This blog covers the day to day progress of water rocket development by the Air Command Water Rockets team. It is also a facility for people to provide feedback and ask questions.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Acceleron V to 864' (263m)

We had a good launch day today at the NSWRA launch. We flew the Acceleron V 2-stage rocket a couple of times again. Both flights went great with the first reaching our new personal best of 864'. On the second flight we angled it a little away from the trees because of the wind direction. The rocket went up to 829 feet. Both flights were flown at 120psi again.


Just after the air pulse phase.

 View from just after apogee. Tiny cars!

I'm in the process of putting together an update for the main website with more photos and a highlights video. That should be finished towards the latter part of the week.

The update will also include more details on the Polaron G2 rocket.

11 comments:

MariusD said...

Hi George,

Impressive, again!
Could you explain first photo, when the water jets are "hitting" each other? On my rockets I saw the same "hit" - probable variation on pressure. It's in the same moment when the water is "climbing" inside bottles ?
I didn't see it when using foam ! Or at least not as visible .

Marius

George Katz said...

Hi Marius,

That is the start of the air pulse. As the water runs out, the air in the bottle starts accelerating out of the nozzle at high speed, and drags the little bit of water left with it creating the mist.

With a good foam mix there is usually no transition from water to air pulse and so you don't see it.

Unknown said...

It really is and impressive beast that Acceleron V, still amazes every time i see the videos!

Doug

George Katz said...

Thanks Doug. :) I'm hoping to have the highlights video of the flights from this weekend ready in the next couple of days.

Federico said...

Hi! great job...
I am impressed about your records and the explanations are very clear and precise. Here in Argentina we started working with water rockets shows to help in education of physic.
I wanted to know how to measure the altitude on your flights.
Thank you very much. and CONGRATULATIONS!

dan b said...

well done George with acceleron v's flight that air pulse pic looked amazing wont be long until 1000ft will be achieved cant wait for your next flight update and video keep up the good work

Dan B

George Katz said...

Thanks Dan :), we are currently looking to reinforce the sustainer on the Acceleron V rocket with fiberglass and use a higher pressure for the sustainer. The booster will stay at the 120psi for the time being. This should help to push the rocket a little higher and we'd finally have an excuse to use the dual air supply on the launcher.

Federico: We use the Z-log logging altimeter (by Hexpert systems) to measure the rocket's altitude. We have one in the booster, and another in the sustainer. Sample rate is 10Hz.

Anonymous said...

George,

I must say, very impressive on the day! Glad to meet you and have the opportunity to see it live.

I'll have to get a faster (newer) camera though, both times all I got at launch was the water exhaust, no rocket in sight. A lot quicker than I expected. 8^o

I would love to see you using a suitable GPS unit, by combining your altimiter data and some post processing of GPS data, I could use my GIS to track the flight path in 3D for you.

Keep up the great work.

Shawn.

George Katz said...

Hi Shawn,

It was very nice to meet you too. I'm glad you had a good time on the day.

You'll need to bring a rocket next time and launch it. :)

It would be great to put a GPS unit on the rocket. Getting 3D track data would be helpful in flight analysis. A lot of the guys fly GPS units on their high power rockets, but mostly so they can find them again. :)

Dadu said...

Hi George
I am Dadu from France. Congratulation for your web site , the best in the world!! Also, congratulations for your scientific method and progression about water rockets. Sincerely Dadu.
Our forum in France :
http://www.techno-challenge.org/fus/index.php

George Katz said...

Bonjour Dadu,

Thank you for the kind words. I actually visit the French forum quite often. There is lots of great information there and some really well built rockets. I have to use Google translator though since I don't speak French. Along with the pictures it's easy to understand. :)

Cheers

- George