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.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Shadow II and Inverter Flights

Last weekend we had the opportunity to launch the Shadow II again. The Shadow had a couple of minor issues. One was a small launcher leak where the hose quick connector screws into the launcher, and the second was that the on-board camera didn't record. The flight went really well though and we ended up with a new altitude PB. We will have another go at the next launch.


We also flew the Inverter rocket for the first time. It also had some issues and ended up getting some damage when it hit hard. Overall though we were very happy with the flight as a lot of things did work.
We learned that the overall concept works especially with all the internal restrictions. It flew nice and stable and the rocket segments didn't twist around the rocket axis. We are already half way through the repairs and should be ready to fly again in a couple of weeks.



The full flight report with pictures and highlights videos is here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day129.htm

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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Projects Update

We've updated our main website with the state of some of the current projects as well as a couple of new projects. One of these is the Inverter rocket that we hope to fly this upcoming launch on the 26th. We have made up a separate build log for this rocket here: http://www.aircommandrockets.com/inverter.htm


The projects update is here: http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day128.htm In the update we also describe and show the damage done to a rocket that had been stuck in a tree for around 392 days. It had been exposed to rain, wind storms, cold and hot temperatures. It even survived a grass fire a few months ago.

We also talk about our recent visit to ANSTO with the NSWRA to do some demonstration flights.

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Fairing Construction Tutorial

Happy New Year Everyone!


It's been quite a while since the last blog entry, so we thought we'd get this year started with a simple tutorial on how to make fairings that fit between bottles joined with tornado tubes. The step-by-step tutorial including video is here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/construction_8.htm



We haven't been sitting too idle (well maybe a little) during the holidays, but we have a few new projects to present this year. There are some new and some big rockets being worked on. We'll do running build logs for these again like we did for the Shadow, which makes it easier to follow progress. There are some new experiments to be flown in the MicroLab and some high pressure static tests to be done that we hope will show some interesting results.

We are planning to launch the Shadow II again on the first available opportunity this year which is Jan 26th (weather permitting). We will attempt to launch it at a higher pressure than last time.

We wish everyone all the best for the new year and good luck with your projects!