"Big Bottle Rocket"

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

swimmer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2009
Messages
670
Reaction score
3
Hmmm...Let's see. What to do with a recalled G35? Not going to fly it in a rocket, could CATO. Had to send in the ejection seal to get a replacement anyway.

Getting ready to fly a few today I was loading the truck when I spied a 1/2"x4' dowel rod. A little masking tape to attach the motor to the end of the rod and, what do you know, a big bottle rocket.

Never would have attempted it if the field we fly on wasn't humongous. Safety first!!

At the launch site we slid the rod to the bottom of our substantial launch pad, installed the ignitor, hooked up the launch wiring and stood back, way back. When the switch was thrown the G35 erupted in a cloud of smoke and noise. It streaked straight up to around 200' and then corkscrewed upwards to probably 1500' trailing that signiature white smoke. What a flight! When the bottle rocket was safely down we just stood there and looked at each other, stunned at the performance of the G35. What a great flight. Think I'll do a EMRR review!
 
Cool! what fiield was that?


Is there anything in the safety code preventing this? If not, I have a recalled G35 right here... Still need to find out whether AT needs the cap though...
 
Got a RockSim file for that??? Is masking tape even a standard
part in the program?



LOL! Glad you didn't hurt yourself.
 
You could call it a finless rocket. Just didn't have a body tube and the motor was on the opposite end. Stability was very good. Tumble recovery. Remember, the field we fly on is very, very large. No buildings within several thousand feet.

There is a very large field south of an elementary school on the outskirts of the town west of us. You have to drive a quarter mile off the road to get to it. It is in the far corner of approximatly 160+ acres.

At LDRS 2003 we saw a "K" powered bottle rocket.
 
"tumble recovery"...yea ,... thats the ticket.....lol
 
You know, I've always wondered why bottle rockets are stable with a mere stick. Maybe it's the weight to length ratio, I've takes bottle rockets off the sticks and they whizz around like crazy...


Potential science fair for TRF school age members?

I may make one of these, however use a design I actually managed to buy in KS, have a 29mm tube epoxied to a dowel and include a parachute, however for a nose cone cut the shoulder off a 29mm cone and glue a 29mm motor block into the tube so when the nose shoulder "plug" is in it's flush with the rest of the rocket...then have a chute to bring it all down slowly and safely.
 
Flew the Thrustline MarsProbe II today for the first time. This 1.5oz beauty gets plenty of altitude on a B6-4. We had three nice flights with perfect recoveries on a great windless day. Will have a complete review on EMRR soon.
 
OOPS!!

MarsProbe II info should be in the "Low Powered Forum". My bad.
 
Originally posted by Blue_Ninja_150
You know, I've always wondered why bottle rockets are stable with a mere stick. Maybe it's the weight to length ratio, I've takes bottle rockets off the sticks and they whizz around like crazy...

We are all rocket scientists but we don't think like that all of the time.

Consider that motor attached to the front end of a stick. The CP of the combination is slightly forward of the middle of the stick.

But because the stick weighs next to nothing compared to the motor, the CG is much further forward. CG ahead of the CP. Stable. QED


Bill
 
about recovery systems?
sounds like you had a projectile, not a model rocket...

nothing i'd really brag about here...
 
Well, featherweight recovery is OK (.5" dowel puls empty G35 casing, which is smaller than standard length weighs like next to nothing) so I think this was consistent with the safety code.
 
when it recovers by potentially stabbing into the ground like a javelin,, thats not featherweight or tumble recovery...
 
Well, then I guess you can't count the Quark as tumble recovery... That thing's a lawndart!
 
Back
Top