Greg Smith makes cool rockets

Greg Smith has one of the best blogs out there to feature high-end high power rocket projects.

For the last few months Greg chronicled the construction of Em-Sem-Fifty, a minimum diameter carbon fiber rocket designed around full-M motors. The second flight of Em-Sem-Fifty (after a warm-up on an L) was a drag-race on – what else – M750’s. The M750 is a long-burning Aerotech 98mm motor – 12.7 seconds of thrust! – and Greg’s flight topped 20,000 feet.

Here’s Greg’s time-elapse video of the flight prep and launch:

And Greg’s co-racer Frank Hermes’ video of the same flights:

Also recommended is Greg’s successful L3 certification flight:

The successful attempt followed repair work from some nasty zipper’s sustained on the first attempt. Greg also has some great failure analysis too – after all, knowing why your rocket failed is the first step to preventing future failures.