New Paradigm in Spacecraft Parachute Design

XolveJohn said:

Here is a great Little Joe flight, cause it falls apart! Backwards gyro wires. The Chinese did that once on a Long March, it tipped and flew horiz a couple miles, hitting a town and blowing it to smithereens.

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The Long March failure was traced to a short circuit in the guidance section.

XolveJohn said:

Jazzviper: Interesting details on the reefing cartridges, are they mechanical, chemical, or electronic? The size of a pencil is pretty small, just wondering how they jammed that all in such a small package back then. Probably not electronic.

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Kind of like a gun with a capped barrel. The reefing line passes through 2 holes in the barrel right by the cap. A lanyard attached to one of the suspension lines pulls a pin which causes a firing pin to strike a primer in the time delay cartridge just like in a gun except there is a time delay fuse inside the cart that burns for a predetermined time before firing the primary charge. When the charge goes off it drive the cutting wedge down the barrel where the reefing line caught between the sharp wedge and the barrel cap gets cut. We used to use these time delay carts in out automatic pack openers, they were 38 caliber with up to a 4 second delay depending on which part number you were using.

Amazing. So simple. I was shocked that the cutter was initiated by cord tension, it makes great sense, but I never thought of it. Thanks for the info.

I heard another story of how a bullet can solve problems. The insulators on power poles are actually surge arrestors, knew a guy that worked in the factory. Some poles have a special disconnect, if hit by lightning, a .22 cal bullet fires and blows out the main feed wire, to disconnect it. Funny part, is that the ATF came to the factory one day, wanting to know why they were BUYING CRATES FULL OF AMMO! Ha, they showed them and they left. Pesky critters, those agents..

Incongruent: I for sure read somewhere that the Long March had a gyro wired wrong. Maybe that is considered a short circuit. The Russians did something like that, accel parts in wrong, they even got out lie detectors once accusing an assembler of sabotaging things. Then there was our Comet dust collector probe, I watched it on TV. Had a bunch of fragile glass plates, after the chute came out after reentry, some stunt Heli pilots were supposed to snatch it out of the air, to avoid landing shock. Well, the chute did not come out, it zipped past them and smashed into the ground. They got some data from the glass bits. Turns out someone put BOTH G-sw in upside down that triggered the chute. Was amazed to see they are the same G-sw we use in our rockets, gold plated ball and spring in a little metal tube, about $10. Murphy wins again.

My only ejection seat story is sad. Many years ago, a military pilot was leaving after the airshow here in cleveland, there was so much trash still out the seagulls were eating it. The takeoff startled them, a flock took off and got sucked into the engine of I think an F-16. It flamed out while he was just going over the rocky shore. Punched out, but something happened with the chute, I think, and he hit too hard and got killed. His wife sued the maker. I thought you could eject on the ground, 0-0 operation?

I do remember another one. Guy who worked in the airbase in Cuba. They said to always put the safety pin in the ejector seat FIRST THING when a plane comes back. One guy did not, plane was in hanger, he got in the seat and started playing TOP GUN, pretending to shoot down MIGs, etc. Just barely touched the ejection handle, it went off and ejected him into the hanger ceiling. Caused quite a mess, they showed all the new guys the picture to remind them to PUT THE PIN IN FIRST. Ouch. He did not make it.