Water Rockets

You don't think its a bit odd a 36 year old launching water rockets?"

No, I know dozens of people who do it.

What, in the whole world?

Something I've started playing with lately are 'water rockets'. These devices basically consist of a 'PETE' soft drink (Soda) bottle part filled with water and pressurised with compressed air. If the bottle is inverted when pressure is released, the air pushes the water out, and in line with Newtons 3rd law (For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action) the bottle is propelled upwards. Actually if you do it right, propelled doesn't really describe what happens, its more like "BANG! Huh? where did the bottle go?" followed some seconds later by "klonk" as bottle lands.

Of course once you've launched a plain bottle a few times the urge to improve sets in and bottles with fins and nose weights start appear. Before you know it you're searching through recycling bins for those 'cone neck' bottles and dreaming of multistage launches and parachutes.

I'm not alone in these endevours, it turns out that the 'net' is crawling with people of like mind, and entering "water Rockets" in your favorite search engine will reward you with hours of fascinating reading.

A description of my Cable-Tie launcher.
Some photos from Ian's Clark & McNaughton's water rocket Regattas.

Other water rocket sites, in no particular order...

Interesting Water rocket guff, that I had to put somewhere or I'd lose it..

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