EM Catapult Plus Rocket Vehicle

> I will be very interested to see where you folks go with this research,
> Phil.
>
> Do you know if anyone plans to post schematics, diagrams or flow charts?

I'll try to put something up within the next few weeks. My offer to help
people who want to try this still stands - I guess more information
would be a good place to start.

> This is exactly the sort of incremental, start small, learn and extend
> project I had in mind.

It has been educational. We're working on designs incorporating
superconductors, but all of that testing so far has been quasi-static.
It's nice to have the demo so that we can check our math on something
that moves under its own power.

> I especially like the tabletop launcher, glider, and the obviously
> indoor setting. Good for demos!

Yes, the demo gets the idea across. People who see it usually seem to
have a positive response.

> For the next level test, outdoors, I presume, have you decided yet how
> and when in the launch process to ignite the rocket engine(s)??

We're planning to ignite the rocket with a pyrotechnic fuse, somewhere
around a tenth of a second after it has left the launcher. The fuses
haven't arrived yet; when they do, we'll see how repeatable the delay is.

-Phil