Flying model rockets is a relatively safe and inexpensive way for students to learn the basics of forces

and the response of a vehicle to external forces. A model rocket is subjected to four forces in flight;
weight, thrust, and the aerodynamic forces, lift and drag. The relative magnitude and direction of the
forces determines the flight trajectory of the rocket.
On this page we show the events in the flight of a water rocket. Water rockets are among the simplest
type of rocket that a student encounters. The body of the rocket is an empty, plastic, two-liter soda bottle.
Cardboard or balsa fins are attached to the bottom of the bottle for stability, and a fairing and nose cone
are added to the top as a payload.
Prior to launch, the body of the rocket is filled with water to some desired amount, typically about 40% of
the volume. The rocket is then mounted on a launch tube which is quite similar to that used by a
compressed air rocket. Air is pumped into the bottle rocket to pressurize the bottle and thrust is generated
when the water is expelled from the rocket through the nozzle at the bottom. Like a full scale rocket, the
weight of the bottle rocket is constantly changing during the powered ascent, because the water is
leaving the rocket. As the water leaves the rocket, the volume occupied by the pressurized air increases.
The increasing air volume decreases the pressure of the air, which decreases the mass flow rate of water
through the nozzle, and decreases the amount of thrust being produced. Weight and thrust are
constantly changing during the powered portion of the flight. When all of the water has been
expelled, there may be a difference in pressure between the air inside the bottle and the external, free
stream pressure. The difference in pressure produces an additional small amount of thrust as the
pressure inside the bottle decreases to ambient pressure. When the pressures equalize, there is no
longer any thrust produced by the rocket, and the rocket begins a coasting ascent.
The remainder of the flight is quite similar to the flight of a ballistic shell, or a bullet fired from a gun,
except that aerodynamic drag alters the flight trajectory. The vehicle slows down under the action of the
weight and drag and eventually reaches some maximum altitude which you can determine using some
simple length and angle measurements and trigonometry. The rocket then begins to fall back to earth
under the power of gravity. Bottle rockets may include a recovery system like a parachute, or a simple
detachment of the payload section, as shown in the figure. After recovering the rocket, you can fly again.
You can study the flight characteristics of a water rocket by using the RocketModeler II simulation
program.
On the graphic, we show the flight path as a large arc through the sky. Ideally, the flight path would be
straight up and down; this provides the largest maximum altitude. But water rockets often turn into the
wind during flight because of an effect called weather cocking. The effect is the result of aerodynamic
forces on the rocket and cause the maximum altitude to be slightly less than the optimum. The parabolic
arc trajectory also occurs if the launch platform is tilted and the rocket is launched at an angle from the
vertical.

During the flight of a model rocket small gusts of wind, or thrust instabilities can cause the
rocket to "wobble", or change its attitude in flight. Like any object in flight, a model rocket
rotates about its center of gravity cg, shown as a yellow dot on the figure. The rotation causes the
axis of the rocket to be inclined at some angle a to the flight path. Whenever the rocket is
inclined to the flight path, a lift force is generated by the rocket body and fins, while the
aerodynamic drag remains fairly constant for small inclinations. Lift and drag both act through
the center of pressure cp of the rocket, which is shown as the black and yellow dot in the figure.

If the center of gravity is located above the center of pressure, the rocket will return to its initial
flight conditions if it is disturbed. Engineers call this a restoring force because the forces
"restore" the vehicle to its initial condition and the rocket is said to be stable. Such a flight
condition is shown on the left of the figure.
If the center of pressure is above the center of gravity, the lift and drag forces maintain their
directions but the direction of the torque generated by the forces is reversed. This is called a destabilizing force. Any small displacement of the nose generates forces that cause the
displacement to increase. Such a flight condition is shown on the right of the figure where the
rocket is unstable .
For a stable model rocket, the center of pressure must be located below the center of
gravity. To increase the stability of your rocket, add weight to the nose, or increase the area of
the fins.
There is a relatively simple test that you can use on a model rocket to determine the stability. Tie
a string around the body tube at the location of the center of gravity. Be sure to have the
parachute and the engine installed. Then swing the rocket in a circle around you while holding
the other end of the string. After a few revolutions, if the nose points in the direction of the
rotation, the rocket is stable and the center of pressure is below the center of gravity. If the rocket
wobbles, or the tail points in the direction of rotation, the rocket is unstable. You can increase the
stability by lowering the center of pressure, increasing the fin area, for example, or by raising the
center of gravity, adding weight to the nose.
NOTE: Modern full scale rockets do not usually rely on aerodynamics for stability. Full scale
rockets pivot their exhaust nozzles to provide stability and control. That's why you don't see fins
on a Delta, Titan, or Atlas booster. As a model rocket flies through the air, aerodynamic forces act on
all parts of the rocket. In the same way that the weight of all the rocket components acts through the
center of gravity cg, the aerodynamic forces act through a single point called the center of pressure cp.
How do you determine the location of the center of pressure?
Calculating cp
You can calculate the center of pressure. But, in general, this is a complicated procedure requiring the
use of calculus. The aerodynamic forces are the result of pressure variations around the surface of the
rocket. In general, you must determine the integral of the pressure times the unit normal, times the area,
times the distance from a reference line. Then divide by the integral of the pressure times the unit normal,
times the area. Lot's of work! For a model rocket, there are some simplifying assumptions that we can use
to make this task much easier. Model rockets are fairly symmetric about the axis of the rocket. This allows
us to reduce the full three dimensional problem to a simple, two dimensional cut through the axis of the
rocket. For model rockets, the magnitude of the pressure variation is quite small. If we assume that the
pressure is nearly constant, finding the average location of the pressure times the area distribution
reduces to finding just the average location of the projected area distribution.
Simplified Calculation of cp
The figure shows a simplified version of the calculation procedure that you can use to calculate the cp of
a model rocket. We assume that we already know the projected area and location, relative to some
reference location, of each of the major parts of the rocket: the nose, body tube, and fins. The projected
area A of the rocket is the sum of the projected area a of the components.

A = a(nose) + a(tube) + a(fins)

Since the center of pressure is an average location of the projected area, we can say that the area of the
whole rocket times the location of the center of pressure cp is equal to the sum of the projected area of
each component times the distance d of that component from the reference location.
A * cp = [a * d](nose) + [a * d](tube) + [a * d](fins)
The "location" of each component is the distance of each component's center of pressure from the
reference line. So you must calculate or determine the center of pressure of each of the components. For
example, the projected area of the body tube is a rectangle. The center of pressure is on the axis, half
way between the end planes.
Mechanically determining cp
For a model rocket, there is a simple mechanical way to determine the center of pressure for each
component or for the entire rocket. Make a two dimensional tracing of the shape of the component, or
rocket, on a piece of cardboard and cut out the shape. Hang the cut out shape by a string, and determine
the point at which it balances. This is just like balancing a pencil with a string! The point at which the
component, or rocket, is balanced is the center of pressure. You obviously could not use this procedure
for a very large rocket like the Space Shuttle. But it works quite well for a model.

On the figure we show a generic launcher, although launchers come in a wide variety of shapes
and sizes. The launcher has a base to support the rocket during launch. A hollow launch tube is
mounted perpendicular to the base and is inserted into the base of the rocket before launch. The
launch tube is connected to an air pump by a hollow feeder line. The pump is used to pressurize
the inside of the body tube to provide thrust for the rocket. We have attached a pressure gage to
the feeder line to display the change in pressure in the system. This part of the system is very
similar to the simple compressed air rocket.
The other part of the water rocket system is the rocket itself. Usually the rocket is made from a 2liter soda pop bottle. Before launch, the bottle is filled with some amount of water, which acts as
the "propellant" for the launch. Since water is about 100 times heavier than air, the expelled
water produces more thrust than compressed air alone. The base of the bottle is only slightly
larger than the launch tube. When the rocket is placed on the launch tube, the body tube becomes
a closed pressure vessel. The pressure inside the body tube equals the pressure produced by the
air pump. Fins are attached to the bottom of the body tube to provide stability during the flight.