When I was a kid, every 4th I'd buy a bunch of bottle rockets and attempt to make a multi-stage one by taping them together and varying the length of the fuses. What would happen is the one with the shortest fuse would go bang first and blow off the fuse of the other.
I finally resolved this problem by locating stage 2 further down the stick (instead of adjacent), with its fuse up into the exhaust of stage one. Then it would light as it was ascending, and the stage 1 bang was far enough away not to disturb stage 2.
3 stages did not work because stage 1 could not lift the weight. A dual booster bottle rocket did not work because the fuse timings were too erratic. Always one would go first and blow the fuse off the other. (Wasn't that the problem with the Soviet moon rocket?)
Naturally, in college I gravitated towards aerospace and got a minor in Aeronautical Engineering.
Finally, when I had a real job, I could buy all the fireworks I wanted. I bought a huge pile, and set about lighting and throwing them. After an hour or so, I got bored and lit off the rest as strings. It was like someone threw a switch in my brain, I completely lost interest in fireworks and it never returned.
But my interest in jet engines, rocket engines and V8s has never waned.
I was originally a game programmer (Empire, Mattel Intellivision) but wrestling with the compiler convinced me I could write a better one, and so it went.
I finally resolved this problem by locating stage 2 further down the stick (instead of adjacent), with its fuse up into the exhaust of stage one. Then it would light as it was ascending, and the stage 1 bang was far enough away not to disturb stage 2.
3 stages did not work because stage 1 could not lift the weight. A dual booster bottle rocket did not work because the fuse timings were too erratic. Always one would go first and blow the fuse off the other. (Wasn't that the problem with the Soviet moon rocket?)
Naturally, in college I gravitated towards aerospace and got a minor in Aeronautical Engineering.
Finally, when I had a real job, I could buy all the fireworks I wanted. I bought a huge pile, and set about lighting and throwing them. After an hour or so, I got bored and lit off the rest as strings. It was like someone threw a switch in my brain, I completely lost interest in fireworks and it never returned.
But my interest in jet engines, rocket engines and V8s has never waned.