A small group of explorers headed to the Maryland launch site on Saturday, July 18, to test streamer recovery.  It was a little windy (over 10mph), so they launched into the wind to insure easy recovery. We wanted to record decent rates for various streamer configurations.

On July 23, Bob, Tom, and Rehan demonstrated some rockets at a cub scout camp.  They used this event to gather more data on streamers.  They flew Old Glory with a lighter cargo unit with one 6x60 streamer.  The lighter cargo unit had little effect on the recovery decent rate.  There was little wind, and very warm.

Objectives

• Use some old rockets to test streamer recovery -- Phoenix, Old Glory, and Fat Boy.
• Use some old motors from last spring.
• Try different streamers.

Lessons

• The altimeter battery popped out on two flights.  We need to tape the battery in to the holder.
• When the altimeter looses power during a flight, the response of the altimeter to the altitude read out is a waving error sound.  The data is recoverable, but needs to be edited.
• Our old motors and rockets were very reliable and consistent.
• The streamers came down way too fast, but they come down much closer to the launch tower.
• Two streamers only made a minor speed reduction.
• A lighter cargo unit did not reduce the decent speed much.
• We have more to learn about streamers.

Launches

Altimeter Data (Excel format)

Pictures