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.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Day 97 - Flight day report

We've updated the main website with a full launch report from this weekend. The update is available here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day97.htm

The update includes more photos, as well as highlights video of both flights. Both sustainer and booster videos are included in the highlights video.

"Dang ... that's the shopping list, not the launch check list"

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice work George :D
greeting from holland
Youri Listelle

Unknown said...

Brilliant as usual guys :). I have thought however if Acceleron V takes up that much space in your car how are you going to get Polaron G2 in there? :P

Doug

George Katz said...

Thanks guys :)

Doug: This is where tornado couplings come in very useful. We have to unscrew the rocket to transport it. We already do it with most of the longer rockets to get them in the car. I guess they could be transported assembled on the roof but might get a few strange looks :)

Unknown said...

Looks like youve got it covered then :). And indeed, a car with a cruse missle! Sounds cool in the mind, the reality may not be so great :P.

Todd said...

Well done George, both flights looked great and 864ft is a long way up :)

I like your fibreglassing of the quads, they look nice. Was it two layers of fibreglass on them ?

Also the 270psi hydro test is impressive. Did it burst at that pressure or did you decide to abort at that pressure ?

George Katz said...

Thanks Todd :)

Yes, the quads are wrapped with two layers of 200gsm plain weave glass cloth. There is about 1 inch overlap after the second wrap.

We don't know what the burst pressure is yet. We have had a couple of spliced-pairs that use the same construction method up to 300psi without bursting, and so we pump up the quads to 270psi so that we have a bit of a safety margin when launching.

We really do need to burst one to see, but I suspect it isn't much over 300psi.

A couple of quads would go well on a car ;)

tom said...

George, I love this design!

Question: maybe I missed it, but how did you build the launcher? Does it have Gardena couplings? Launch tubes? Is is so low, how do you connect to rockets underneath so that you can handle those pressures (200+ psi)?

-- Tom (tcarnahan@cox.net)

George Katz said...

Hi Tom,

The launcher uses a brass Gardena quick connector to hold down the entire rocket, but uses custom made nozzle seats and nozzles for the booster section. Full details are available on our website here:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day56.htm

It also has details of the air connections underneath the launcher.