Help with parachute for estes viking

Hello,

My kid is participating in the state 4-h rocket day competition. This is our first year.

She had problems at the county launch, because the kit, as provided has a streamer. She was not allowed to launch with a streamer (although we did, but it was DQd), and was required to use a parachute.

The launch is graded on how close the rocket returns to the launch pad. Yeah. Weird.

Anyway, the streamer was awesome. Landed 20 ft from launch pad. THe parachute we quickly rigged up, drifted about 200 ft away.

The second launch with the parachute got stuck....and the rocket broke up on return.

So, we need to come up with a parachute that will not drift, slow sufficiently for landing, and also....FIT in the tiny little rocket. Ive searched and read and am getting no where.

Also....the launch is next weekend. Sigh.

Any help is appreciated. THank you!!

Cut a big spill hole into the center of the parachute.... makes it more stable and the rocket will come down quicker too.

And mylar (space blanket / emergency blanket) works great for a lightweight rocket... check out this thread: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/scratch-built-chute.146566/

Make one from a mylar emergency blanket about 6-8" diameter, cut a 3" spill hole in the middle, should work about like the streamer but its a parachute.

If the goal is closest to the pad, and you MUST use a parachute, I would say put a 24 millimeter (yup, millimeter) chute on it with 3 or 4 shroud lines. In other words, a token chute.

Viking is an inherently lightweight rocket, it will recover fine just with nose blow recovery (just blow the nose so doesn’t come in ballistic, no chute or streamer at all.). So if you HAVE to use a chute, use the smallest one you can, and put a big spill hole in it.

If you build a new rocket, build it with fins swept forward (so no part of the fins extend tailward of the tail end of the body tube.). This way the first part of the rocket that hits the ground will be the engine casing. This will save your fins.

Good luck!

I recommend making a small chute (6” dia) from a Target sack. Unlike the plastic sacks from most other retailers, Target sacks are soft polyethylene like the Estes chutes. With some carpet tread or very light kevlar thread for shrouds, you can make the chute for pennies. As others have said, if you don’t want it to drift far, cut a spill hole in the center of the chute.

That's awesome that your 4-H is doing a rocket launch on the State level. Do you mind sharing which state you are in? Illinois 4-H pretty much leaves the rocket launches to the county level. Big thumbs up for getting your daughter in 4-H!

Pretty much what everyone said above. Itty bitty chute and maybe 4 shroud lines. I had one kid in a 4-H after school program who was bound determined to stuff a parachute in his Viking. Since the program is personal development program based around STEM project learning, we let him. He made a chute out of some really thin plastic from a 3 gallon trashbag and some nylon carpet thread that was laying around the office. If I remember right it was a 6" round chute. All the other Vikings at the launch went up and came back down on streamers within 50 ft or so. Even with the little bitty 6" chute, the poor kid chased his rocket for almost 800 feet across the field... 5mph(+/-) breeze and a hot day made lots of thermals... the kid was tickled pink because he had the longest flight.

Point being, if you have any breeze and put a chute of any size in a Viking, your daughter is gonna have to figure out and adjust her launch rod angle to compensate for any breeze.

-Aaron

STEMdad3 said:

That's awesome that your 4-H is doing a rocket launch on the State level. Do you mind sharing which state you are in? Illinois 4-H pretty much leaves the rocket launches to the county level. Big thumbs up for getting your daughter in 4-H!

Pretty much what everyone said above. Itty bitty chute and maybe 4 shroud lines. I had one kid in a 4-H after school program who was bound determined to stuff a parachute in his Viking. Since the program is personal development program based around STEM project learning, we let him. He made a chute out of some really thin plastic from a 3 gallon trashbag and some nylon carpet thread that was laying around the office. If I remember right it was a 6" round chute. All the other Vikings at the launch went up and came back down on streamers within 50 ft or so. Even with the little bitty 6" chute, the poor kid chased his rocket for almost 800 feet across the field... 5mph(+/-) breeze and a hot day made lots of thermals... the kid was tickled pink because he had the longest flight.

Point being, if you have any breeze and put a chute of any size in a Viking, your daughter is gonna have to figure out and adjust her launch rod angle to compensate for any breeze.

-Aaron

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This is colorado. We had a county launch, and then finalists go to state.

This silly contest is judged on closeness of return....not distance or altitude...or anything useful for a rocket. And, the rockets are so restricted on size....she has no choice but to use a light rocket, and a freaking huge parachute. we did adjust the launch angle last time, it was just so unpredictable on gusts....colorado near the montains is all gust. (ever flown into DIA? Ick)


And, thanks to everyone for your advise. We will poke a big hole in the parachute.

cdc said:

This silly contest is judged on closeness of return....not distance or altitude...or anything useful for a rocket. And, the rockets are so restricted on size....she has no choice but to use a light rocket, and a freaking huge parachute. we did adjust the launch angle last time, it was just so unpredictable on gusts....colorado near the montains is all gust. (ever flown into DIA? Ick)

Click to expand...

Eh, not so silly. Not entirely anyways. I'm superintendent for the launch at our county 4-H fair. This also means I get final say on the contest type every year. This summer we did an Open Spot Landing contest, pretty much based on NAR guidelines. So basically what you guys did, except your "spot" was the launch rod, and our youth could fly any combo of motor and recovery system. We flew 14 rockets for the contest and after about the 3rd rocket the youth REALLY started thinking about how the wind and altitude was going to affect their rocket landing (especially with 10-12mph winds that day.) We had kids swapping out for smaller motors, angling launch rods different ways, etc. So yes, they did learn something about model rocket flight.

That being said (and because I looked up the flyer and information for your launch online) my opinion, personally, is they would have been better off flying under the NAR Open rules and guidelines for the launch. It gives the youth a lot better opportunity to learn about different recovery methods, flight profiles, etc. But, I work for an Illinois county, not Colorado state, so my opinion and about $1.58 will get you a coffee refill at the gas station....

For those wondering, our flag was placed at 90 meters straight downwind of the launch pad. Our top placing rocket was just over 4 meters from the flag (412cm if I remember right). 2nd and 3rd were both within 12 meters of the flag. All three of them took their time aiming the launch rod and waiting for the wind to be just right, so I'd like to think that they got something out of it...

-Aaron

OH, no I understand the desire to plan for landing....and if that was really what was happening, that would be legit. In this case...apparently a girls' rocket exploded on launch, went up a couple feet, and fell back down. She won.

The big problem is that there is no real information, and no leadership. So, we are just making things up.

PS....Colorado is much more expensive than Illinois. Im afraid, you might need $3 here for a coffee.....

cdc said:

OH, no I understand the desire to plan for landing....and if that was really what was happening, that would be legit. In this case...apparently a girls' rocket exploded on launch, went up a couple feet, and fell back down. She won.

The big problem is that there is no real information, and no leadership. So, we are just making things up.

PS....Colorado is much more expensive than Illinois. Im afraid, you might need $3 here for a coffee.....

Click to expand...

Hmmm. Best Midwest qualified flight, Colorado style

Maybe the RockSim experts can chime in here, but thinking on the edges of if not frankly outside the box, what if you made nose heavier (to decrease your altitude) and possibly compensate with fins smaller to prevent weather cocking? Look for apogee of 10 to 20 feet?

Of course, given the vagueness of the rules, if you put so much weight on Rocket it doesn’t LEAVE the rod you have a perfect score

Finally, wouldn’t be hard to modify the Viking as a Tasmanian Devil, can still have it pop the chute. Just about guarantee your daughter will get the most interesting flight and probably land closest to pad.

https://georgesrockets.com/GRP/CONTEST/Plans-C/Copter/TasmanianDevil.pdf

Just don’t do what I did at last launch. My rocket landed closest to the RSO.