Servo Timer II update

Progress has been continuing on the Servo Timer II. I've received all the parts now and have started production of the timers. I've been doing some final tweaks on the firmware to try to cover the greatest range of servo timings, as well as adjusting the G-switch false trigger filter.

I'm going to do some final flight testing if the weather is good this weekend, and then finish the documentation. I'm mounting these inside a few new nosecones and will fit them to a number of rockets. These things have definitely taken a lot longer than I would have liked. Hopefully not long now before they are available.

N2000 Drag Race

I've put together a highlights video of the N2000W drag race from the Williams "Wildfire" Westernationals this year in Perth. The theme for the whole launch weekend was the "70's" with quite a few of the guys growing mo's in the lead up to the event. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9spkgBYapos
 
The drag race was between the guys from QRS and CGN. It was definitely a fun event to watch.

More great photos like this of the event are here:
http://ausrocketry.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=3045&start=15

How much water?

One of the more common questions that's often asked is how much water should I put in my water rocket? The standard answer usually is 1/3 of the rocket capacity, but because the ideal amount of water is dependent on a number of factors this amount is rarely exactly 1/3 .

This week we look at how some of these different factors affect the optimum water amount:

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

The article compares how the optimum changes with pressure, nozzle size, weight and liquid density.

Williams "Wildfire" Westernationals 2011

We just returned from an awesome weekend in Perth attending the Williams Wildfire Westernationals. This year the whole family came along so it was good for the boys to experience Australia's biggest launch event of the year. There were so many great flights, and quite a few highlights, from the "Mach Madness" entries to the N2000W drag race. A big thank you goes to Dave and Mel for organizing this fantastic event.

Here is a photo of Samantha's L3 rocket "Lucky Seven".
(A standard sized kid used for scale reference)

I will be posting photos and videos in the coming days as there is a lot of footage to go through. Can't wait to get back to the workshop and start building again. :)

Measuring Bottle Stretch Thrust

Last weekend we did a little experiment to measure the thrust produced as a bottle contracts while depressurising. From earlier experiments we learned that bottles can stretch significantly and we wanted to know how much of this energy is returned during the boost phase. The main idea behind this experiment was to help refine future models of water rocket thrust behaviour. The full experiment writeup is here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day106.htm

We also compared the thrust produced by stretching alone to the thrust a regular rocket produces.

10 Water Rocket Challenges

Over the last few weeks we’ve been putting together a series of challenges that people can attempt with their water rockets. These challenges are designed much the same way one would collect scout badges when they have achieved certain activities. Each challenge is also designed to address a different aspect of the sport.

For each challenge you achieve you are awarded a patch that you can place on your website, blog or video. There are no judges or approval processes, and patches are purely self-awarded on an honor system when you believe you have achieved the challenge in the spirit it was intended.

You should also be able to attempt all the challenges at your local park, but be warned these challenges are difficult!

Are you up for a challenge? …. Read More....

Polaron G2 flight day report

I've uploaded the update from this weekend's NSWRA launch on our main website here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day105.htm

The update includes photos and video of the Polaron G2 launch. The flight was encouraging for us in order to keep pushing further with the G2 development. Although the 210psi launch pressure was 20% lower than what the rocket was designed for, we decided to at least get a couple of good flights in before increasing the pressure again. Also encouraging is that the simulator results from two different simulators predicted the altitude quite accurately for this flight. This means we can continue to use the simulators to predict the behaviour of this class of rocket.

The G2 in this configuration still has room for improvement on two fronts. Each 10psi increase in pressure beyond the 210psi adds around 50 feet to the altitude. These pressure chambers have been hydro tested to 270psi. The rocket is designed to be extended by a further spliced-quad like we used in the first attempt. This extra spliced quad should add a further 100 feet or so. How the rocket stands up to higher speeds and stresses is unknown at this stage, so more fights will follow.

We also flew a second high pressure rocket on the day - Axion G2 - that is based on the Axion series of rockets. The rocket flew well, but failed to deploy the parachute and crashed. I can see the G2 name is going to get confusing here. The 'G' in the name simply stands for "Glass"-reinforced and the 2 is just the second in the series.

Polaron G2 - flight

Perfect launch conditions today for the G2 launch. Virtually no wind and mostly blue skies. The G2 had a great flight and the higher power was quite evident from the sound it made. We're putting together the launch day report along with the highlights video, which should be on our website in the next few days.

Servo Timer II - boards

We received the PCBs for the Servo Timer II from the manufacturer yesterday. We decided to use PCBCart this time around as they were well recommended and our experience with them so far has also been very positive.

I soldered up a couple of the timers yesterday to check that I didn't stuff up on the board, but luckily the circuit powered up first go. We are going to continue more flight testing with these in the coming weeks. I'm just in the process of ordering the components for them in bulk quantities, but it will still be some time before they will be available. 

Quick Launcher and on-board HD video

We tested the new launcher this weekend with a couple of small rockets at the local park. It is very easy to setup and pack up again. Transportation is a lot easier as well. I've posted an update on our main site with details on how it works, as well as a video showing how it's set up and used.

The update is available here: http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day104.htm

The Quick Launcher in it's packed up configuration.

We also test flew our first HD camera on a rocket. For the $40 we paid for it, it produces pretty nice quality video and it's lightweight. The above update includes a couple of videos from the camera, though it's lower quality because YouTube re-compresses it.

 Panorama constructed from 3 images from the HD camera.

Repairs

This week we've been repairing the damage to the G2 rocket. Last night I finished the G2 backup parachute system. The fairing is new as is the coreflute framework. I straightened all the bent pins on the electronics and resoldered all the severed wires and fitted new connectors. I also replaced the 3 Lipo batteries. All the electronics are the same from the original rocket including the servo motor. Despite being scattered in a wide area in the explosion, it's surprising that all the important bits survived. That's around $200 worth of electronics. I'm still waiting for the camera and micro SD cards to be delivered hopefully this week.

Repaired Backup parachute system with altimeter.  

 The main deployment mechanism is also pretty much repaired and only needing a new coat of paint. There was only minor fiberglass damage to the body.

Damaging the medium launcher in the explosion is giving us the opportunity to redesign the launcher. The new launcher is going to be a single rail design and the rocket will use buttons to attach to the rail. The main driving principle for this launcher is quick setup and portability. The medium launcher although very versatile was taking around 10 minutes to set up and 10 minutes to take down. The new launcher should be about 2 minutes.

Polaron G2 CATO

We had an interesting weekend this week. We finished the new Polaron G2 rocket, and took it out for a launch. Unfortunately things did not quite go according to the script.

The full flight day report gives details how we created a nice sculpture for the rocket range.

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day103.htm

The report includes a highlights video including the CATO in slow-mo.The rocket and launcher are already being rebuilt and we will have another go again soon. The website update also has more detailed photos of the new side deploy mechanism and payload bay with a backup parachute.

Servo Timer II test flights

This weekend we went down to the local park to start the Servo Timer II trial flights. We flew a total of 7 flights with the timer and thankfully all worked well. Two of the flights included the uMAD for triggering the timer at apogee.

The full launch report along with a highlights video is here:


http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day102.htm

We are now preparing larger rockets to continue the tests. We would like to do an additional 10-15 more flights before starting a production run of the timers. Yesterday I was going to do some tests with one of the timers, and noticed that I had left the power switch ON, and completely drained the battery over the last few days. So this morning I updated the firmware to flash the LED briefly every 5 seconds to remind me to turn the power off.

Website Issues

We host our website with GoDaddy, but it looks like they have been having some issues over the last couple of days. It was up briefly yesterday, but it looks like they are having issues again today. Lots of people are reporting the same problems as well. Hopefully the website will be up again soon.

Wet but productive weekend

Unfortunately we didn't get to test fly the servo timers this weekend as it pretty much rained both days. We had over 100mm at our place. So it was a good time to spend in the workshop. We are trying to build up our inventory of spare parts so we can focus on flying rather than fixing. I'm also trying to get components ready for rockets to fly at Williams later this year.

We are making a big run of spliced quads at the moment that will be fiberglassed, both 90mm and 110mm. This weekend we cleaned, cut, shrank and curled some 70 bottles.

Here they have been shrunk and are ready to be curled.

After curling they have been paired up ready for sanding and gluing. This should give us about 10 x 110mm quads and about 11 x 90mm quads.

We also fiberglassed two more 110mm spliced quads yesterday. These will be used as spares on the flight day of G2. We have 6 of these now, with 4 of them still needing to be pressure tested to 270psi. Some of the fiberglassed 90mm spliced quads are going to be used in Acceleron V's sustainer. I'm looking forward to this flight as it will be our first dual pressure launch.

We also made a new 90mm nosecone with the Servo Timer II which uses the small LiPo batteries. This new nosecone including the fairing it sits on weighs in at 86 grams. Our regular nosecones weigh around 154 grams. The nosecone also uses a new ejection plate mechanism that has more force to get the parachute out. I'll post details and photos with the next web page update. We are using the same technique for ejecting the G2's backup parachute.

We are currently planning to launch the G2 with just 3 spliced quads (~15L) on the first flight, just in case the rocket again decides to drill a fence post hole. If the first flight goes OK, then we will screw in the fourth bottle and launch again.

ServoTimer II video

I've posted a video on YouTube of the Servo Timer II prototype in operation. The video shows the normal operation, configuration, as well as how to interface it to external sensors like the magnetic apogee detector (MAD) from Whooshtronics. It also shows how you can chain the timers together for driving multiple servo motors for things like staging and parachute deployment, or drogue/main parachute functionality.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYx-oPSQK8c

Panorama tutorial

I've uploaded a tutorial on how to make panoramic images from on-board rocket videos taken with small cameras such as the 808 keychain or MD80 clone.

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

It requires you to have Photoshop, and VirtualDub (which is free).

ServoTimer II prototype

In the last couple of days I've soldered up the first prototype of the ServoTimer II.

 Top and bottom view of the timer

 Here it is next to V1.6 of the flight computer

I finally, got it running and bench tested tonight. I'll make up a couple more in the upcoming days and then fit them in deployment mechanisms and test fly them quite a few times. If all goes well, then I'll get actual boards made by a PCB manufacturer.

All up it weighs ~6 grams with the battery clip adding another 2 grams.

Foam flights

This weekend we went to the NSWRA launch event again, but because we didn't have the Polaron G2 rocket quite ready yet, we just flew smaller rockets. These were basically assembled the night before launch out of spare components. The update is here along with a highlights video:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day101.htm

Bottle Splicing Tutorial

Over the last couple of years we’ve had a number of requests for a tutorial on splicing same sized bottles. We found that the technique we used to use ( http://www.aircommandrockets.com/construction_2.htm#SplicingBottles ) would work on 1.25L bottles but did not translate well to 2 Liter bottles. No matter how carefully we would do the symmetrical splices on the larger bottles we would often end up with a small leak and the whole splice had to be thrown away. Sleeves larger than 2L bottles which could be shrunk to size were also increasingly difficult to get.

So we developed a modified splicing technique, that we now use for 2L bottles. We posted the technique in outline form here http://ausrocketry.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26084#p26084 last year, but finally got around to actually finishing the tutorial this week. Talk about dragging our heels.

It’s by no means the only way to splice 2L bottles, but it’s a technique we’ve found reliable and haven’t had a single leak since we started using it. The splices hold up well to repeated launches and non-destructive pressure test cycles to 140psi. We are currently using it on our Acceleron V and Polaron VII rockets.

Here is the full tutorial that also includes a how-to video:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/construction_6.htm

If people do end up using this technique, we would love to get feedback about what worked for you and what didn’t and perhaps ways to improve or even simplify it.

Polaron G2 - Flight report

I’ve finished uploading the flight report from last weekend. The report has information about what we think went wrong and includes photos and a highlights video from the day.

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day100.htm

 

We are in the process of rebuilding the rocket, so hopefully it won’t be too long before it’s up in the air again. It’s always easier to build the rocket a second time, because we know how to build it and what materials we need. The first build always takes a while as we try different prototypes.

Polaron G2 - First flight

We launched the G2 rocket for the first time today, but the flight didn't quite go according to plan. As a result the rocket could now almost fit in your car's glove compartment. There were a couple of small issues that will need fixing, but overall not too bad. On the way home from the launch site we figured out what we need to do, and will start on the repairs today. We are hoping to have it ready again for the next NSWRA launch.

I will post the usual flight day report in the coming days. Though the rocket was ....well let's not beat about the bush.... destroyed, we did learn a lot from the attempt, and though disappointing, as always this is just another step in the development process.We have altimeter & acceleration data as well as on-board video so that will gives us more information about what to expect on the next flight.

... right time to head back to the workshop.....

G2 nosecone test flights

This weekend we went down to the local park to test fly the G2 nosecone on a small rocket. Both flights went well and so we can now mount the nosecone on the G2 rocket.
I've put together an update on our main website with more pictures and a video that shows how the mechanism works as well as footage from the test flights.

The update is available here:
http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day99.htm

3 Projects

Although I haven’t done new updates to the main website for a while, I have been busy with 3 rocket related projects, mostly the reason I haven’t done an update. The main project has been to get the Polaron G2 flight ready. As a part of that I have the deployment mechanism ready for flight testing on a small rocket this Sunday at the local park. If everything goes well, I’ll mount the mechanism on the G2 rocket ready for next week’s launch. Craig lent me one of his latest flight computers to fly along and gather data. It will also serve as a backup altimeter for the flight. I still need to mount it in the payload bay.

The second project has been writing an application to go with Craig’s flight computer that can visualize the recorded data and configure the flight computer. I’ll post more data on this later with the first official release of this application. This has been taking up at least half of my rocket time.

The third project is the next iteration of the flight computer we use in our rockets. I’ve got the prototype working now on a breadboard, and all the new firmware has been written. I’m currently choosing the final SMD components and then I’ll finish off the PCB layout. This version is simpler to use and less than half the size and weight of V1.6. It should also be cheaper. It will still be a while before these are available as I need to write the documentation and do flight testing first. At the moment it’s looking like 3 months or so due to all the other projects.

Christmas vacation

It’s been a while since the last update. We’ve just returned from 3 weeks in Colorado enjoying the solid rocket fuel … err I mean snow with the family over Christmas and New Year, but it’s good to be back in the warm weather again.

We have a much better appreciation for what it would be like launching water rockets in the cold weather. While there we visited one store in a small town called the “Nearly everything store” http://nearlyeverythingstore.com/. The store itself is quite small but they do have a huge selection of stuff. Amongst the toys, guns, pharmaceuticals, fishing gear, office supplies, crafts and snow gear they had a good selection of pyro rocket kits as well as motors at a great price, and what impressed me the most was that I even found tornado couplings there! So I bought a couple. :)

We got to visit the air and space museum in Denver as well. Here I am explaining the finer details of how a cruise missile attaches to the B1 just above our heads, while leaning on the thermo nuclear device just behind us. This museum is definitely well worth a visit. 

I also purchased a number tubes of PL premium while in the US. From the last trip I knew to leave them near the top of the checked-in luggage for easy inspection by the airport TSA authorities. Sure enough, out of the four bags we had, the two that were inspected were the ones with the glue in them. I knew they were inspected because the TSA officials left a slips of paper inside the inspected bags. But all is good, and so we have more glue now for splicing. We didn’t have any issues going through customs in Oz. We still had a couple of tubes from the last trip but they are approaching their expiry date.

With the trip over we can now again start concentrating on building and launching more rockets, and more frequent updates as well.

Sneak Preview ...

Here is a sneak preview of the Polaron G2 rocket in the Phase 1 configuration. We decided to extend the rocket by another spliced quad for just over 21L of goodness.:) It's just on 3m long (~10 feet). When launched at 250psi, it will be the pyro equivalent of an H500.

Probably another two or three more days work is required before it's first test flight. Simulations for this rocket are looking quite good, and even more interesting for the boosted version. Though real life never quite agrees with the sims so we'll just have to fly it to see the actual performance.

Polaron G2 - Recovery System

I've posted more details of the G2 recovery system on our main website here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day98.htm

We didn't get it quite finished for testing at last weekend's NSWRA launch, but hopefully it should be ready for testing on the next launch. So far it is working well on the table. It will need to get painted next. The update also includes a highlights video from this weekend's launch showing both pyro and water rockets.

Simple multi-stage Parachute Release mechanism

We have been using a simple parachute deployment technique on our multi-stage rockets for the past couple of years, and although we have posted pictures of it previously we have never documented it properly. So I've added a tutorial to the main website that explains how to make it. It takes only about 15 minutes to make and doesn't really cost anything.

The tutorial can be found here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/construction_5.htm

Time to Backup

I thought I'd give you a friendly reminder to GO BACKUP YOUR DATA today. This week our main computer had frozen a couple of times in unusual spots. A reboot fixed it and the computer ran fine again. It had been a couple of months since I did a full backup of everything on the main drive, all of our apps, family photos and movies as well as all the rocket related data are on it. I normally tend to forget to do backups on a regular basis, so I decided to do a full drive image backup. Normally I run it overnight because it takes about 5 hours, but I had decided to do it during the day since I wasn't going to need the computer. The back up finished just fine. The very next day, the computer would not boot at all, and it turns out the hard drive had died!

Talk about dodging a bullet!! ...

I bought a new drive the next day and restored the backup to it. A couple of minor configuration tweaks and the new drive booted with everything installed on it. I sure wasn't looking forward to having to re-install all the applications, drivers, and none of the lost data.

So go do your backups now!

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"

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.

Progress update

This week we continued with the nosecone plug and it's now ready to start forming nosecones. I need to get some mould release agent this week so we can start. The fiberglass is all cut up as well. The guys on  Australian rocketry's forum as well as the Yahoo water rocket forum have given me some really good tips on on preparing the mold and the upcoming moulding process.

We also pressure tested 3 more of the spliced quads to 270psi. We have 5 of these now ready for flight, with two more to be fiberglassed this week.  So far we are quite happy with the quads, but until we test them on real rockets with the kind of forces they will experience in flight and landing we won't know for sure.

To get an idea on what we are up against, we assembled the spliced quads into the Phase 3 main stage, and put a representative sustainer on top. The boosters and fins are not shown.Once on the pad it will sit at least another foot off the ground. We will definitely need a full size ladder for launch day. :)

Last night I also prepared the 3 fins to be used on Phase 1 of the rocket. All three of them weigh 83 grams, but will need to be attached to the removable fin can which will likely double that weight.

Nosecone, Testing and more fiberglassing

This weekend we pressure tested two of the spliced quads to 270psi. They both held well, and should be good to go for the 250psi launch pressure. I was a little concerned that they may stretch too much because of their length and leak, but there seems to be enough flex in the glue to cope with it.

We also made another couple of spliced quads which are now curing. This now gives us 5 of the spliced-quads which (if they all pass the pressure tests) will be used for the Phase 1 of the Polaron G2 rocket. 3 of the segments will be coupled together with tornado tubes and a couple as spares.

We have also started making a plug for the fiberglass nosecone. The plug is made from 10 layers of 19mm MDF. Each layer was individually machined to shape and then glued together. We have opted for the efficient ellipltical nosecone, as our rockets travel well below the speed of sound.The nosecone is 110mm wide.

 

Here is the nosecone plug before final sanding

Fins and Fiberglassing

As a part of the work we are doing with Polaron G2, we are looking at different fin materials.

This week we are comparing 3 different ones. The first one is a regular 4mm 3-ply plywood fin. This fin is very tough, but the main drawback is its weight. At 74 grams it is the heaviest. Thickness is 4.2mm.

The second one we tried making out of two 1.5mm sheets of balsa wood glued together at 90 degrees to each other with PVA glue. We then put one layer of 200gsm fiberglass on either side. Epoxy resin was used for this. The fin is quite tough and weighed in at 43 grams. The thickness is 3.9mm but the main drawback is the amount of work involved to do this and the higher cost.

 The 3 fins tested. Left to right: corriflute, balsa/glass sandwich, plywood.

The last fin is made from corriflute, the material we have been using until now. It weighed in at 25 grams, but has a thickness of 5mm. It is quite tough, and has a good finish, but the main drawback is that it is made from polypropylene and hence harder to glue and paint. The leading and trailing edges are also harder to create nice and smooth.

So far the balsa sandwich is probably a good compromise, unless we can find some nice lightweight plywood.

We have also spent some time this week getting Acceleron V rebuilt and serviced so it can be launched again. We also did a 50psi leak check. We'll try to launch it again soon just for fun.

We were supposed to go out to the NSWRA launch today, but after driving half way there in pouring rain, we decided to turn back. As we got back, the weather cleared up but the wind had picked up. So we went back to the workshop and fiberglassed 3 of the spliced-quads. We are going to give them at least 5 days to fully cure before pressure testing. We are going to try to push them to 270psi for the 250psi launch pressure. We'll see how much they'll actually hold.

 3 x 5.3L spliced quads wrapped in fiberglass.

Polaron G2 - Development continues

I've updated our main site with some of the progress that has been made on getting G2 assembled. It's good to be able to see it in actual size rather than just on paper. It made me realize that we are going to need to rethink some of our logistics in terms of getting the rocket setup on the pad and configured. We are going to need to bring a full size ladder. The update is here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day96.htm

I had to take photos of the rocket lying down, as the ceilings are too low in the house to stand it up. We are going to need an extra long guide rail for this rocket too. Most likely 2.5 - 3m long.

The update also includes a highlights video from the last weekend's NSWRA launch where we tested the Mk3 stager with a more powerful booster. The flights went really well, and the stager performed as expected.

Here is a size comparison diagram for the Polaron G2 rocket. 

 Here it is starting to take shape lying next to Polaron G1.

Joe Genius - Rocket Science

A bit of fun this week. One of our video clips made it onto this week's episode of Joe Genius:

http://revision3.com/joegenius/rocketscience

The clip (shown about half way through the episode) is around 3 years old now - here is the original that it came from:  http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day24.htm

What else would you do on a hot day? :)

Splicing production line

We have spent the last few days cleaning, cutting, shrinking, curling, sanding and splicing quite a few 2 liter bottles. These will form the pressure chamber for the Polaron G2 rocket as well as the boosters. We are making a number of “spliced-quads” that are just a couple of spliced-pairs of bottles, spliced together. This gives us a longer section of rocket body that is more efficient since we get more volume per length of rocket while still retaining the modular aspect of the design.

When all the splicing is finished, we will reinforce all of the bottles with fiberglass.  Each spliced quad has a 5.3 L capacity. Phase 1 of the G2 will combine 3 of the spliced quads giving a total capacity of 15.9 L. Our current thinking for phase 2 is that we are likely to add a spliced pair to the bottom as the foam mixing chamber. This will increase the capacity of the main stage to 19 L.

Some 2L spliced-pairs, 1.25L spliced-pairs as well as a spliced-quad.

We are making a few spare spliced quads with the idea that some of them will likely fail pressure tests, others will be used for burst tests and some will get damaged on landing. We want to have at least two complete G2 rockets ready for a launch day in case something goes wrong or the other can be used for spare parts. 
 

Polaron G2

Okay time to get a little more serious with these water rockets. We haven't really been optimizing a lot of our rockets as we carried out various experiments. But it's time to start pushing the envelope a little more with the next set of rockets. These will focus on optimizing the rocket as a whole for better performance using the lessons we have learned.

Polaron G2 is a new rocket now in the planning stages, and we are starting to gather materials for it.

Here are a few 2L bottles ready for processing into rocket components. We will also be trying out some new construction techniques. Polaron G2 will follow the Polaron series of rockets in overall design, and will be developed in 3 phases. The first phase will be a full size single stage rocket, with drop away boosters in phase two, and with phase 3 a small sustainer will be added to the main stage.

Time allowing I will try to keep this blog updated with more regular progress, with major milestones covered on our main website. We are revisiting each aspect of the rocket and seeing how things can be improved. The rocket will also need an upgraded launcher with a longer guide rail.

Currently the target launch pressure is at 250psi, but things may change depending on how various tests go with the design.

__________________________

MAD Deployment

I've updated our main website with the road trip report to Parraweena. We test flew PK's Magnetic Apogee Detector on a couple of the flights and it worked very well. We also did a couple of 2-stage flights testing a sustainer support brace for the Mk 3. stager.

The update is here: http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day95.htm and includes photos, as well as a highlights video.

PK's Magnetic Apogee Detector.

2 Stage rocket testing the Mk 3 stager sustainer support brace.

_____________________________

Road trip to Parraweena

We had a great weekend this week attending the launch at Parraweena. The weather couldn't be more perfect with sunny conditions and almost no wind. There were a couple of minor dramas getting there, but definitely well worthwhile. We saw some great rockets go up and had a chance to test fly some of our rockets as well. I am in the process of writing up a trip report and will post it with pictures and video in the next few days.

Here is a photo of a larger 2-stage rocket testing the Mk3. Stager.

Photo: Darren from Suburban Rocketry.

I also flew my larger pyro rocket on a G64 which was a very nice flight. I mounted a camera inside to get a view of the area from the predicted 3000 or so feet. The flight was very good and managed to get reasonable video from it.
__________________________________

Mk3. Staging Mechanism Details

We’ve uploaded the full details of how the Mk3. staging mechanism works to here:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/howitworks_4.htm
 
And a full tutorial on how to build it is here:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/mark_3_stager.htm
 
The tutorial has step-by-step instructions with photos as well as a 2 part video that shows the procedure.

We’ve also uploaded a launch report of all the test flights we have had with the stager over the last 2.5 months. The launch report contains a highlights video from these launches:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day94.htm

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More Mk3. Stager test flights

This morning we had good weather and so we took the Mk3 stager test rockets to the local park. It was a little bit breezy but we decided to launch anyway. The stager had 3 out of 3 successful flights again which was good. We did get one of the sustainers stuck in a tree, and had to come back later in the day to retrieve it.

I am currently putting together 3 videos about the stager. One is a highlights video of the test flights from the last two months, and the other two are a 2-part tutorial on how to build it. We're also writing up a construction tutorial for the website with photos. It's a lot of writing/editing to do, so I expect it will take at least a week to get it all put together. We also need to use some spare time to prepare more rockets for next week's Doonside launch.

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Slow progress and weather

It's been a while since the last update. In the last month we've had family visiting from overseas and spent about a week up in Cairns snorkeling at the barrier reef with the kids. It was nice to have a break from cold Sydney. We have also temporarily swapped houses with my parents so that the visiting family could all stay in the same house with us. Our house just couldn't handle 7 people comfortably for a month. As a result I haven't had easy access to my workshop.

But excuses aside, some rocket development has been continuing. In the last couple of weeks we built a couple of bigger test rockets to test the Mk3. Stager. We were supposed to do the final trial flights today, however, the Doonside launch has been canceled due to rain and muddy conditions making the launch site inaccessible.

We are hoping that the weather will improve tomorrow morning, so we could try the rockets at the local park at a lower pressure.

Here are the two rockets fitted with the Mk3. stagers ready for test flights. We built two just in case there is a problem with one or if it crashes and gets damaged.

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Mk3. Staging Mechanism test flights

This morning dad and I went down to the local park to continue with the staging mechanism test flights. This was the third separate set of test flights, with minor failures on the first two sets. We finally got the stager working properly today on 5 out of 5 launches so we were happy. We only flew the stager on a small booster (2.1L spliced pair) and a 1.25L second stage. The flights were done at 110psi and 120psi.

Next we'll need to test it on a larger rocket a few times, but will need to take it to Doonside for testing as the local park would be too small for it.

Here you can see the small sustainer shortly after staging. The parachute is already being deployed on the booster.

If the next set of tests proves successful, then we'll post a full tutorial on how to make it.
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