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.
I’ve updated our main website with the launch report from this Sunday. The Shadow had a perfect first flight at 330psi. It reached 947 feet, deployed it’s parachute at apogee and gently landed in the grass. On the second flight at 360psi the parachute failed to deploy, and the rocket crashed heavily. Although the camera was destroyed, the altimeter still recorded the flight. The altimeter read out 1017 feet.
The update includes photos, video and the altimeter data as well as additional performance info. It also discusses what we suspect went wrong with the deployment mechanism.
http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day115.htm
The rocket is not a total loss though, and most of it can be reused or repaired. In fact repairs have already begun to see if we can get the Shadow to at least repeat the last flight without damage. :)
We had a good day at the club launch today. :) The conditions were ideal with very little wind and blue skies. It was a relief to get such good conditions for the first test flights especially after the weeks of rain. Here are a couple of photos from today:
2nd Flight @ 360psi (Photo: Chris Barnes)
Apogee photo from flight 1
We will put together a launch report again over the next few days.
