We launched a couple of rockets yesterday. Dusted off the fleet, took inventory. We have quite a few flight-worthy craft, and plenty of makings to replenish as they gradually get lost or damaged beyond use.
I wish I knew why, but some of my rockets don't reliably open their parachutes. It was relatively breezy when we got to launching, so I picked two rockets based on their heft (they don't fly as high as some) and their tendency to come clattering down sans canopy. I'd rather the parachutes opened, we'd still have gotten them back between the lower altitude they achieve (maybe 300 feet tops), and their relative heft. I think Mardi Gras is the heaviest I've ever built. I weighed a bunch of them on a postal scale last fall, and I forget whether the Great Pumpkin beat him for total weight or not. It would have been close. Great Pumpkin got some serious altitude for a rocket so big. It has to do with surface area, and the boat-tail design is the bomb aerodynamically speaking. I have another boat-tail transition piece, but I'm going to use it the other way to make a more Appollo-esque sort of thing.
And I still might build a new tail section for the Great Pumpkin. The top half of him is still ready to rock and roll.
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