Houston, we have a problem
Jul. 8th, 2012 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenWent up to Gisborne yesterday with Rey and friends to play with rockets. A good time was had by all!
One of our friends' rockets had an on-board video camera, which captured this footage of one of the more entertaining flights. The jolt at 00:14 is when the ejection charge blows off the nose-cone, releasing the parachute intended to bring the rocket safely to earth.
Rey had a couple of flights with her birthday rocket, and then let me prep it for the third launch. It went VOOM up into the sky, nose-cone blew off as designed, but parachute failed to emerge. The body came hurtling back down and hit the ground hard; I was expecting to find I'd broken Rey's birthday present, but somehow it had managed to come straight down into soft earth, hitting on its strongest axis, and bury itself three inches in the ground without sustaining any damage. Hooray for cardboard and plastic!
All in all, a great afternoon out. Now back to the maths marking.
One of our friends' rockets had an on-board video camera, which captured this footage of one of the more entertaining flights. The jolt at 00:14 is when the ejection charge blows off the nose-cone, releasing the parachute intended to bring the rocket safely to earth.
Rey had a couple of flights with her birthday rocket, and then let me prep it for the third launch. It went VOOM up into the sky, nose-cone blew off as designed, but parachute failed to emerge. The body came hurtling back down and hit the ground hard; I was expecting to find I'd broken Rey's birthday present, but somehow it had managed to come straight down into soft earth, hitting on its strongest axis, and bury itself three inches in the ground without sustaining any damage. Hooray for cardboard and plastic!
All in all, a great afternoon out. Now back to the maths marking.
