Flight Test

Stability

Firstly, I ran a quick CP calculation, with the top section simulated as follows:

This gave a CP of 19.4" (from the nose).
With the rocket fully prepped and loaded with a C6, the CG was found to be just aft of the leading edge of the forward fins, at 15.9"
This indicated a stability margin of 2.6 calibres, so no nose weight was added.
To confirm the stability, a swing test was also performed successfully with the same motor loaded.

Motor Selection

The rocket was weighed without a motor loaded, and was found to be 53g (1.868 oz).
Using this figure, and a guesstimate for the CD of 0.8 some runs were carried out using rasp, which gave the following results:

Simulation Results
Motor Max Alt. (ft) Max Acc. (G) Max Vel. (ft/s) Coast (s)
A8 113.4 13.5   92.0 2.25
B4 246.2 14.5 141.8 2.85
B6 251.5 13.9 161.5 3.01
C5 496.1 30.7 207.9 3.32
C6 464.0 17.4 227.6 3.39

From this, the recommended motor list looks like:

First Flight

It was very windy at the flying site, so I swapped the parachute for a large streamer, and loaded up a B6-4 motor, and let her go.
The flight was incredibly straight considering the wind - I was expecting a lot of weather-cocking.
Deployment occurred just after apogee, and the rocket was recovered without damage. A success!


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