Why is the exhaust nozzle of the March 16, 1926 rocket above the fuel tank?
Early in Dr. Goddard’s rocketry research, when he was working on solid fueled designs, he had the nozzle positioned at the bottom of the rocket, like today’s rockets are. However, when he started working with liquid fueled rockets before the March 1926 flight, he put the nozzle above the fuel tanks, as you can see in the diagram. His reasoning was given in Section 2 of an August 1929 report to the Clark University trustees (the university helped support his early research): “Stability of flight is, incidentally, ensured from the facts that the nozzle is above the center of gravity of the rocket, as a whole, and that there is a comparatively large air resistance at the lower part of the rocket, as seen in Fig. 91 [this is a photo of a rocket that is very similar to the one launched in March of 1926]…” When the launches of March 16th and April 3rd did not exhibit stable flight paths, Dr. Goddard reverted to having the nozzle on the bottom of the rocket. The reason for this was to reduc
