This is probably a bad idea - Water launches?

[ActingLikeAKid]

I was coming home from a launch the other day and thinking about how one of the challenges for someone who wants to launch rockets can be finding the perfect launch location. My local club launches on a farm, which is pretty good. The terrain is a little hilly, and it can be windy sometimes, and the field is ringed with trees, and if you do it wrong, the rocket ends up in a pond, but it's mostly a great site. Anyway, I got to thinking: What about water? A lake is necessarily a huge open area, and if you found a lake that wasn't - for whatever reasons - popular with fishers or boaters ...

Obviously, the rocket would have to be built of waterproof materials - fiberglass and plastic would be fine, cardboard wouldn't. And while water isn't as forgiving as, say, landing on pillows, it is generally softer than a parking lot. So what if you have a single stage rocket, you make a floating launch pad so you can safely move away... and at apogee, it deploys some sort of styrofoam floats - like the floating ropes they use to cordon off swimming areas in public parks? Naturally, you'd either have to do it in dead calm or figure a way to stabilize the launch platform, but ...

Has this been done? It seemed like an interesting challenge. Not one that I have the time/lake/boat/money to pursue, but ....

 

[Rex R]

something like this perhaps . the hardest part is reloading the launch pad while sitting in a dinghy.
Rex

 

[MCriscione]

perhaps a rope / pulley system attached to a bouy to crank the thing back and forth between 'launch' position in the center of the lake and the 'load' position on the dock? Might want a bit more of a hull shape than a raft at that point though. Cool idea.

Maybe a little CO2 canister hooked up to inflate an air bladder of some kind?

 

[TopRamen]

I live in a mountainous region, and though local agriculture means there are some large fields nearby, a lot of folks look at rockets like fireworks because they don't know any better, so not all fields can be flown from. I have often thought about using open water to launch, especially in the winter when it is safe enough for ice fishing.

 

[TopRamen]

I'll bet the Quadcopter technology is good enough now that you may be able to use a hook to capture the chute', and prevent the rocket from even getting wet.
If the rocket is light enough.

 

[EXPjawa]

especially in the winter when it is safe enough for ice fishing.

I would think that would certainly be viable, at least if there isn't significant snow accumulation on the ice to make access tough. Glenn Curtiss did his initial aircraft experiments on Keuka Lake when it was frozen because it was the only open, flat surface near his home town of Hammondsport. That later led to the first development of pontoons so that work could continue in the warm weather, then eventually flying boats...

 

[EXPjawa]

I'll bet the Quadcopter technology is good enough now that you may be able to use a hook to capture the chute', and prevent the rocket from even getting wet.
If the rocket is light enough.

I'm sure it could be done, but would be real tricky. Especially with the pilot a distance away. Maybe he should just land them on a barge, er, raft! LOL

 

[AdAstraPerAspera]

I had always figured this would make finding a "field" easier but would lead to other interesting problems like waterproofing, flotation, and how an altimeter is supposed to read baro once it's waterproofed. Water is probably bad for motor hardware too...

 

[AdAstraPerAspera]

I do like the frozen lake idea, though I've never lived anywhere that has frozen lakes consistently.

 

[TopRamen]

I do like the frozen lake idea, though I've never lived anywhere that has frozen lakes consistently.

This year, even our lakes were not very safe, as can be attested to by the number of idiots that fell through the ice.
When I was in Boy Scouts we learned Ice Safety and even did a real life training scenario in which we purposefully fell through the ice and conducted rescues. It was done on a stream where the depth was known, and the speed of the current was visible and slow. Took a whole weekend to get everyone in the Troop. Good times winter camping. They probably don't allow that nowadays, as it involved actual real life danger and someone might get cold.

 

[tomsteve]

lakes are a great launch site in the winter in northern climates.
i used to do it years ago when i lived on a lake. snowmobile recovery was pretty nice.

 

[AdAstraPerAspera]

This year, even our lakes were not very safe, as can be attested to by the number of idiots that fell through the ice.
When I was in Boy Scouts we learned Ice Safety and even did a real life training scenario in which we purposefully fell through the ice and conducted rescues. It was done on a stream where the depth was known, and the speed of the current was visible and slow. Took a whole weekend to get everyone in the Troop. Good times winter camping. They probably don't allow that nowadays, as it involved actual real life danger and someone might get cold.

I only remember one trip to a frozen lake when I was in scouts, and no, we didn't do any practice falling through. We talked about safety, but that was it. That was probably a decade and a half ago. Now they probably wouldn't even let us out on the ice...

I really wish we had gotten to practice ice rescues. That would be very good to know.

 

[Mendal]

I do like the frozen lake idea, though I've never lived anywhere that has frozen lakes consistently.

It's not that great living in an area that consistently freezes like the great tundra of Minnesota!

as for access, that's what they make snowmobiles for!

 

[tomsteve]

It's not that great living in an area that consistently freezes like the great tundra of Minnesota!

as for access, that's what they make snowmobiles for!

we had a shanty to prep rockets in, get warm, and cook up some of the fish some of the guys out with me were catching.
although, from what ive read and heard them shanties in minnesota are more like cabins!
ours was only 8 by 10.

 

[Mendal]

My wife's family has a cabin on a lake near Lake Mille Lacs, during the winter small towns pop up on the ice. With over 200 square miles of lake surface? Seems like it might make a good launch site

 

[KenECoyote]

Water Launches:

Recently (4/25) on Facebook Model Rocketeers group, Ash McFadden posted about launching over an evacuated/vacated harbour:

"Here are the first two of 17 flights (so far) by my RLM. ("Ridiculously Large Missile") Light pole for scale and, yes, we clear the harbour before launch. It has an avionics bay that seals itself against saltwater when the main parachute ejects because we recover it by boat the North Atlantic."

"I built an avionics bay onto a piston. During normal flight, all the static ports are aligned open through the fuselage tubing and piston.. When the main 'chute fires, so does a small BP charge that slams the piston forward, sealing the static ports. Nothing too complex, really."


Ice launching:

I launch a lot off the lake in my backyard (when it freezes). Tricky part (aside from thin ice) are rockets landing hard...very hard when there is just ice and getting wet when there is snow.

Whenever I go out on the ice, I always go by the rule that I should expect to fall through the ice, so I make sure I'm properly prepared for when I do. I wear a life jacket and also carry along ice picks (pictured below) since not being able to pull yourself out of the ice is likely the top cause of tragedy in this situation.

(Currently $13 on Amazon...there are better ones that have retracted points, but I chose this one to demonstrate...you can also make your own.)

Years ago my father fell through the ice along with two friends while ice fishing. When a helicopter finally flew in to rescue them, my father was so delirious that he fought off the rescuer. I had given him ice picks for Christmas years back, but he had lost them and never replaced them.

Drone Rocket recovery:

I tried this a few months ago when there was a rocket on the tippy tip of a branch extending out from a very tall tree. I came very, very close, but ended up crashing the drone into the tree due to a wind gust and luckily got the drone back in one piece. Lesson realized = 1 lost rocket is much cheaper than 1 lost FPV drone.

 

[Igotnothing]

I have heard some folks in England launch from a floating pad.

I live next to a big lake and have considered some LP or MP launch from one of the many floating devices I own. But the lake is crammed with boats most nice days. I also think about launching down. If the whole rocket is lighter than water, water proof material, and no recovery gear is required - it will just float back to the top. Might need to get a waiver from the FAA - Fish Against Antics.