Water rocket glider launch challenge

Pluc

New member
Lately I tried to launch a glider with a water rocket made from cola bottle. It didn't work but I would love to see you try and succed. That would be fun.
 

jtrops

Member
Hmm. I'm interested in seeing this too. I have some experience building water rockets. I have a couple with parachute recovery, and I had a student make one that used retro-glide recovery.

Can you add a bit more info about what didn't work? Do you have video of the launch? Photo's of your rocket/glider setup?

I'm also interested in your mechanism for releasing the glider.
 

OkieDave

New member
When I've tried the idea in the past, my wings sheared off at the root upon launch. There's some fairly stout acceleration there.
 

jtrops

Member
Immediately I think it could be done in two ways.

First, the glider could be made fairly small relative to the size of the rocket. Of course it might be hard to fly such a small bird by sight at the apogee altitude. It could be done as an FPV glider.

Second, it could have retractable wings that deploy when the glider is released from the rocket. I'm thinking of one of my parachute recovery rockets that has a release mechanism that ejects the nose cone when the pressure drops below 25psi. It might be possible to make the payload bay drop away, open, and in turn cause the wings to open. The payload bay itself could be the fuse for the glider with a boom running down the rocket to the tail fins two of which would be the V-Tail for the glider.

This would be a really cool project. I wish I had time for it.

One more thing. The new water resistant foam board would be important for this, and it could be a game changer for H2O rockets. I have used coroplast extensively in my rockets along with Proline Premium (PLP) glue. I still think the PLP is the right glue for this, but it would be nice to ditch the (heavy) coroplast in favor of the new foam board.
 
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Pluc

New member
Well jtrops, My attempt did not totaly failed. The water rocket did launch, the small glider with foldable wing did deploy. But everything else failed.

1.The rocket was too heavy so it only rose about 60 feet in the air with 100 psi water pressure. I also have successfully built rockets with parachute deployments and I dont use any electronics, its the air flow drop at the apogee that releases the deployment mechanism. I used the same principle for the glider release.

2. Because of the limited space available on the rocket I didn't make the control surfaces on the glider big enough so it was almost uncontrollable.

3. To be able to mount the glider on the nose of the rocket I left the nose flat. and I stuck the rockets parachute between the glider and the rocket thinking that it would be released at the same time as the glider but the air flow from the falling rocket stamped the rolled parachute against the flat nose and it never deployed, crashing and destroying the glider launch ramp at the same time.

It was a fun experiment, and I will probably try a better design some time.
Here are some pictures and the only video I have of the attempt. It doesn't show much my 5 year old girl was holding the camera.
IMG_0380.jpg
IMG_0415 2.jpg
IMG_0413 2.jpg
 

Pluc

New member
jtrops, those a good ideas, but I prefer simple rubber band technology:D, You can do a lot with rubber bands and a lot of imagination.

But I would love to see how the Flite test crew would solve this puzzle.
 

ofiesens2

Professional noob
Second, it could have retractable wings that deploy when the glider is released from the rocket.

I thought about this too. Seems like a great project to make a swing wing plane like the Pun Jet or Joshua Finn's free-flight gliders. Could also be an "all up, last down" competition like in discus-launch gliding, where everyone builds a bottle rocket glider and has a challenge.
 

Pluc

New member
I thought about this too. Seems like a great project to make a swing wing plane like the Pun Jet or Joshua Finn's free-flight gliders. Could also be an "all up, last down" competition like in discus-launch gliding, where everyone builds a bottle rocket glider and has a challenge.

I really like the idea! everyone up! Last down! It's been a while since FT had a challenge with gliders, I think the last one was with the Alula.
 

Gryf

Active member
Reminds me of the Estes Scissor-Wing Transport I built many years ago.

image-scissor-wing-transport-300-600-105611133124226.jpg

That's not mine, btw - always thought it was a really neat concept.

Gryf
 

FlyinAgain

Member
attempt to revive this thread

notice that this thread has been dormant for a while ... thought I'd try to revitalize it

started building water rockets with my nephews (12 yr old and 2 10yr old twins) in the summer two years ago ... they had a blast (literally)

last summer I asked what they wanted to do but they didn't know ... so I introduced them to FliteTest ... they watched the videos ... laughed with (at?) the Josh's ... and decided that it was what they wanted to do ... so we invested in new radio gear (mine were antiques), motors, esc's and DTFB ... and they learned to build (I did all the razor cutting for them) ... fly ... crash .. and rebuild ... fly ... crash ... rebuild ... and so on ... again ... they had a blast

so in preparation for this summer ... I thought I'd try to combine the water rockets and the DTFB aircraft ... but I wanted to make sure it was possible before I got them involved ... my first task was to search the forums ... and I found this thread

so ... this is what I've come up with (hopefully it'll standup to the acceleration forces since it's a wing)

WaterRockerArrow03a.jpg WaterRocketArrow02a.jpg WaterRocketArrow01a.jpg

I also wanted to keep the flying weight under the 250gm UAS limit (thanks FAA) ... right now it comes in at 265gm ... and yes ... it's regular, non-water proof DTFB ... thoughts are to do the initial testing with only air (no water)

so ... it does glide but that's all I've tried ... my plan is to maiden it at FliteFest West 2017 next week ...

who knows ... maybe it'll generate some interest and we'll have some people who might want to piggy-back a Mighty Mini Arrow Water Rocket build within the MiniArrow community builds that are being planned ... anyone interested?

we'll see how it goes at FFW