Multi-staging water rockets

Started looking at multistage rockets and found a great thread on Water Rocket Forum as well as a vid by US water Rockets. The mechanism reverse engineered by BUGWUBBER is wonderful.
Below is my first drawing idea.

See my non return blog for further developments.

Water rocket with Santa Claus

The Loony Lander idea I had recently, was used to make a rocket that launched Santa at Apogee(ish) and he descends on his own parachute.

Also made a big cardbord box chimney in the faint (fat) chance he might land in it..
Launching this idea at Queensland Rocketry Site this Sunday coming.
The theme for the launch day is of course Christmas...

Check out more at Aus Rocketry Forum:
http://ausrocketry.com/forum

Loony Lander

The recent Martian film inspired me to try building a lander.
The lander separates from the rocket at apogee. The legs then fold out and a parachute is released. 

The rocket comes down on its own parachute and lands on independent suspension (elastic bands).
Tomy timers and elastic bands control all actions.  The lander releaase is controlled by inertia. Thanks to George from Aircommand for that idea.

Pics attached are prototypes. Legs that where made of balsa broke, so made from lightweight ply.

Chance of success: <3
Intend to launch early November (cancelled - now January).

Crash results and damage report will be posted on Youtube.
cheers

Test flight of Water Rocket Dual Boosters

Had fun on Sunday launching a test water rocket with dual drop away dual boosters.
Forgot a pressure gauge so had to guess on main rocket. Suspect we were only at 60-70psi.. Booster with 20mm nozzles at just 40-50psi by hand pump. Main rocket with 9mm nozzle. No metal components are used at all. Used irrigation tubes and bamboo skewers (with points cut off) to join.

Boosters are just single 1.25mm bottles. Tommy timer for deployment on this test.
First launch, boosters failed to separate. Second launch went fine. 

Back home to do a lot of modifications...

Will launch with much larger main stage next time, foam in main rocket and higher pressures etc. Just happy it worked at all.  Sorry about footage but had issues driving cameras, pumping things up and launching at same time.