An R/C water rocket plane!

[Tim Chen]

Hey Soren, That's really cool! I hope you can show us the other video sometime as well!

[Spaceman Spiff]

Can you tell me whether the FlycamOne2 is more rugged than it looks in the pictures I have seen? It looks like they made the case very lightweight and that makes it look like it might break easily. Thanks!

[Team Seneca]

Nice work on the glider! I'd love to see the other video too!

[dongfang]

Hi,

I think the FlyCamOne2 is rugged enough for its purpose .. like a mobile phone, just smaller. The case will survive some abuse. But I don't like the ribbon cable to the tilting camera head - it looks like it could tear if the head hits something. Also, I'm no longer sure the frame rate is really as advertised (30 fps - but my frames are 80 ms each when editing!) - or does Windows Movie Maker change that?

Here's the other video, the one that the stills earlier in this thread come from.

Regards
Soren

[Bellarossa]

Hi! 80mS would be at 12.5 frames per second? Correct? My computer shows faster than that when I play your video. I think something is computing the time wrong for you.

[dongfang]

Hi,

Yes that would be 12.5 fps.

I get +80 ms when I advance one frame in Movie Maker.

Regards
Soren

[Spaceman Spiff]

Hi,

Yes that would be 12.5 fps.

I get +80 ms when I advance one frame in Movie Maker.

Regards
Soren

I think Windows Media format uses keyframes and you can only view those frames and not the intermediate frames.

[dongfang]

Hi spaceman,

Well that might explain it. These videos in fact were the first 2 I ever produced. I know not very much about it . . . . . . .

OK the Starfighter rocket is in the works now. The delta wing just won't go fast enough. But before I decommission it, I'll try to put it on a booster, and film the stage separation.

Does anyone have in idea how I can fit quite large (20-25 cm root to tip each, and 20-25 cm chord) to a 110 mm bottle? They will be 4-5 mm balsawood, or 6 mm Depron. Just gluing a wooden stick to the bottle, and gluing the edge of the fin to that, will probably no longer suffice...

OK I can make each fin out of 2 pieces, just like the vertical stabilizer on that plane I presented here. But it is a little complicated, and it tends to shake and rattle when it starts to go fast.

Regards
Soren

[Tim Chen]

Hi spaceman,

Well that might explain it. These videos in fact were the first 2 I ever produced. I know not very much about it . . . . . . .

OK the Starfighter rocket is in the works now. The delta wing just won't go fast enough. But before I decommission it, I'll try to put it on a booster, and film the stage separation.

Does anyone have in idea how I can fit quite large (20-25 cm root to tip each, and 20-25 cm chord) to a 110 mm bottle? They will be 4-5 mm balsawood, or 6 mm Depron. Just gluing a wooden stick to the bottle, and gluing the edge of the fin to that, will probably no longer suffice...

OK I can make each fin out of 2 pieces, just like the vertical stabilizer on that plane I presented here. But it is a little complicated, and it tends to shake and rattle when it starts to go fast.

Regards
Soren

This is a zany idea but would it be possible to put a hinge on the back edge of the wings so that when they were getting accelerated forward at high speed then the wind force would fold them back along the sides of the fuselage and when the speed dropped they would fold to flight position. I think a spring or rubber band at the leading edge wing root would pull them together nicely.

[dongfang]

Hi,

A swing-wing plane like this?

Yes I have thought about that! I also made a design for one, but did not build it yet. I can not use an existing design directly, because I will have a large fuselage. They do not have that.

But I will try with small, fixed Starfighter-like wings first. It does not matter if it is a very inefficient glider, as long as it makes a reliable recovery system. In fact, a controllable, fly to landing sustainer is getting my only option, because my next generation of rockets will go so high that anything on a parachute will most probably drift into a forest and disappear. And, I can not go to a larger field - there is nothing around.

Regards
Soren

[Mark Chen]

Hi,

A swing-wing plane like this?

Yes I have thought about that! I also made a design for one, but did not build it yet. I can not use an existing design directly, because I will have a large fuselage. They do not have that.

But I will try with small, fixed Starfighter-like wings first. It does not matter if it is a very inefficient glider, as long as it makes a reliable recovery system. In fact, a controllable, fly to landing sustainer is getting my only option, because my next generation of rockets will go so high that anything on a parachute will most probably drift into a forest and disappear. And, I can not go to a larger field - there is nothing around.

Regards
Soren

A wrocket bosy should be really light so a small wing like a F-104 would be enough. What about a wing near the midpoint and control surfaces near the back od the rocket ear the nozzle. You could make a set of fins that would become a tail on such a design.

[dongfang]

Hi,

Yes that was what I was thinking about. Maybe I will make the swing wing after all, since it is no more difficult. There is just one thing ... you really need ailerons on any plane, except really mature and stable designs.

But watch out, there is another crazy plane coming.

Regards
Soren

[Mark Chen]

Hi,

Yes that was what I was thinking about. Maybe I will make the swing wing after all, since it is no more difficult. There is just one thing ... you really need ailerons on any plane, except really mature and stable designs.

But watch out, there is another crazy plane coming.

Regards
Soren

I'm no expert. All I have to go on is making balsa wood gliders when we were kids. We just made wings and tails in what you can consider to be random shapes originating from what looked nice to our eyes and having nothing to do with real world aerodynamics. The fun thing is that some of our unconventionally made designs actually flew and flew very well.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'd LOVE to see a water rocket Starfighter! That's my favorite jet of all time!!!

[Ripper]

Dave Johnson, one of the grandfathers of water rocketeering (he designed the first airspeed-flap recovery) made a folding-wing rocket glider more than 10 years ago.
http://dogrocket.home.mindspring.com/Wa ... lider.html
There's some ideas!

Cheers
Christian