Building a Water Rocket: What Affects Launch Height?

[jackson]

I'm Currently Making A Water Rocket And I Want To Obtain More Information About The Factors That Might Affect It From Launching Higher. Thanks For Your Help Really Appreciate It.

 

[Adrian Baker]

Its a trade off between more water (for propulsion) and less water to lower the mass. At school we use 1.5 - 2 litre soft drink bottles for the main bodies. You fill these to about the 1/3rd level for the highest and longest flights. 3 litre bottles are rubbish...

Nozzle size is also a factor, but the std drink bottle opening works fine. We use toy kits called 'Roket's to build them up.

Great fun, good Physics!

 

[jackson]

thanks adrian your help is very much appreciated

 

[extreme_machinations]

how the hell do u pressurise them ?
ive heard of these water rockets ,and i plan to build one of these but i live in India and i don't think i can get the kit here in India .but i'll try

how can the nozzle size be altered ? what kind of aerodynamic innovations do we need to minimise drag ?and what's the size of the fins [the thingys that stick out from the fuselage] for standard 2 litre softdrink bottle ?

my main problem remains pressurising the bottle ,do you require some kind of a gas pump or something like that ?

 

[_X3R0_]

Also remeber to make it have the smallest wing span possible. Also you want to have a wieght at the top like a tennis ball or a racket ball. You need to do this so it has some wieght at the top also you need to have a smaller wingspan iwht yoru fins so as to not have it fly everywhere because even the smallest imperfection on a bottle rocket screws it up.

 

[Adrian Baker]

how the hell do u pressurise them ?
ive heard of these water rockets ,and i plan to build one of these but i live in India and i don't think i can get the kit here in India .but i'll try

how can the nozzle size be altered ? what kind of aerodynamic innovations do we need to minimise drag ?and what's the size of the fins [the thingys that stick out from the fuselage] for standard 2 litre softdrink bottle ?

my main problem remains pressurising the bottle ,do you require some kind of a gas pump or something like that ?

Here - have a look at the company website...

www.rokit.com

Also, type Rokit into Google for loads of info

 

[Adrian Baker]

Here's one of our rockets in action. (if I uploaded the file properly!)

They sure go high!