I have recently had the opportunity to launch my large homemade rocket twice, the first time everything worked perfectly although the parachute opened very near to the ground (15m) but on the second launch the parachute cord detached from the nose cone and the rocket fell without any means of slowing down. Thankfully it landed in tall grass and the rocket remained in great condition. For this launch I used D12-5 Estes engines although next time I will try to get some with a quicker ejection delay. I did not have any proper igniters so I fashioned some DIY ones out of nichrome wire and matches.

IMG_6334The D-12-5 rocket motor produced a surprisingly large amount of smoke. Unfortunately, the shutter speed was low so there was a lot of motion blur. IMG_6307I think that the rocket achieved a maximum altitude of roughly 150m to 250m.

In the future I hope to progress toward high powered rockets with dual deployment systems and ammonium perchlorate engines.