Who here makes model rockets?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

The last rocket I launched has to have been a good decade ago, though I still have one in the basement (probably with some engines) and the launch kit.

My first D rocket, on it’s maden flight, landed some number of miles away in downtown Lowell. It was launched from the football field behind Costello Gym at U. Mass Lowell. I watched it fly up to exceptional heights (had never launched a D rocket before, and thought that the sheer size of the rocket would restrict the height somewhat… (Even the HUGH hole in the parachute did nothing to keep it anywhere near the launch site.) Parachute deployed successfully, and it spent a good few minutes floating down, over the river, and headed south out of view past the dorms, towards the downtown area…

I wonder what someone might have thought as a rocket came floating down into the street a couple of miles away. :eek:

22

my last model rocket experiment ended in a similar fashion. I build a Comanche III rocket. The initial stage is a D12-0 booster. It fits in the body tube without any modification or rocket lugs. I looked at this and figured that if I moved the second an third stage further up the body of the rocket, I could fit more boosters. I got some extra balsa wood to add additional fins on the booster stages, and when it was all said and done, I flew this rocket with 3 D12-0 boosters, a C6-0 booster, and finally a B6-6 engine.

Even painted the bright day-glow orange, we lost sight of the rocket on its way up sometime after the second or third stage. We reacquired it when the smoke trail started and the streamers came out. It then floated away…far far away…

I never did get my rocket back, but damn that was cool.

23

This is where the nifty cool technology of GPS comes into play. With smaller rockets, you can sight them with a GPS as they approach the horizon and then program your GPS keep you on the line as you start hiking toward the rocket. On larger rockets, you can build a GPS/APRS tracking module right into the rocket as payload. When your rocket hits the ground, you simply whip out your reciever and laptop computer, decode the transmitted beacon string, program the coords into your GPS and then drive straight to the rocket.

24

I never thought about that…easily the coolest thing I’ve ever read.

25

I built an Estes rocket from their one of their newsletters back in junior high school (around 1974)

That sucker was nearly 7 feet tall… and fired by 3 D engines in 2 stages… that’s right… 6 D engines!

I had permission to use the high school football field (and the neighboring farmers fields) for the launch.

Oh… and there was quite the build-up… had a lot of kids there to watch…

On launch the rocket rose majestically maybe 100 feet, then did a sudden nose dive under full power into the ground… just like someone throwing a javelin.

It quivered with it’s nose stuck in the ground while the first stage burned out.

The local folks were curious… and ran toward the rocket as I was yelling, “Get back!”

After the first stage burnt thru to the second stage the rocket had no place to go.

It just flailed away some more with it’s flimsy cardboard nose stuck in the ground.

Then it stopped flaming again… and again I yelled “GET BACK!”

Then the parachute charge fired… and the whole thing exploded… except for the parachute… which fired out of the mess and landed flaming, right next to where a bunch of people were standing.

A post mortem on the rocket told me that at least one of the 3 ceramic nozzles on the main engines had failed. It was blown completely clear of the engine housing.

The whole charge from that engine went at once, causing unbalanced thrust, causing the rocket’s initial flight deviation, and it’s ultimate destruction.

But ya know… for a junior high kid in a small, backwater town… it was great fun!

26

OK…

I’m surprised, but let me be the first to say:

Remember to check with your local fire department about any required permits or areas approved for launch. The permit is usually a formality.