Which rocket has flown the highest?
The Sprint Iris reached 1199 feet,
the Black Diamond Iris reached 1160 feet,
next the Vector Force reached 1121 feet.
Which rocket can only fly the lowest?
The EAC Viper Iris only reached 199 feet,
next the Alpha Iris only reached 210 feet (but it has only flown with an A8 motor so far),
the X-Ray only reached 231 feet (but it has only flown with an A8 motor so far).
Which rocket flew the fastest?
The Vector Force flew 282 mph,
the Black Diamond Iris flew 217 mph,
the Sprint Iris flew 213 mph.
Which rocket can only fly the slowest?
The EAC Viper Iris only flew to 66 mph,
the Alpha Iris only flew to 71 mph,
the Striker AGM Iris only flew to 73 mph.
Which rocket had the highest acceleration for the entire flight (average Gs)?
The Cyclone produced 6.63 X the force of gravity,
the Black Diamond Iris produced 5.91 X the force of gravity,
the Vector Force produced 5.64 X the force of gravity.
Which rocket accelerates the least for the entire flight (average Gs)?
The Striker AGM Iris produced 1.45 X the force of gravity,
the Andromeda Iris produced 1.55 X the force of gravity,
the Nike-X Iris produced 1.97 X the force of gravity.
Which rocket produced the highest peak acceleration?
The Aero-Hi Iris, Beta Iris, and Vector Force all accelerated over 23 X the force of gravity, too high to be measured.
Which rocket produces the lowest peak acceleration?
The Andromeda Iris produced 6.6 X the force of gravity,
the Nike-X Iris produced 7.2 X the force of gravity,
the Interceptor Iris produced 8 X the force of gravity.
Which rocket came back at the fastest rate?
The X-15 Iris fell at 22 mph without a parachute,
the Aero-Hi Iris and Black Diamond Iris both returned at 21 mph using a streamer.
Which rocket returned at the slowest rate?
The Gamma-Ray returned at 5 mph,
the Alpha Iris, Aero-Hi Iris, Ricochet, EAC Viper Iris, Beta Iris and the Nike-X Iris returned at 6 mph.
Which rocket stayed aloft the longest?
The Bandit HD flew for 81.4 seconds,
the Sprint Iris flew for 74.5 seconds,
the Gamma-Ray flew for 69.5 seconds.
Which rocket came back the quickest?
The Aero-Hi Iris returned in 5.2 seconds,
The X-15 Iris fell in 5.5 seconds,
the Gamma-Ray fell in 6.1 seconds,
Highest Altitude (feet)
Here's the data I like the most. Some of this data is not a true picture though, because as I mentioned before some rockets have not flown with their most powerful motors yet. This includes the X-Ray, Alpha Iris, Stonebreaker, Cyclone, C-Thru, Comanche-3 Iris, and the DEFCON 1. Two of these models appears in the high-flyer's club because a few times I loaded it with a much more powerful composite D motor (it's only intended for a C at most, and it's the Vector Force.) The Interceptor Iris also flew a few times with a composite D motor, but in the future the Interceptor will become the Interceptor-Swift Iris, and fly with a 3-motor cluster!
Fastest Speed (MPH)
Typically the fastest speed of the rocket is during climbing flight, just at the point of motor burnout. From there it coasts to a stop before the parachute is ejected. At least that's how it is supposed to happen.
Here we see the clear winner is the Vector Force. This was a phenomenal flight that resulted from loading a high powered composite propellant D motor with a high impulse: the Aerotech D21-7. Estes designed this model for only a black powder C motor at best, but I built it strong and knew it could take the additional punishment, and it did - several times. This rocket, on this flight seemed to literally disappear from the launch pad. I mean there one second, invisible the next.
Following a distant second is the Black Diamond Iris. That is a minimum diameter rocket using the C6 black-powder motor. It slightly edged out the Sprint Iris, which has a bit larger diameter.
Far behind in speed is the Big Bertha Iris and the Bandit II. Even these speeds are higher than typical because both of these models were modified to take 24mm D12 motors.
At the far end we see a few rockets that can be considered under-powered. Performance of these models could be much better if they had larger motor mounts. The X-Ray shouldn't be in this group, as it hasn't flown with it's highest power motor yet. That same "excuse" should be applied to the Stonebreaker and Alpha Iris, C-Thru, and the DEFCON1. The Comanche 3 Iris has not flown with all three stages yet, and hasn't even flown with the most powerful 2-stage combination yet. That's simply because I don't want to loose it, and I am waiting for a dead-calm day.
Here is a record of the longest duration flight times of the various rockets. The winner with two of the longest flights is the Bandit in it's traditional configuration and again as the HD camera carrier. The traditional Bandit II flight was with a D12-5 motor to 1000+ feet, and the Bandit HD flight was a slow descent with three parachutes carrying the payload (the booster landed earlier). Next, as expected was the Sprint Iris, which can be expected because it was the highest flying rocket of the fleet.
Here is the opposite of the long-duration flights. These short flight times are generally the result of parachute failures, and are not a good indicator of the typical flight. All of the flights under 10 seconds were from failures except for the Black Diamond Iris. In most cases it was just a tangled or stuck parachute.
However, the X-15 Iris once flew to 100 feet and with a very long delay, the ejection was only at about 5 feet off the ground and the rocket took a core sample of the mud. The Beta Iris lawn-darted as a result of a stage 2 ignition failure. The Black Diamond Iris is a streamer-recovery rocket, so it always has relatively quick landings.
On the far right, we can see that the Bandit HD never had a flight shorter than 43 seconds, and a few of the other models just like to hang in the air for awhile.
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