Oh, isn't it purrdy!

OK, this thing spins even if I toss it across the room.

Now that it goes straight, I can compare computer results to actual. For this configuration, my computer program showed a flight time of 6.5 seconds. The actual flight time was about 6.25 seconds. Wow, that's pretty close, either that or it's just plain wrong and lucky. It also showed about 43 m high (about 140 ft), which, oh I don't, looked about right.

Here's what we've all been waiting for:

ROCK2.AVI (501k)

It's kind of hard to see once it get's in the air. But this was my best attempt yet. You can't see the rocket spin either, but believe me, it spins. This seems to have solved my stability problem. Unfortunately this was it's first and last flight. On the second attempt, the CO2 tube broke the end of the bottle. Maybe I shouldn't drop it from so high up.

Also, note my reaction as my new rocket piles straight into a pine tree. I didn't notice any damage, but now that I think about it, maybe that's what caused the bottle failure on the second attempt. I should find a park to do this, but I'm not an exhibisionist.

This is the bottle failure, not too spectacular though. I think it broke from the impact of the CO2 tube, so it's not a pressure failure.

ROCK2A.AVI (515k)

You can tell that I knew what happened right off. It's kind of strange, though, because in the 10 or so launches of the first design, this never happened.

Now that I have something to work with, I can start to optimize: Nose cone, recovery system, reduce internal drag, try different nozzles, ect . . .

More later.