What's your recovery surface?

What do your rockets land on? You can vote for multiple options in the poll above.

For a given surface and rocket construction type (lightweight paper, cardboard&plywood, composites, etc) what kind of descent rate do you find is safe?

My primary field is scrub desert... the surface isn't too hard, but there are plenty of cholla cacti for a rocket to land in. A couple times a year the alternative is a gigantic empty cattle grazeland that's hardpacked dirt/grass.

Grass. 3-4" high.

Sod farm.

I fly in a park. Recovery surface depends on the rocket. Old beaten up rockets land on the grass. New carefully finished rockets land on the asphalt.

Our desert has a very thin layer of dirt over lava rock that pokes through in many places. Usually a recovery malfunction results in a pile of scrap.

...best thing is there's not a tree for miles.

Short grass at the schoolo yard
Farmers field=At times its dirt,mud,When planted its fresh sprouts of corn . I fly tilll they get up to 6"-8" tall. Hard frozen dirt with old cut corn stock stubbies.
Snow in the winter.
Some years on one side of the road that runs thru the fields, it is planted with hay. I fly till it gets to tall.
A few trees along both sides of the road in a few places.
Area =many,many acres
So, its everything from rock hard with bungi sticks, to baby soft grass or snow.
OH ya..most times I fly at the fields,there isnt any cars or peoples.

Anywhoo..I guess I pick all but the top three.

We fly in a large park, with a field that's about 850' by 600'. Or 850' by probably well over 1000' if you miss the pond on one side and the dog park isn't closed on the other.

You omitted water. I said "other".

Bong -- enough said

Stable1 said:

Bong -- enough said

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Yup, every option but playa. Water should be an option as well.

Stable1 said:

Bong -- enough said

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Yep. It should be its own category.

BABAR said:

I fly in a park. Recovery surface depends on the rocket. Old beaten up rockets land on the grass. New carefully finished rockets land on the asphalt.

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I've done that a couple of times, nevermind it was a narrow road running through miles of much softer farm field...

CarVac said:

You omitted water. I said "other".

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I've done that, too.

It seems like I've taken to landing in trees a lot lately.

chadrog said:

Yup, every option but playa. Water should be an option as well.

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How close is the surface of the ATV trails to a Playa? I have never seen a Playa.

Stable1 said:

Bong -- enough said

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I'm not familiar, elaborate?

Also, water, ouch... something tells me that isn't the plan. Are open areas all lake-y where you are?

Rrwjr said:

I have never seen a Playa.

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Watch Crazy Jim on a Saturday night...
I would say Manny, be we all know he ain't got game.... :wink:

Just kidding Manny.

Adrian

Working cow pasture. Grass, cow flop, sunflowers, cow flop, pond, cow flop, dirt, cow flop...on the upside the cow flop can be soft, and I already have baby wipes for field cleaning motor cases.

We, SEVRA, fly at a Naval Air Station (NALF Fentress) and so have concrete/asphalt taxiways and runways to content with. There is quite a lot of grass so it is probably 50/50 grass vs hard surfaces. The surrounding area is farmland for the most part. Many fliers are learning to adjust the launch rails in order to bias the landing zone towards the large amounts of grass at the ends of the runways, but not all rockets fly where you want them to.

I've been flying with bigger chutes and am now sizing them to get decent rates in the low teens of fps. Some rockets just don't have the room though. Take my 2.5x upscale of the Back Star Voyager. There is not room for the chute I would like to use. I flew it at Beach Blast and had it land on the runway. I had one of the aft finlets surrounding the motor retainer come loose and that was it (well there were a couple of scuffs in the paint too). I had visions of it exploding on impact back into the 92 parts it is built from, but it really is built like a tank.

The down side of large chutes and concrete is the rocket will get dragged along on a windy day. The road rash can be quite severe. You need to adapt to the conditions.

Oh, the poll was missing the "Trees" option. We've got those too.

jd2cylman said:

Watch Crazy Jim on a Saturday night...
I would say Manny, be we all know he ain't got game.... :wink:

Just kidding Manny.

Adrian

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I was wondering who would take the bait. Nicely played, better than I would have come up with.

Other is no fun..need to add.. Honda, Toyota, or Pickup, Sedan, RV, SUV, Vendor Trailer, Food Vendor Trailer, member trailer, LCO popup, and don't for get Porta potty

If you add ponds, you need to add highway and local roads.

There will be some Snow landings too for me this Year.
Last Year I had to suspend all Launching for the Winter because I did not have a Vehicle to get to my Field, and there was no way I was going to walk there in the Snow with all my stuff, but this Year I have my Truck, so I can go wherever/whenever, and operate out of the Vehicle. I don't mind getting cold for just a little while to do a Launch.

It never fails. I could slog thru foot deep blowing sand for a mile and find my rocket has hit the only pile of petrified coyote poop in sight........

Moffet, and Tripoli Central California. Hope to fly at snow ranch soon, landing on non concrete for a change would be nice.

Is there really much of a difference between playa and concrete?

I do the sod farm also. That field is thick and very cushy. Most LPR and maybe a few MPR's can actually land safely even if the chute fails or gets separated from the rocket. My upscale Starship Excalibur lost it's chute in that field, fluttered sideways and landed without any damage at all. Gotta love that! Makes for some excellent core sampling also.

This is what the playa looks like. The tracks on the left is what passes for a road. This picture was taken about a half way to the BALLS launch site at 115 mph, there are essentially no landmarks on the playa.

M

We fly on a farm- some fields are sod, others are dense soybeans, and others are weeds and stinging nettles up to you armpits. naturally, most rocket land in the latter two. Also, the 10% of the area that's taken up by the drainage ditches gets a lot more than its share of rockets landing in it.:eyeroll:
Nate

I had to vote "other".

Most of the time, I'm flying on HARD dirt. Note quite "playa/concrete" but close. There is no vegetation/grass to speak of, and oftentimes the landings fall on actual rock (we call it "slickrock" around here) or occasionally sand if I get lucky. However, the hardness changes from time to time depending on season and weather - sometimes it's softer and sometimes it's bulletproof. I also sometimes fly on actual dry lake beds which ARE more "playa" type. I do fly in the winter too, so it's sometimes pretty snowy (which is my version of a soft landing). I've never flown (or actually landed) on soft green grass, sod farms, planted fields and such (sounds nice though).

And then there's the Bonneville Salt Flats - which is unlike anything you've ever seen or flown on unless you've been there. Hard? - you bet.

So how does this affect my parachute sizing? Quite a bit. I often have to DOUBLE the recommended chute sizing that you generally see in those handy charts and graphs out there. And even then, I see damage on landing a fair bit. Now, by "double" I'm usually meaning actual surface area, not diameter - so if the recommended size is say 24", I generally go with something like a 34-36" chute. Or if the size I'm "supposed" to use is a 48", I'll choose something on the order of 68".

Ask me if I like fibreglass rockets, and/or really tough "overbuilt" ones.

s6

grass on soft ground

Grass, generally, here in the Midwest. Also snow


Launching rockets (or missiles in my case) is so easy a chimp could do it. Read a step, do a step, eat a banana.

Sent from my iPad Air using Rocketry Forum.

MClark said:

This is what the playa looks like. The tracks on the left is what passes for a road. This picture was taken about a half way to the BALLS launch site at 115 mph, there are essentially no landmarks on the playa.

M



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I dunno 'bout that, there's that upright piano I passed one night at 100 MPH in a rental car unless it finally got drug off during one of the many cleanups. And I still think the little black pitted rock fragments I pick up are meteorite. I might find an iron one someday confirming my hypothesis. My luck it'll be the suspension bolt from a '23 Ford T