Anyone remember the Estes 'Gyroc' of the 60's? Nearly impossible not to
function, awesome way to recover a small/light rocket.
On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 10:24 AM rebel without a job <
rebelwithoutajob@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You do actually see them occasionally in amateur rocket use:
https://www.dinochutes.com/Dino-Chutes-36-Helicopter-Parachute-Heli.htm
They’re nice, but as you mentioned, they don’t deploy as cleanly, and
clustering them sounds like a recipe for disaster.
NASA, as well as the commercial providers, seem to all be using relatively
simple elliptical parachutes. Looks like the added complexity of a rotating
or pull down apex parachute isn’t worth the decrease in weight.
On Jan 9, 2020, at 11:38 AM, David McMillan <skyefire@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, this is an interesting amateur experiment (8-min video):
https://youtu.be/saWIxN05QFU
Although I don't entirely agree with his conclusions as to why we
don't see them in use by NASA. My off-the-cuff thought is that you either
want to avoid spinning the payload on the way down, or the issues involved
when *multiple* chutes are required -- spinning parachutes, used in
pairs/triples/more seem awfully likely to tangle each other up.
The other "obvious" reason would seem to be that, just looking at it,
a VRD is probably harder to pack and deploy reliably, which probably
explains why we don't see them in amateur rocket use (that I've ever seen,
anyway). When you need reliability above all else (and simplicity a close
second), I imagine a VRD wouldn't offer enough benefits to outweigh the
risks.
That said, it sure *looks* cool. And seems to have better
oscillation stability. Would it have better wind immunity as a side effect?
