Fast forward to Christmas, both Henry and Johann got lots of model rocket paraphernalia and set to work on their first rocket.
By New Year's Eve they had finished their first rocket, the Amazon, and since it is a lower flying rocket we decided to launch it in the backyard.
We then took the rocket to Johann's parents in Riverside the next day and launched it. Unfortunately we all got a little too excited, put a bigger engine in this time and underestimated the affect of the on and off breeze. Johann's parents live on a hill top so when we launched it, it went pretty high up, caught the breeze and then flew about two to three blocks down the hill. We thought we saw the backyard it went into and sent a search and rescue party but after being allowed to search the yard, they came back empty handed.
Since the first rocket had been so successful, the boys went ahead and started work on another rocket, this time one over 6 feet called "The Mean Machine." They finished it Friday night and we decided to steer clear of any residential areas and went out to Lucerne and found a dry lake bed to launch.
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And...not so much success. We had some issues getting the engine where it needed to be, Johann says he followed the measurements and should have gone by how it looked instead of what the guide said. He also thinks he probably needed to open the parachute and refold it more loosely before putting it in the rocket. Live and learn and all that.
Now that we've had a good go and a flop the boys will be spending some time this week getting some more rockets ready and hopefully we can launch them on Monday since Johann has the day off-hooray!
I'm glad he decided on this hobby. It's pretty inexpensive and Henry loves helping and launching them. I'm looking forward to their next launch!
5 comments:
This makes me want to get into model rockets! It looks so fun!
What a cool idea! We did water rockets in high school, and Jarom and I kept ours to do more launches over the summer. Sadly, one rocket went into the street and a passing driver intentionally ran it over. :( Where have you guys been getting the rocket parts? I bet Jarom and Evan would love doing something like this!
apart from rockets.. I think Johann is a one of the best, most devoted fathers in the world :)
it was not Lev, its me:)
That looks like a lot of fun! This looks like a great hobby.
Awesome! Chris's family has a tradition to launch rockets at Thanksgiving or Christmas and we did it this year. That last rocket is huge! What a great thing for them to do together!
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