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Last year, I used around 950 ml for my 2-liter launch. My best time was 32 seconds (unfortunately not in a competition!).
However, everyone has been talking about 1-liter bottles for this year. I am actually getting better times with smaller bottles (around 500 ml). I think the 1-liter bottle may be too heavy to be practical. With smaller sizes, (right now I'm using a 17 oz (502.8 ml) bottle) I think the lower mass of a bottle this size is an advantage. Even though it can't hold as much water (I launch at about 200 ml), I am getting better times with these light, narrow bottles than I am getting with the bigger, heavier one liter bottles. Plus, there is more variation in the smaller bottle sizes than with the bigger bottles. Essentially what I'm saying is it might be good to experiment with sizes OTHER than 1-liters and figure out what size is best for your individual rockets.

44madfire wrote:Just a small question. Do you have to use a carbonated bottle?

yes you do

Hi Everyone,

We are trying to coach bottle rockets for the first time. Can anyone please share their flight times? We are consistently getting about 17 secs. Is this on the low range, or this is what everyone else is also averaging about.

sciencemom_1 wrote:Hi Everyone,

We are trying to coach bottle rockets for the first time. Can anyone please share their flight times? We are consistently getting about 17 secs. Is this on the low range, or this is what everyone else is also averaging about.

17 seconds was probably the winning time at the VA State competition last year.

Of course, that was last year but 17 seconds is still a great start. (I haven't tested if I can get better flight times with a smaller bottle)

sciencemom_1 wrote:Hi Everyone,

We are trying to coach bottle rockets for the first time. Can anyone please share their times? We are consistently getting about 17 secs. Is this on the low range, or this is what everyone else is also averaging about.

We have one that consistently gets 18.5 secs, but we're not done testing yet

Thanks for your reply. It was very helpful. Hopefully our kids will learn and have fun at the same time for this event.

What times have you guys have been getting?

Hi! I am doing bottle rockets for the first time this year, and i was looking and saw that lots of people attached a long cone to the front of their rocket. I was wondering if anyone could please tell me what to make that cone out of.

TAZmaniandevil wrote:Hi! I am doing bottle rockets for the first time this year, and i was looking and saw that lots of people attached a long cone to the front of their rocket. I was wondering if anyone could please tell me what to make that cone out of.

You should be able to make it out of poster board type stuff (thick paper).

Anyone use card stock?