Matt Wronkiewicz's Weblog

I am pleased to announce version 1.0 of Virtual Range, my rocket simulator for Mac OS X. Virtual Range can simulate the flight of a rocket model in real time (on sufficiently powerful CPUs), and tell you if it is stable. It will also record the maximum altitude and acceleration, and the time until apogee. All this is very important information if you have built a rocket and want to know what kind of engine you should put in it. Virtual Range estimates the aerodynamic forces acting on the rocket in flight using the US Air Force DATCOM drag methods and Barrowman's center of pressure method. The simulated flight is displayed with basic, but accurate… Read More

My very understanding wife bought me a rocket altimeter. This handy little device will let me control the descent rate of my higher altitude rockets, so they have less time to drift under the parachute. Less drifting means I won't have to walk a mile across the dry lake bed to retrieve my rocket, and less chance of losing it. Last ROCstock I flew the upgraded Mean Machine on an Aerotech H128W-M. Gary at Rocketography took a nice photo of the launch. It blasted up and out of sight in… Read More

I've finished my first Google Gadget. It's an up-to date map of the Earth using satellite imagery from the Aqua and Terra observation satellites. The satellite data gets downloaded from NASA GSFC and turned into tiles which work with the Google Maps API. No images older than 36 hours are used. There are other satellite maps available online which are more up to date or more complete, but not both.

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