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Step 11Flight damage
The rough, parachute-less landing broke his neck. That was about it. (Luckily, he missed my car.)
I was surprised at how he flew. If I had made and attached some giant fins extending below his feet, I'm sure he would have flown much more straight. Still, excessive weight is the real issue I would have to overcome if I ever revisited this project.
Since the original posting of this instructable, I have removed the head piece and all the tape covering to examine some things. I found that the rocket tubes had blown out at the 45-degree angles near the shoulders. That's another problem that will need to be re-designed around if I were to revisit this project. Overall however, aside this and his head, he was in pretty good shape for the crash landing he took.
At times this was a real pain, but I had fun with it. I learned a lot of new tricks and got the satisfaction of overcoming some interesting creative challenges.
Thanks for looking! I'd love to hear what you think of this.
I was surprised at how he flew. If I had made and attached some giant fins extending below his feet, I'm sure he would have flown much more straight. Still, excessive weight is the real issue I would have to overcome if I ever revisited this project.
Since the original posting of this instructable, I have removed the head piece and all the tape covering to examine some things. I found that the rocket tubes had blown out at the 45-degree angles near the shoulders. That's another problem that will need to be re-designed around if I were to revisit this project. Overall however, aside this and his head, he was in pretty good shape for the crash landing he took.
At times this was a real pain, but I had fun with it. I learned a lot of new tricks and got the satisfaction of overcoming some interesting creative challenges.
Thanks for looking! I'd love to hear what you think of this.
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I knew the weight was such that he would never gain enough altitude to have time for a parachute to deploy. In the video, you see him come crashing down, a couple seconds pass, and then the motors shoot their ejection charge, which is what pushes the parachute out. So it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. That's the logical reason.
The emotional reason is this: this project offered a lot of unique new challenges for me (which is what I look for in a project), but I was generally unhappy with the results. So after months of thinking about it and working on different aspects of it and having it drive me nuts, I was really looking forward to watching it crash. Kind of crazy, huh?