Rocket Bob's SoCal NFOAA egglifter

Just a quick note to tell you about my egg lifter I made for a company picnic. They had a contest to do different things with eggs. One, was to launch an egg, less than 300 feet ( we are near an airbase) and keep it up as long as possible, and land it in a 100 foot circle. So , by popular demand ( really!) I made up a water rocket. Well, it works perfectly because I got lucky on a lot of little things, and went MUCH higher than anybody was used to , AND it stayed up longer than anybody else, AND it did'nt break the egg,BUT, the wind was too strong and it drifted out of the landing area ( by 50 feet). All in all, it put on a great show and was awarded most popular ( I had to fire it off a couple of more times just to apease the crowd).

The rocket is made of 2 Dr.Pepper bottles. 1 for pressure, 1 for the nose cone. The fins are Cloroplast glued on with PLP . It works really well and holds up just fine, I don't think I am going to use balsa any more as the Cloroplast is just too much stronger for a 25% weight penalty. True, you can't streamline the edges of the Cloroplast, but, the advantages have me sold for everything but the most hardcore altitude attempts.

The features that worked well include the use of a yougart lid glued to the nose cone as a mounting flange. A ring of a peanut butter jar was taped to the bottom of the pressurized bottle that just fit the yougart lid. Very slick, ALWAYS falls off a apogee, never falls off at launch ( unless you lean it over too far trying to compensate for high winds!). The yougart lid also has a flange upwind of the separation point ( plastic ring to yougart lid juncture) and so the airflow does not try to separate the nosecone at the joint! ( I got lucky here as I did not plan it that way, it just worked out). Then , I took a hand held paper punch and punched 2 holes in the nose cone to attach the parachute lines. This has the benefit of having the nose cone vented to low pressure air which help hold it on during coasting flight. It really works well. Devistatingly simple and easy. It's like they say, " you can't screw up EVERYTHING all the time,( sometimes you will screw up and get it right! ). RB