This rocket was built by the first year Principles of Technology class at Fredericksburg High School and was launched at the Rockets 09 event last year in Fredericksburg, Texas. It measured approximately 7 feet-ish with the nosecone. We were using a Hypertek L625 motor and GWIZ HCX for our avionics. The simulation had it reaching about 50 mph over Mach 1 and heights of 15000 feet which was prohibited by the FAA for our launch. So we designed it to first break apart at 13000 feet upon ascent so it would disrupt the aerodynamics and slow down. It would then blow off the nose cone and pull out the parachute for a low level deployment at approx. 500 feet. So it stayed intact all through the launch and went through the first pyro charge as planned. However, the rocket returned to Earth at a higher then predicted speed and was still going around 200-300 mph. At 500 feet the second charge and main parachute deployed. The sudden violent force ripped out the 5 screws we had holding the avionics bay into the body. This separated the nosecone and parachute from the rest of the rocket. We saw the parachute fall down about a half mile away and we thought the whole rocket was attached. When recovery told us that all they had was the nosecone and parachute, it was the worst feeling in the world. We went back to school on the next Monday and began our plan for finding our rocket. We had saved wind data from the launch that day so we plugged all the launch conditions into RockSim and it ...
