Once one the launcher, it was too tall for me to handle on my own and I had great difficulty in pressurising it and then taking off the tapes that secured the nose during pressurisation.

The point where the parachute nose cone joins the top 2 litre bottle is just out of my reach if I stand on the tips of my toes.

Any tapes that hold the nose in place during pressurisation must be pulled from the top, slowly and carefully so that the nose is not dislodged.

The water level in the bottom 3 litre bottle is just under 2/3rds of the way up.

The nose cone has two rows of small holes (1/8th" diameter made with a soldering iron) on the straight section, next to the curve of the top of the cone, just where it straightens out. This is a low pressure zone and this low pressure will keep the nose on while the rocket is traveling upwards. At apogee, the rocket has stopped, the pressure has increased and as the rocket rotates to face the ground, the cone separates and releases the parachute.

You can clearly see the fins at the bottom of the picture. Each one is made from the straight sides of a 2 litre bottle.

Instead of using talc, I used a Teflon sheet (actually a cleaned used baking sheet) to line the NSA cone. This worked perfectly.

Note the length of the elastic cord shock cord between the nose of the rocket and the ring where all of the parachute cords meet. This is normally about 0.5 metres long but with this monster dangling on the end of it, it has been stretched to around 4 feet in length.

And yes, it was a blue sky - the first in a long time.

The proximity of the landing site to the launcher shows the stillness of the air that morning.