Just by luck, we stumbled on to a
Estes model rocket "starter kit" at Bi-Mart for $26. It had a large enough diameter to fit my electronics package, so it was purchased, built, and pressed in to service. I hadn't built or flown a traditional model rocket in fifteen years or so, and was pleasantly surprised how easy the kit was to put together. We went down to Alpine on President's Day and got off six flights (a $3 engine a pop) off. The first and last had the improved telemetry package (lighter battery and a high-range accelerometer), and the remainder with a
cheapo spy camera.
In all, not too bad. I've got plans for a lighter, more powerful rocket so I can fly both the electronics and the video camera at the same time (we were over the recommended limit by a ways). Here are the two instrumented flights. Flight 6 was a bit lighter due to removing the helicopter recovery system, and thus went higher. It also descended slower on the parachute. Look at the "zero G" coasting after the engines shut off!
The original water rocket shenanigans
are here . . .
2 comments:
Cool graph. Do your girls get into this kind of thing?
>100 mph! I thought seeing the bounce on the parachute elastic was pretty cool too!
Live in fame or go down in flame--nice sound track!
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