04-23-2011, 07:41 PM
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Apollo Nut
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 4,894
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Chute Sizes
Yeah, on chute sizes I guess they (the manufacturers) balance between the customer recovering the rocket within a reasonable distance; what's adequate to protect the model from landing damage; and material costs.
In general though, it's been my feeling over the years that chutes supplied with kits have tended to be too small. If launch conditions allow (field size, winds) I have in many cases tended to go with a larger chute size than that supplied with the kit.
But yes, looking at that plasic fin unit, I could see it would not survive too many hard landings at all. The plastic is thicker than that on the somewhat similar (but smaller) AstroCam fin unit, but I never had a broken fin on my original AstroCam back in the day and I put bunches of flights on that bird. The plastic on the GT fin unit, though thicker, seems more fragile for some reason.
Attached is a closeup of the engine bell set from the GT kit which I couldn't attach to the prior set of photos (ran out of space).
Earl
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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions
Rocket-Brained Since 1970
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