Water Rocket Manual

The Plutoid 1B Water Rocket.
Your first water rocket explained
 in step by step details in the
 free plans you can get by filling in the form on the left.

The Alpha Base Launcher.
Your first water rocket launcher
explained in step-by-step details
also covered in the free plans
you can get by filling in the form on the left.

Actual launch of the Plutoid 1B
from the Alpha Base launcher.

Flight video,

Bounce recovery, 5 sec video clip:

wmv 640X480, 200 Kb
mpg 640X480, 2.6 Mb

Parachute draped over nosecone, the simplest deployment covered in Chapter 6 of
The Complete Water Rocket Manual vol 1

Air stream flap parachute deployment, an easy and reliable deployment method covered in Chapter 6 of
The Complete Water Rocket Manual vol 1

Vertical deployment "Tomy Timer"
ejection mechanism. Detailed in
chapter 6 of
The Complete Water Rocket Manual vol 1

Two spliced bottles.  Pressure
 tested to 140 psi with no leaks.
Learn how in chapter 4 of
The Complete Water Rocket Manual vol 1

A version of the
Nova 1B Rocket
made from two 2-liter bottles
on the Alpha Base launcher.
This and many more rockets detailed in chapter 7 of
The Complete Water Rocket Manual vol 1

 The "Coney"

The rocket in the picture to the left is based on Robert Youen's "Coney."  This is a backslider or back-gliding rocket.  Robert and Peter Alway did extensive research and obtained a patent on backsliders.  Their work was done with a 55 diameter long rocket and their patent references a 30:1 and 50:1 length.  Robert Youen's Coney (and the one pictured here) is 12:1 and is not tubular in shape so the effective ratio is even less.  The result is that even when properly built and precisely balanced according to the Alway report, it is not dependable.  Click on the picture or here to see a wmv, 12 second, 0.5 meg clip of how a "perfect flight" can go wrong.  The clip is about 12 seconds long.  At 9 seconds it disappears (into a black hole?) for a second and then reappears falling vertical and accelerating into the ground.

mpg small 352X240, 2 meg
mpg large 720X480, 7 meg.

However, in the book, I give you the correct balancing location for this rocket to backslide correctly.  Click on the links for the "real" perfect flight.

wmv large 640x480, 20 secs, 4.7 meg
wmv small 320x240, 20 secs, 1.0 meg

A complete discussion of backsliders and the "Coney" is in chapter 3 of The Complete Water Rocket Manual vol 1.

Here is a ground test of a 2-liter bottle rocket with an airspeed flap recovery system ready to go except for fins being ground tested.  Click on links below a normal speed (1 second) and a slow speed (4 second) video clip.

normal 320X240 wmv .13 meg 1 sec
normal 320X240 mpg .46 meg 2 sec
slow 320X 240 wmv .26 meg 4 sec

Similar to above, this is a ground test of a bottle rocket with a tomy timer parachute ejection.  The rocket is ready to go except for fins.  The timer here is set for about 5 seconds which would be too long for an actual flight.  An actual flight of this rocket should be set for about 3-4 seconds to deploy at apogee.

mpg small 320X240 mpg 1.2 meg 7 sec