ripped
off, and the rocket still kept going up
quite a ways. I think you can imagine
what I said at the time. The rocket came
straight down and smacked into the
ground. The camera housing was a little
buckled but the camera didn't appear to
have sustained any damage. I tried to
turn it on to make sure it still worked
but there was no response. The battery
was rattling around inside. It looked as
if the G forces on the battery were so
great on impact that it buckled the
spring contact inside the camera.
I was hoping I could still recover the
video at least, but when I finally
managed to get power to the camera, I
noticed that there was no movie. Bummer!
When the camera stops recording, it
needs a few seconds to process the video
before it can store it internally.
Because the camera was still rolling on
impact, the loss of power prevented the
camera from storing the movie properly.
I am going to place the battery
externally to the camera for future
flights so this does not happen again.
The reason for the chute coming off is
partly a chute design issue. the
parachute is attached only by a single
cord to the rocket, and the string broke
at the knot on the rocket.
We use kite string for the parachute
lines. I think I will have to add a
second redundant string to the main
chute lines to make sure that doesn't
happen again. I don't like adding more
strings to the rocket because I want to
minimize potential for tangles. "OO" 's
chutes are attached at 4 points on the
rocket so that is okay.
I'm not sure this was an official
flight, but as we were filling Little
Man II, all of a sudden it took off by
itself. We weren't looking at it and no
one was near the release cord. I think
the rocket wasn't properly locked down
in the launcher. This is one to watch
out for!
We flew 3 missions with the improved
"OO" rocket. The twin chutes were
replaced by a single chute as well. The
spring loaded nosecone release mechanism
worked well deploying the chute around
apogee in all three instances. On one
occasion the chute became tangled and
didn't provide enough braking force and
the rocket hit harder than we would have
liked. The upper bottle was crushed
quite a bit, but we popped it out and
the rocket flew again.
All of "OO" 's flight were very
straight and high, so we are happy with
the
design. I think we will have to mount
the camera to this one. I believe most
of these flights were in the 90-100
meter range. All these flights were at
launched at 130psi.
We did a nozzle experiment with John
John. We placed a piece of plastic
across the nozzle hole under the seal.
The plastic had a 7mm hole in it. I was
trying to reproduce the effect we had
with the bad nozzles of the water
spraying in a wide angle, but in a
controlled direction. The test was not
successful and the rocket flew a normal
flight profile although slightly slower
on take off. The column of water was
normally shaped.
After Little Man II's and John
John's flights, the bottles have become
quite buckled and crushed, so they will
be replaced.
We have a new rocket planned that we will
build over the next couple of weeks, that is
bigger than what we have built before, with
several new features. Stay tuned ...
Flight Record
Launch
Rocket
Pressure (PSI)
Notes
1
Spek III
120
Chute ripped off on
the way up. Rocket crashed hard with
minor damage to the camera.
In-flight movie not recovered.
2
Little Man II
?
Self launched,
looked like a normal flight,
pressure was likely to have been
~70psi
3
Little Man II
100
Good flight, Paul
did a good job of video taping it,
the bottle suffered enough damage to
need replacing.
4
"OO"
130
Excellent flight,
nice and straight and very high,
parachute deployed near apogee, good
landing.
5
"OO"
130
Very good flight
again, chute deployed, but was
tangled so never properly inflated
and rocket landed hard. The nose was
crushed but repairable.
6
"OO"
130
Excellent flight,
chute deployed after apogee and was
tangled for about half the way down,
but then fully opened and rocket
landed well.
7
John John
100
Half filled with
water using a further restricted
nozzle to 7mm. Good flight was
achieved, but experiment failed to
achieve objective. Bottle was
crushed on impact, so will have to
be replaced.
Notes to self
Make sure the rocket is properly
locked down in the launcher. Assume it
can take off at any moment.
