Testing the altimeter
Now that you have built it, do not fligh it without doing a ground test first.
I would like to thanks my friend Alain who is Tripoli prefect for France for sharing with me those testing ideas.
Ground test
How do you test it on the ground you might ask yourself?
Well it is actually really simple to give it a very basic test. This is actually how I checked that my code was working before actually flying it.
We did use a large mailing that can be sealled. We did put a couple of altimeters inside:
Mine and another one as a reference
Both altimeters are dual recovery ones each of them had its outputs connected to some Xmas light
Then we did suck out the air using the tube.
Each pair of bulbs envuentually light at the other. Apogee first and then the main after letting the air in.
Both altimeters are using different pressure sensors and we could see some differences but the results were pretty close so we assumed that the altimeter could be safelly fly.
First flight test
In order to test the altemeter and make sure that the charges were firing at the correct altitude we used one of my big rocket that has the ability to carry a couple of altimeter.
Instead of using my altimeter we did put the charges outside the rocket and rather than ejecting parachute they were blowing colored powder on the sky.
Obviousely it was a low altitude flight (under 300 meters) so that we could visually see when the charges were firing.
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