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, October 29, 2013

Quick update

Although we haven't done an update for a while, we've been continuing to work slowly in the background on a couple of projects. The delays with the updates have been mostly due to not being able to launch at the regular Doonside launches with our local rocket club because of the total fire bans here in Sydney. There have been many bush fires in the area recently. We could launch at the local park but the launch site is a little too small for comfort.

My wife also spent a week in hospital after surgery and so I've had to do more work around the house with the kids and helping them with their school activities. Life is settling back to a more relaxed pace now so I'll have time to do updates on a more regular basis again. When I have limited time for rockets, I prefer to build them than write about them.

We've been fiberglassing more spliced-quads for the Polaron G2 rocket over the past week and have been discussing with dad about the launcher modifications we'll need to make for the rocket. We'll post more on this in the Polaron G2 build log in the coming days.

Last month we also did some static tests on another rocket as a part of the upcoming test flights at the next launch. We'll post the video of these tests at the same time as the flight tests when we've had a chance to actually launch the rocket.

6 comments:

rstaff said...

George, hope the wife is on the mend, the fires go out, and you are back on the field soon!

George Katz said...

Thanks Dick. My wife is getting better every day, and the worst of the fires appears to be over. We just need good weather on launch day now. :)

Nathan said...

Are they afraid your exhaust is gonna catch the grass on fire? lol

George Katz said...

Hi Nathan,

Yes, as we typically also fly regular pyro rockets as well as water rockets. :) It's not just the motor exhaust which you can normally protect against around the launch pad by clearing all the grass, the problem is if the motor CATOs some way up and catches the rocket on fire and then the rocket can land some distance away. You can sometimes also get late ejection charges that may fire after the rocket hits the ground.

Nathan said...

Yeah, I was referring to only the water rocket exhaust. I was wondering why you have not been doing anything new about water rockets.

I noticed you where changing your site. Looks a lot better!

Unknown said...

I'm glad you were able to pass safely over those difficult moments.I would like to see Polaron G2 rocket taking off successfully so success at building and get well soon for you `r wife!