Every model rocket deserves a (semi) soft landing because you will want to launch it again, and again, and maybe even again, without too many repairs in between! While there are different ways to recover your rocket safely to the ground, the two most common ways call for the deployment of either a parachute or a streamer. While parachutes create a better effect in the sky and deliver a softer landing, they come with a few drawbacks as well. Parachutes take longer to make and pose a greater risk of not deploying correctly or even not deploying at all! Furthermore, using a parachute means that your model will drift farther afield before returning to the earth's surface, leaving it vulnerable to drifting into tall trees, rooftops, or even powerlines! As a rule of thumb, an extra football field of clear space will be needed when using a parachute for a recovery mechanism, even in light winds. Keep in mind that the wind velocity high up where your rocket will travel may be different than at ground level. In other words, light winds on the ground may be hiding the medium or high winds, high above! Therefore, this model rocket will use the streamer approach. Adding a sturdy recovery system to your rocket is shown below.
Oops, don't forget this photo!
First, begin with the 2 inch severed piece of the fuselage. Create a lightweight cardboard insert so that this severed piece can be refitted to the fuselage, and set so that it can easily pop off with the force of the secondary explosive charge. This lightweight cardboard insert can be constructed with used toilet paper roll cardboard. Cut a 2 inch section of toilet paper roll cardboard and fit it inside of the fuselage. Cut this lightweight cardboard again so that there is only a half inch of overlapping thin cardboard when this cardboard is pushed out to the inside walls of the severed fuselage piece.
Using wood glue, make a bead of glue inside the small severed fuselage piece. Be sure that the insert is glued, beginning at the base of the severed section of the small fuselage piece. This will ensure that the parts of the fuselage that were previously cut with the Xacto knife can line up perfectly, once fitted together again. Glue the insert to a depth of 1 inch. This will leave 1 inch of insert to slide nicely into the main body. The re-assembled fuselage is shown in the upper right hand photo.
The "nearly forgotten" photo above shows the finished streamer. Cut between 2 feet and 4 feet of colored party streamer, depending on how much of a splash you want the descent of your rocket to make. Using either a blue streamer or a pink streamer would work well at a gender reveal party, especially for the Oldies who still think its ok to assign a gender identity to a newborn!
Use a single piece, an inch or so, of duct tape to stick to both sides of one end of the streamer, and hole punch the center of the applied duct tape. Cut a piece of string and knot it through the hole punched hole. Duct tape is used to strengthen the connection between the streamer and the string, which will be affixed inside the rocket's main body tube. After all, you do not want the rocket engine's secondary explosive charge to rip the streamer away from the rocket, causing your rocket to crash land, so to speak!
Attaching the streamer to the inside of the body tube is the final step to ensure that your rocket has a more-or-less gentle landing. Begin by cutting a rectangle out of cereal box cardboard with the following dimensions, 2 inches x 1 inch. Taper the long sides of the rectangle and cut again, as depicted in the photo above. Using the reverse side of an Xacto knife, make two horizontal scores, equal distant apart on the tapered rectangular piece of cardboard. Use the photo as a guide. Fold the end of the string into this tapered rectangle, gluing with glue-stick glue as you go. The scored sections should be folded into themselves, along with the end of the string.
Once the gluing process dries, you are ready to glue this folded and tapered rectangular cereal box cardboard piece into the main body of the rocket. Be sure that this cardboard piece is glued, using wood glue, to a depth of 1.1 inches, so that the nose cone assembly can fit seamlessly onto the fuselage.
At this point, the careful observer will have noticed that the streamer will guide the main body of the rocket to a safe-ish landing while leaving the nose cone assembly to fend for itself! In an ideal rocket world, the recovery system should attach to both parts of the rocket, or there should be a recovery system for the main rocket body and another recovery system for the nose cone assembly. You can experiment with these modifications if you like. Ahhh, the beauty of DIY projects! However, the nose cone assembly in this rocket project has a weight of only 15 grams. Therefore, it should fare well in its descent to earth. Just be sure to keep an eye out for where it lands! You don't want a dog snatching it up and making a run for it!
Here's the rocket, all painted up, with its recovery system on display.
