2-Stage FTC Water Rocket - Sustainer's first test flights!

After the few weeks break from Christmas celebrations and the winter weather, we were finally happy to get the Iris's Sustainer up in the air as a single stage rocket, although the second flight wasn't as successful as we wanted it to be. We will get the rocket up in the air with the lessons learned.

The rocket was easy to set up as usual. We set up the rocket a little farther away than usual just incase the rocket decided to misbehave. One of the new things we were testing was a Clark Cable Tie launcher that fitted to the normal Gardena-launcher.

CLARK CABLE-TIE LAUNCHER

  The Clark Cable-Tie launcher was a fairly simple build. Te took a half-inch CPVC pipe and cut it down to about 12 inches in length. We then heated the pipe about 3 inches from the end and put a bulge in the pipe as the seal. 

I then took a 9mm Gardena nozzle and epoxied it with JB weld 24 hour epoxy. We then acembled the rest of the release head and let the epoxy cure for a few days on the heater.

FLIGHT #1

After setting up the rocket we first pressurized it to 50PSI to check for any leaks. This gave the air in the rocket sone time to cool. With no leaks found, we pressurized the rocket to 175PSI. It took about a minuet to pressurize. When it came time to launch, the rocket released smoothly and accelerated very nicely. It made a very loud bang, but you can't really hear it in the video. We noticed right away that one of the fins came off during the high speed launch. Apon further inspection, we found that the fin ripped in half in a perfect line. Even without the fin, the rocket seemed to go up longer than normal and deployed it's parachute a little past apogee. The rocket went higher than we were expecting!

     Max Velocity- Rocket Bending And  

     Fin Rips Off

FLIGHT #2

We set up the rocket the same way as last time and launched. I forgot to grease the Tomy Timer's spindle with scillicone grease because all of the other distractions and excitement. Again the rocket took off with a loud bang and sped up nicely. You can never get tired of those loud launches. :) The rocket went up a ways up again. It tipped over apogee and started coming down, but there was no parachute. It was quickly gaining speed and it looked like it was going to hit another house. The parachute finally deployed about 100 feet above the ground but promply sredded all but 1 shroud line. Thankfully the rocket missed the trailer by about 10'. We were pretty stumped on why the parachute came out late, at the timer was set for about 6 seconds again. The only conclusion dad and I can come up with is that the rubber  band didn't slide off of the timer untill the last moment.  Here's a video of the two flights

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      DAMAGE

 

I Disassembled the deployment system to see how much can be salvaged. Really the only thing that can be reused is the spring that pushed the parachute out of the rocket, and the bottle caps used to hold the deployment system in place. The Tomy Timer is trashed, as well as the  plywood base.

 What's Next?

We are going to try to get this rocket repaired as quickly as possible and get it up in the air again as a single stage soon. After about 4 or 5 successful flights, we are going to construct the stager for the rocket. For the time being, happy holidays and a happy new year! :)