Saturday, March 29, 2008

Post-Flight Debriefing

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm not exactly sure what you had hoped it would do, but what it did do was pretty cool if you ask me! How did you make it?

Zechariah said...

Well, I hoped the rocket would fly straight up, at least 6 or 700 feet, eject the engine, and then tunble down to a landing.

I started out making the rocket with a spare Estes body tube about ten inches long, and then I added the nose cone and glued it inside the top of the body tube, and I put three tubes around the bottom of the body tube for fins.

I used tubes instead of fins because I was interested to see how tubes would work for fins,
and they are easier to work with than flat fins.

Then I painted the rocket a nice flame-red, then all I needed was some good weather and a Dad who could walk, and I launched the rocket.

I was glad it did fly better than the last one, but not good enough. Iy only went up about 100 feet.
And since I still wasn't happy, I cut the tubes off and added fins. If I still do not get good results, I will add a second rank of fins and try that.

Zechariah said...

By the way, we did have 5 or 6 really good launches and recoveries of some of my other rockets. We would have video of those, but our camera person got cold and went to the car.

Anonymous said...

OK, my big, bad mistake. Mental lapse here. I forgot that the rockets that you launched last fall were(at least some) were kits. Am I right? If not, then I am digging a deeper embarrassing hole for myself.
I'm confident that you'll have the stability down very soon on your newly designed rocket.
Maura Kate and Owen loved the videos, including the one you included of other rocketeers having trouble also. We loved the big, black rocket lying on the ground and firing off it's nosecone charge.
Keep flying and writing.

Mr. O

Zechariah said...

Mr. O, you are right. These new rockets are home made and designed rockets. I am working on a new post, telling how I have changed my rocket's design again. It flew a lot better. I will post it pretty soon.