DAllen
Well-Known Member
Okay, my daughter built a scratch rocket for the local youth fair (won a blue ribbon of course) and I have something a little wierd happen to it today at a local launch. Just for reference it's basically a Lil' Nuke with 5 fins and a 29mm MMT.
Launch was with a E16-4w AT RMS. Just as it was coming up to pressure I heard a tiny pop and the nose-cone got pushed up about an inch before it left the rod. I've reviewed the video about a 100 times. Of course as it went up the cone got a little cock-eyed and it did a nice squirrely sky-dance to an altitude of about 300' and quickly dropped to earth with a chute that inflated about 20' above the ground.
Fortunately, nothing was damaged but I have no idea what would've caused this. Several other rocketeers (with many many years more experience than me) couldn't figure it out either. I replayed the video half a dozen times for the guys and we still couldn't figure it out.
The picture shows a band of white which is the n/c partially popped out. Any ideas?
-DAllen
Launch was with a E16-4w AT RMS. Just as it was coming up to pressure I heard a tiny pop and the nose-cone got pushed up about an inch before it left the rod. I've reviewed the video about a 100 times. Of course as it went up the cone got a little cock-eyed and it did a nice squirrely sky-dance to an altitude of about 300' and quickly dropped to earth with a chute that inflated about 20' above the ground.
Fortunately, nothing was damaged but I have no idea what would've caused this. Several other rocketeers (with many many years more experience than me) couldn't figure it out either. I replayed the video half a dozen times for the guys and we still couldn't figure it out.
The picture shows a band of white which is the n/c partially popped out. Any ideas?
-DAllen