Shadow progress update

We've been busy this week making good progress on The Shadow. We now have a new set of fin guides that will be used to align the fins. We made a new coupler mandrel and have made a number of fiberglass couplers for joining tubes. We also started working on the business end of the rocket today and machined the nozzle and the nozzle seat it will sit on. We are having to build a completely new launcher for this rocket to handle the higher pressures.

Updates from the last several days are here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/shadow.htm#_270911

(NOTE: You may need to refresh the page as sometimes it gets cached and you won't see the updates.)

Nozzle seat and nozzle

 Fin guides to align fins

Casual flights

While we still work on the bigger rockets, we took the opportunity last weekend to do a few casual flights at the NSWRA launch day. It's always nice to get out and launch a few without having to do a lot of preparation. These rockets were quickly assembled from the set of spare parts we have on hand. We flew the HD camera again on all the flights.

Here is the update: http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day111.htm

Panorama taken from the last flight

The Shadow

Rocket build progress has been continuing at a good pace. We currently have a number of concurrent builds under way. These include the Acceleron V high pressure sustainer upgrade, the Polaron G2 phase 2 booster development and our newest project called "The Shadow".

We have actually been working on The Shadow for a number of months, but hadn't published details about it yet, though we have been taking pictures and keeping a build log of the rocket development. We have now uploaded the build log to our website so you too can follow along with the development. So far it's been an interesting project to work on and has consumed perhaps 60% of our build time.

The project now has its own build page rather than scattering bits of information about it in the various flight log updates. We'll keep the page updated as we go and post the flight reports in the regular updates.

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

Side Deployment Parachute Mechanism Tutorial

It's been a while since the last update, but rocket development has continued. We are currently working on the G2 boosters and have been doing a number of tests. We’ve also been building up our spliced bottle stock pile and spare deployment mechanisms for our rockets. It’s always good to have both components on hand so that we can assemble rockets quickly and have spares when they crash. While making the spare nosecones we took some time to document how we build them.  

The new side deployment mechanism tutorial is mostly based on our previous version. This one incorporates a couple of improvements we’ve been using for a while that makes them easier to build and more reliable.

And a big thank you also goes to Doug from Escape Water Rockets for helping us source some components for the Servo Timer II when the local supplier ran out and was going to take a couple of months to get them back in stock. 

G2 - Phase 2 Development

We have been continuing to do further development on the G2 rocket. This week we did a number of static tests with the G2 main stage to see what amount of thrust it will produce and what the thrust duration will be.  The rocket was connected to the load cell so we could measure the thrust accurately. We are looking for a nice long burn with this rocket and managed to get about 10.5 - 11 second long burn. :)

The full progress report is here:  http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day110.htm

G2 launch report

I've updated the main website with the launch report from this weekend. The update includes photos and a highlights video from the two G2 flights we did on the day.

The update is here: http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day109.htm

I'll soon be posting build progress updates as we get rolling on phase 2 of the G2 project.

Right, time to get back to the workshop...

More Polaron G2 flights

After a short break from building water rockets to catch up on a number of other projects, we decided to take the Polaron G2 for an airing again. The launch conditions were great today with blue skies and virtually no wind. The rocket configuration was identical to the previous flight. We launched the rocket twice, once at 230psi and once at 240psi. The rocket performed really well with good deploys just past apogee and both the primary and backup parachutes opening right on cue on both flights. 

Turning on electronics prior to pressurising.
Paul at the ready to arm and launch the rocket.

We'll do a full write up with more photos and video on our main website in the next few days.

Pan Cam - A different perspective

This weekend we trialled our Pan Cam to try to get a different perspective on a water rocket launch. The camera is set up on a tripod and controlled by an RC servo, so that when the rocket launches the camera pans with the rocket to keep it in frame.

We were happy with how the videos turned out. The full details and video have been posted on our main website here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day108.htm

Update: The original concept of the panning camera for a water rocket triggered by launch was first developed by wyldbytes. He presents his idea here: http://www.wyldbytes.co.uk/?p=225 as a part of an automated and servo controlled launch trigger. A video demonstrating the concept is here: http://youtu.be/F284FmfZuMI

This is the Pan Cam camera:

Here is a captured video frame from the camera:

Quick update

I've done a quick update on the main site from the last test flight launch day:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day107.htm

The last couple of weeks have been really busy with the timers so not a whole lot of new rocket development has been happening. We want to thank everyone for their support on the timers. We ran out of stock from the initial run a lot sooner than we thought, but new parts were ordered over the weekend so hopefully they should start arriving shortly, and the timers will be available again soon after that. Some of the components come from the US and some from the UK.

Servo Timer II now available

Well it has taken a lot of procrastination but the timers are finally finished. :) You can use the timers for parachute deployment, staging, pointing a camera etc. The full details and user manual are available here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/servo_timer_V2_0.htm

They are now available for purchase including FREE world wide delivery. All you need is an RC servo motor and a battery, and a rocket or two of course. These timers weigh around 6 grams and are small enough to fit inside of T8 FTC rockets.

We've done around 20 flights with these now and are quite happy with the results.

Test flights

We had a great day yesterday for launching rockets. The skies were blue and there was virtually no wind. We wanted to do some further testing on the servo timers to make sure they work well in real life after the latest round of firmware changes. I was particularly interested in the slow takeoffs and how well the false trigger filter worked with the G-switches. We managed to get 5 flights in on the day and the timers worked well on all the flights.

I'll put together a short update on our main site in the next couple of days.

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.