Free paper rocket downloads from Raketenflieger.de

I just discovered the "Raketenflieger" site a few days ago. It's run by a German gentleman whose name is Ralf (I think) and who designs paper rockets for his son.

The rockets themselves are three- and four-sided affairs using 18mm engines, available as very high quality PDFs that print onto A4 paper. On 8.5 x 11 stock, you lose a little off the top and bottom of each page, but not enough to mess up the design.

The instructions are in German, of course, but between Google Translate and what I half-remembered from three years of Herr Weibel's class in high school, I was able to figure it all out. There's also a YouTube video of one rocket being assembled that's posted to the site. The designs are so logical and elegant, though, that once you've built one, you almost don't need instructions for the others.

He also very helpfully marks the designed center of gravity ("Schwerpunkt") on the body tube as an aid in adding nose weight.

That's a nice find.

Thanks!

Holy hell... this guy's lighting "something" in the business end of one of his paper rockets with a cigarette lighter?


https://www.raketenflieger.de/mediapool/80/807520/resources/15552111.jpg

There are a lot of you tube videos where people are igniting rocket motors using a fuse and a lighter.

Oh, well, hey... it must be ok then if it's on the Youtubes, right? :rolls eyes:

I am the furthest thing away from a "safety nut" and work full-blown pyrotechnics year-round as well, but this just seems imprudent. Probably not a huge deal with a paper rocket and an A/B/C motor perhaps, but still not something I'd do with a short fuse (the video seems to show that the fuse, if there is one, is VERY short).

Flew the ring-fin "Kaleido" last night. It's designed as a rear-ejection model, but the joint between the rear and main tube sections telescoped under thrust (from an A-motor!), the recovery system failed to deploy, and the rocket lawn-darted. I'm going to build another Kaleido, glue the tube sections together, and put the recovery system up at the nose end.