Great Streamer Mod!!!

Yesterday I stuck a streamer in my recently re-built Crossfire so I could fly it. I decided to cut some slits into the streamer and then make it frill at the trailing edge.
Much to my enjoyment it did slow the rocket more than I ever have with a streamer. Landed close to the pad too!




I'm going to mod some of my other streamers in this fashion.

Glad you had a great flight.

Hard to tell from the pic, but did the rip-stop nylon fray at all, or did you make the cuts with a hot knife?

One thing about streamers, they cause the rocket to land near the pad because the rocket drops so much faster then a chute. If the streamer caused the rocket to descend at the same rate as a parachute, it would land in the same place as it would have with a chute. As long as your rocket can handle the faster decent and landing, streamers are great!

Handeman said:

Glad you had a great flight.

Hard to tell from the pic, but did the rip-stop nylon fray at all, or did you make the cuts with a hot knife?

One thing about streamers, they cause the rocket to land near the pad because the rocket drops so much faster then a chute. If the streamer caused the rocket to descend at the same rate as a parachute, it would land in the same place as it would have with a chute. As long as your rocket can handle the faster decent and landing, streamers are great!

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I have lots of ripstop nylon on hand so when it wears out I'll just replace it. I just cut it with scissors.
All of my LPR stuff is built strong enough to handle streamer recovery.

TopRamen said:

I have lots of ripstop nylon on hand so when it wears out I'll just replace it. I just cut it with scissors.
All of my LPR stuff is built strong enough to handle streamer recovery.

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You might want to try cutting it with a "hot knife". A small point soldering iron will do. It melt through instead of cuts and melts the edge together so it doesn't fray at all.

My "hot knife" is a 25W soldering iron with the tip flattened.

Handeman said:

You might want to try cutting it with a "hot knife". A small point soldering iron will do. It melt through instead of cuts and melts the edge together so it doesn't fray at all.

My "hot knife" is a 25W soldering iron with the tip flattened.

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Sounds like it's worth a try then. Thanks. I do have a fine point on my soldering Iron, and it's a $10 K&S job that I don't use often, so I don't mind if it gets Nylon on it.
I also have a small travel iron like you would use on clothing that I use for making parachutes and streamers. I could turn that to its highest setting and iron the edges. It gets hot enough to nearly melt the Nylon, so I have to be careful when I use it to keep the temp set right. I suppose if I intentionally wanted to melt the Nylon with it I could.

TopRamen said:

Sounds like it's worth a try then. Thanks. I do have a fine point on my soldering Iron, and it's a $10 K&S job that I don't use often, so I don't mind if it gets Nylon on it.
I also have a small travel iron like you would use on clothing that I use for making parachutes and streamers. I could turn that to its highest setting and iron the edges. It gets hot enough to nearly melt the Nylon, so I have to be careful when I use it to keep the temp set right. I suppose if I intentionally wanted to melt the Nylon with it I could.

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I would stay away from the iron. You can clean a soldering tip pretty easily but if you get melted Nylon on your iron, that might be the last you use it on clothes.

Handeman said:

I would stay away from the iron. You can clean a soldering tip pretty easily but if you get melted Nylon on your iron, that might be the last you use it on clothes.

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I've never used it on clothes. I got it just for making Chutes'.