Loved this, not sure how I found it because I was looking at rocket explosions than this. I used to use distress flare motors as rockets back when the biggest motor was a D. But sadly these days laws have really tightened up in relation to expire distress flares. The good old fun days are now over. Having fun now is a criminal activity. I was worried your first flight day was Friday 13! Be careful with pressure vessels, sadly I know a few people in my line of work who have nearly been killed by them failing. There is absolutely no warning of failure.
+leokimvideo Thanks. We thought Friday the 13th was more than appropriate to try something new :) I couldn't agree more about the dangers of pressure chambers. They look so innocent just sitting there, but they are very dangerous especially at these pressures. This is why we stand a long way back and can depressurise them remotely if needed. We have had quite a few fail over the years. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cROVwjIZa1Q.html
I dont mean to be so off topic but does anybody know of a trick to log back into an instagram account..? I somehow lost my login password. I would love any help you can offer me!
@Quinn Zane i really appreciate your reply. I got to the site thru google and im in the hacking process now. I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
These are actually one of the most impressive onboard footages I've ever seen. The height looks almost incredible. You did a really good job at your build log, I just scrolled through it and was impressed by the level of detail. I'll definitely read the two pages tomorrow. It would be awesome if you could place the onboard camera in another angle so that it films a bit of the rocket itself at your next launch. Keep up your work, your rockets are getting better and better and it's truly stunning with how much precision you work. Also very good video editing. :) Cheers Julian
RaketfuedRockets Thank you Julian, we were happy with how little spin there was on the rocket. The new fin alignment jig worked really well. The angle of the video camera was intentional so it would film the horizon near the top of the frame as most of the interesting things to see are on the ground. Because the camera is in the nosecone (that's where there was room) we had limited capability of looking down the rocket without extending the lens/mirror further out into the air stream and causing more drag. I'm happy to answer questions about the build if I missed something in the build log. :)
Aussies even adopted the kW instead of BHP/HP/PS and so on... which is more then most metric countries... but then again PSI is not metric is it? BAR should be more correct.. and the announcer tells the pressure in PSI... so they are almost there :-) Btw 500 PSI is around 34 BAR which is enormous pressure... lol made this comment before the "conversion" came up in the picture... ah well...
Jason Axford Hundreds of thousands of people are traumatized/ killed in car crashes. Bungee jumping? Wing suit base jumping? How many were traumatized by burning solid fuel rockets? Your point?
Great Build !!! Pretty darn impressive to get a water rocket to that altitude especially when you were only expecting 1400 ft ! Keep up the great work !
Cheers Roger. Here is a video of our latest rocket that has managed to get over 3,100 feet. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OTArDzG2veg.html
OK, first water/air powered rocket to get into space, what kind of engineering is it going to take? haha. How many stages and is it even possible? Like a cluster stage one, with 2000 psi, then a 2nd stage with 4000 psi, 3rd with 5000psi and so on. :D Awesome you saw Homer!
I don't believe it is possible to get a water rocket into space (a water rocket in the conventional sense) Even if you define space as being at 80km. Even a fully optimized multi-stage water rockets is only likely to get you to a couple of km above ground.
I wonder if a hybrid of this and traditional rocket engines could be made. The main benefit I'm seeing from the water rocket is the acceleration, if combined with a traditional rocket motor to kick in once acceleration levels and starts to decline you would have a monster. Traditional rocket motors use alot of there fuel for the initial start and acceleration, if you bypassed all that then just kicked the motor on to continue the flight you would achieve a very high altitude.
@@tennicktenstyl you can how you think Quantum Physics works... You do velocity of the size of the tip of Rockett against the gravity and air/atmospheric pressure acting against it.
This is the cheapest air defense without breaking national budget. Need air pressure and water and multi-stages with larger body and bay load and great acceleration
Is the Air tank separate from the "fuel" tank? Commercially available PCP air gun spares ... separate tanks capable (and tested) to 190 bar (2700 psi?) Use spare battery capacity to heat the air tank cuz it will go minus celcius very quickly? Drill loads of holes in every thing internal to lighten. Gently mill away any unused pcb as well to get rid of mass and use wires that are just enough current rating. Pre pressurize the water with C02?
@Mudkip909 Calm down, it was just a suggestion, just an idea. Just saying you don't need an hour of runtime? But, most polymer batteries these days have safety circuits and resettable fuses .. in case their shorted. These are easily removed and you can draw quite a lot of current for short periods depending on the battery manufacture quality and how many times you want to use it (especially if the number is 1). I have some 3.7V cells on my desk right now, 80mAh .. 5 - 10 grams with resettable fuses, 3 seconds on a 1 amp load. They get hot.
Holy shit! This is just incredible i am very proud of you guys! 534 meter is just a altitude where you can dream of with a water rocket. I am working on a fiber glass rocket too and i want to thank you guys for the big inspiration ;) Uswaterrocket got a new opponent haha. Keep up the good work and just enjoy this wonderful hobby!
Basrockets Thank you for the nice words Basrockets. :) It was a little higher than we were initially expecting, but happy that it stayed together at that pressure. It gets a little scary at these pressures so we extended the hose to almost double to what we normally use. Good luck with the fiberglass rocket, I'm looking forward to the launch reports.
Oddly, I find this more impressive than chemical rockets. I agree with other posts that you onboard video is really high quality. Very cool and interesting. I wonder what the world record for a water rocket is.
@Zbynek Valek: We bought the AltimeterOne from JollyLogic but they are available through a number of distributors. The zLog Mod 6 altimeters we bought from Hexpert Systems direct.
Water rockets are "fun" but there an asymptote to performance: The velocity of the rocket vehicle is a product of the "jet" (fluid velocity) and the natural logarithm of the mass ratio. Driving up the ejection pressure does increase the fluid velocity but requires ever increasing structural capability. As a research project I have taken fluids to 12,000 to 15,000 psi - it makes a wonderful "water laser" (metal cutter) but could not get to a practical tactical velocity to accelerate the desired payload. Fluid velocity is based on Bernoulli. The Army experimented with Freon stored in liquid with limited success. The Freon did transition to gas which improved the effective jet velocity. Part of this was to reduce launch signature and gunner hazard. A fluid counter mass or "Davis" gun (patent 1914) works better as you're not tieing the payload to the structure. A possible solution for "rocket" system is a two phase flow where fluid is introduced into the gas stream and accelerated... but the plumbing has to be clever to get the sweet spot for performance. Internal ballistics of the propellant has to be clever too.
For a deep dive on how liquid density affects performance see this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Fu3rIiPy_18.html it can be a little counterintuitive.
I just wanted to know how to calculate height for a single stage rocket with respect to given parameters like water bol.,rocket bol.,bottle diameter,nozzle diameter and if using boosters then what will be pressures inside each boosters if I wanted my rocket to reach 900 metres. Pls reply ASAP
+graciano b During the very first part of the flight (after it leaves the launch tube) the air pressure pushes the water out this takes just over 100ms, and then the rest of the air comes out in another approximately 100ms. The rest of the flight is just coasting.
+AirCommandRockets Having some difficulties understanding the benefit of adding the water in the first place - if there is one. Considering how incompressible water generally is, wouldn't you get more velocity from the rocket by simply filling it with air to replace the volume the water is taking up? So basically running it as a compressed air rocket... I get that water is heavier, and the rocket moves by throwing mass out the nozzle, as all rockets do, but since there's no chemical reaction to release energy here (only mechanical energy), I just can't figure out how the water rocket would be better. Surely the fact the water is heavier also makes it more difficult to push out, thereby negating the benefit of ... well, the water being heavier? I'm sure there's more to it, but my poorly educated self can't figure it out! :)
+Mythricia No, actually it's a great question. Thrust is all about 'throwing' a mass in one direction to make the rocket go in the other direction. The heavier the mass and the faster you throw it the more thrust you have. Air is compressible and so can store a lot of energy, but is also very light. So although it can leave the nozzle at sonic speed it doesn't carry a lot of mass with it. Water being essentially incompressible cannot store a lot of energy, but it does have a lot of mass. So in a water rocket you use the stored energy of the air to push the heavy water out the nozzle. There is of course a trade-off between the amount of air and water you use. As it turns out the optimal ratio of water to air is around 1/3 water, and 2/3 should be air. For some more information please see: www.aircommandrockets.com/water.htm
+Mythricia I guess another way to look at it would be the difference in recoil you would feel when you fire an actual bullet from a gun vs a blank both with the same charge.
Congratulations George, and the hole team ! Your achievement is really really amazing. Beautiful flight and video. You have now less than 100m to gain ;)) and you can do it!
Marius Dinescu Cheers Marius :), we think the rocket still has a little more up its sleeve, but I think we are close to the pressure limit with this one. We can now model this rocket a bit better in the simulator since we know a little more about its actual performance.
Very enjoyable video, thanks for posting! I had no idea that there are model rocket events held in Australia, would love to attend one someday. Keep up the great work!
StarlightVisual That's the big question. We first made a test chamber that was about 70cm long and it was still holding 650psi. We wanted to burst it, but we were also getting close to the safe limit for the hose and so we aborted the test. We're not sure how much more it will hold, but intend to find out at the next launch. :)
