V3 b update and booster rocket mock up

As the weather across the UK has been very un settled over the last week it gave me time to progress with the V3 b a little more i attached the fins and realised they were a bit on the large size so i trimmed 50mm off the width and now they have a more sleek look also it took 40grams off the overall weight so thats a bonus. After a very tricky V2 and V3 flights i have done a bit of research on the German V2 and its original flight problems and i have found that they had weight problems with fins and also not enough thrust on take off which made the gyro guidance system fail. So i have now made a new nozzle and have bored it out to 12mm this should give it masssive acceleration but a short burn time maybe with foam it could be extended, another idea i have started on are having 4 small fins near the nose after seeing pics of a Hermes A1. The nosecone will be a replica of the last V3 just now with 2 small parachutes and hopefully il find some room for a on board camera.
Also i have started on a mock up of a booster rocket i have re used an older rocket as the sustainer an 8L mist jet motor and used some spare 4L rockets as boosters as nobody yet as made a rocket with just 2 boosters so i thought i would have a go im basing the design on NASA's Delta rocket im trying 2 different launcher ideas ( many thanks for sharing some ideas George) on my next update i will show the launchers and nozzles. For the nose cone and parachute deployment ive made a double side deployment system which can carry 2 parachutes im still using tomi timers for the release mechanism.

A Hermes A1 missile .

Another bad day at the office!!!!!!

After a week of bad rocket weather today saw perfect conditions light cloud cover slight breeze and sunshine we set up the new launcher and got on with the first launch the V3 was first up we filled the rocket with1500 mls of water and began filling the rocket to 130 psi the launch was successful left the pad fast and straight it reached around 60 ft then arced over and flew on its side the parachute was deployed but due to the downward speed it ripped the parachute cord and hit the ground hard most of the damage was done to the nosecone parachute bay and crumpled the top of bottle 3, V3 will have to be totally rebuilt!!!.
There wasnt much luck with launch number 2 with the rocket N there was a leak  which occured due to a cracked tornado tube on later inspection i had made the mistake of missing to put a washer on this side of the tornado tube so that was the end of our flight day.

Ideas for next time:
Make sure all tornado tubes have washers and are inspected for cracks before launching.
Make the V3 lighter and try to figure out what causes it to arc over constantly
Invest in some stronger parachute cord for the heavier rockets.
Try the V3 with 3 fins instead of the four to save some weight.
Heres some pics from the day:

V3 b developement and new rocket

Over the weekend more progress was made on the V3b the splices were pressure tested and connected together with Tornado tubes i added an extra splice to the rocket this was a 2L bottle so total capacity now is 10.8L i cant decide between a inline parachute deployment system or side deployment. I decided to keep the V2 fin design and kept with 4 fins i made a cardboard template and cut the fins out of corriflute these will be glued on over the next couple of nights.
 Also this weekend saw another rocket completed i had made a series of splices out of 1L bottles these had cured and were tested they are coupled together with Tornado tubes, total capacity of this rocket is 5L there is another 1.7L splice to be added i will use this after a successful flight we will hopefully be flying this rocket at the weekend depending on weather conditions.

Gorilla Glue

I was in my local DIY store over the Easter break and saw a new polyurethane glue its been around in the US for a while and has been introduced over here in the UK so i was itching to try it on the spliced pairs initial tests look promising, glue seems to be stiffer then Titebond you have to still use polyfilla as a thickening agent as it is very runny, i have found once you have mixed with polyfilla let it sit for 8 to 10 mins before applying to the splices this stops the glue from expanding as much and is easier to handle i have not pressure tested any of the splices using this glue so we will have to see what the glue can handle.

Splices Splices and more splices!!!!!!!!

Over the Easter break saw the BWR team making the next lot of spliced bottles ready for new rocket projects 1st we started with a spliced pair of 3L bottles for the V3 mk3 total capacity of the 2 pairs combined is 8.8L,
 Next up was 5 spliced pairs of 1L bottles 20 bottles in total was used!!!!! 2 pairs with a total capacity 1.7L each, medium 1pair capacity1.4L, small 1 pair capacity 900mls these bottles will be used for a updated older rocket called N i decided to use 3 different sizes as a test to see how the rocket will behave i can swap these bottles around in any configuration, Last of all is a new bottle size which is hard to come by in the UK 1.5L so i stocked up on this size for future rockets and spliced 2 pairs each have a capacity of 2.2L.

V3 spliced pair
N splices
sustainer splices