R/C controlled parafoil recovery?

OK, someone get on this as a hobby cross-pollination project.

R/C Skydivers

https://flitetest.com/articles/rc-skydivers

https://www.mfc-ettringen.de/files/mfi1modelskydivers1.pdf

Paraglider Parafoil 2.15m (US Warehouse) - $20.40

https://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/sto..._Paraglider_Parafoil_2_15m_US_Warehouse_.html

https://www.solomonrc.com/home.html
Slightly more expensive but appears to be a much more refined system.
The hardest part for our hobby is getting reliable deployment with that many lines, I think a standard chute with an RC release would also be required for safety.
Unfortunately that requires more space and weight

Someone tried this at Balls last weekend (I forget the name of the rocket).

The first time the winds were too high and it just blew away downrange.
The second time it was a success and landed the rocket right in front of the LCO table.

There are several people who are working on controlled recovery, whether RC, or automated via GPS and gyroscope. Sooner or later, we'll have something. Keep up the good work, entrepreneurs! Meanwhile, get your Jolly Logic Chute Release!

There was a guy doing it at Lucerne in about 1990.

M

I'm working on this with the intent to make it a commercial kit for rocketry. I will be testing an R/C version at MWP, the automated system will be a while though.

Ravenex said:

I'm working on this with the intent to make it a commercial kit for rocketry. I will be testing an R/C version at MWP, the automated system will be a while though.

Click to expand...

Good luck and I hope you can make it work.

I've been working on a RC system off & on for a couple of year now. The chute and the RC part are the easy parts. I've been having issues with deployment. Man rated and even the RC skydiver fold the chutes flat into a rectangular backpack shape and can use a static line to pull the chute out. In a rocket it has to be packed into a cylinder and you have very little control over the orientation of the rocket when the chute deploys. It could be going up, down or side ways. Makes ensuring a successful deployment without tangles, line overs, etc. much more difficult then just dropping a RC Skydiver off a rack on a flat and level flying RC plane.

The other issue I had was weight. I'm using a 4", 10 lb. rocket. It's closer to 14 lbs. with the RC system and motor installed. None of the available systems for RC skydivers work for weights much above 2 lbs. I had to upscale a plan I found for a smaller RC Skydiver chute to 75" by 34". Man rated chutes use 0.5 lbs per sq. ft. of canopy for beginners and 2 lbs. per sq. ft. for expert chutes. I'm estimating mine at about 0.7 lbs sq. ft.

By using the RC to deploy the chute, I'm making sure the radio is in range and working before the chute deploys. If it can't control deployment, it can't control the chute. Having an altimeter backup is a safety requirement, but complicates the whole design a lot.

I may have to rethink my whole deployment scheme, but one thing this project has done for me is give me a much better appreciation of the forces involved in deployment charges and recovery system deployments. While falling under drogue, I managed to put a 12" zipper down a LOC payload tube that had two layers of 6 oz. fiberglass on it, and that happened when the chute was tangled and never even opened.

I am following this closely. Hopefully you all have some deployment ideas that might work on my system.

Handeman said:

I've been working on a RC system off & on for a couple of year now. The chute and the RC part are the easy parts. I've been having issues with deployment. Man rated and even the RC skydiver fold the chutes flat into a rectangular backpack shape and can use a static line to pull the chute out. In a rocket it has to be packed into a cylinder and you have very little control over the orientation of the rocket when the chute deploys. It could be going up, down or side ways. Makes ensuring a successful deployment without tangles, line overs, etc. much more difficult then just dropping a RC Skydiver off a rack on a flat and level flying RC plane.

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Cool. I suspected that line deployment and tangling would be a big issue. That's why I look forward to others finding a clever workaround, if possible.

The other issue I had was weight. I'm using a 4", 10 lb. rocket. It's closer to 14 lbs. with the RC system and motor installed. None of the available systems for RC skydivers work for weights much above 2 lbs. I had to upscale a plan I found for a smaller RC Skydiver chute to 75" by 34". Man rated chutes use 0.5 lbs per sq. ft. of canopy for beginners and 2 lbs. per sq. ft. for expert chutes. I'm estimating mine at about 0.7 lbs sq. ft.

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Didn't know the payload rating on those chutes, but suspected it would be pretty low considering their intended payload. So, you're building your own aerofoil chutes?

I may have to rethink my whole deployment scheme, but one thing this project has done for me is give me a much better appreciation of the forces involved in deployment charges and recovery system deployments. While falling under drogue, I managed to put a 12" zipper down a LOC payload tube that had two layers of 6 oz. fiberglass on it, and that happened when the chute was tangled and never even opened.

Click to expand...

That was at main chute (non)deployment after falling under drogue? How heavy was the rocket and how wide was the shock cord? I'm starting another thread on deployment force measurement methods, something I've previously considered.

This guy is working on:

- Custom parachutes (45" semi hemispherical and single skin airfoil/parawing)
- Guided parachute for recovery with either manual control or autonomous options)

https://hackaday.io/project/6381-high-power-experimental-rocket-platform

However, since I don't know if he's a aware of the BATFE-related issues involved with the other things he's doing (KNO3/sugar propellant manufacturing), perhaps just following his project would be a safer bet than any direct communication with him.

You could ask him on his thread
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?128462-Construction-of-Single-Sheet-Steerable-Airfoil
Hopefully someone has success with this idea and figures out the deployment issues common to this sort of project.

vance2loud said:

You could ask him on his thread
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?128462-Construction-of-Single-Sheet-Steerable-Airfoil
Hopefully someone has success with this idea and figures out the deployment issues common to this sort of project.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Looks like user Handeman already did.

This flight was very impressive given the extremely strong winds that day. Any other rocket popping the main at apogee would have ended up in the next county at the very least:

Don Ryan, January 2014:

[video=youtube;WuOK00zQ5ec]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuOK00zQ5ec[/video]

Unfortunately, Don Ryan died of cancer soon after this flight. There were others involved in the project and I am told the know-how still exists somewhere, but that it wasn't cheap.

I thought he died before the flight? In any case, what a loss.

wfcook said:

This flight was very impressive given the extremely strong winds that day. Any other rocket popping the main at apogee would have ended up in the next county at the very least:

Don Ryan, January 2014:

[video=youtube;WuOK00zQ5ec]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuOK00zQ5ec[/video]

Unfortunately, Don Ryan died of cancer soon after this flight. There were others involved in the project and I am told the know-how still exists somewhere, but that it wasn't cheap.

Click to expand...

Very cool. Love the comment about attempting to steer it back to "somewhere within this zip code." Sorry to hear about Don Ryan.

Another thread on this topic with a lot in it:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?127122-Steerable-chutes

Looks like I should have done a topic search before starting this thread.

How about a very small rogallo wing under external shrouds at the front of the airframe, deployed at apogee, with a CG/CP designed to naturally bring it into a wings level, airframe-near-horizontal orientation "flying brick" mode, steered back to the launch site with a rudder control surface on one fin or two opposing fins, with an RC deployed main 'chute?

EDIT: This is kind of what I'm talking about - a very low glide ratio (like the Space Shuttle was or any lifting body would be) return to launch site recovery method:

Rocket with backwards gliding recovery

ABSTRACT

This invention is a long thin rocket that launches forward and glides backward after an ejection pitch maneuver with no moving parts. It takes advantage of a shift in center of pressure caused by a change in the angle of incidence of the rocket. This change in angle of incidence is caused by the side thrust pitch maneuver. The pitch maneuver is initiated by the ejection charge out a side thrust port or other side thrusting apparatus at a location on the rocket causing a large torque about the center of gravity of the rocket. The center of gravity of the rocket after the pitch is optimally less than 60% of the way between the Barrowman center of pressure and the center of lateral area center of pressure.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US6926576.pdf

This sort of glide is the kind I've seen in Superrocs whose recovery systems didn't deploy. The method described in the patent relies on a spinning airframe which would make directional control impossible using the simple rudder method I mentioned.

I think my CP shift method using a small, forward located rip-stop nylon rogallo wing would be easier to implement. This method would provide a very low glide ratio, but there normally wouldn't be much ground distance between the point below the apogee and the launch site anyway.

Does anyone recall this sort of "super-sub-optimal glider" recovery method being used before, even if directional control wasn't implemented?

Also not exactly what I'm talking about above (which isn't intended to glide with a good glide ratio), but similar:

Estes Soaring Eagle #1373

https://www.spacemodeling.org/JimZ/est1373.htm

Nice 2005 Sport Rocketry article on Rogallos:

https://www.nar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Flexwing-Gliders-Wickart.pdf

I finally had a chance to fly my kite system at Midwest power XIII, this will be cross posted in some of the other threads on this topic since different people may be subscribed to each. Here is the onboard video from the flight. The cameras are pointed 90 degrees from each other, one is pointed up at the kite to check for tangling and watch the control line activation the other is pointed forward relative to the direction of flight of the kite.

The flight was both a great success and a failure. The primary purpose of the flight was to prove that my unique recovery system could be deployed without tangling and that I would be able to control the parachute. Both of these were extremely successful, the kite opened rapidly without and snags and the control lines were able to turn the kite. I was able to execute several turns through out the course of the flight with no problems. The flight was a failure however because in the switch from smokeless powder to black powder I over sized my charges and the main parachute ejection sheared the pins for my backup chute at apogee. The large backup spherachute, which was only to be deployed in the event of a fouled main, over powered the kite and dragged the whole assembly down range preventing a return to the pad.

I am now in the process of building a new fiberglass rocket to act as a test bed for this recovery system and I have made some significant design improvements to make loading it as simple as possible and to allow for testing of a feature of the kite to "depower" it for faster decent during early stages of the recovery. I am also making every effort to design the next iteration in a way that it can be developed into a kit for 4" and larger rockets. I have no doubt that the new rocket will be flying in early spring and will reliably allow for successful remote controlled recovery.

[video=youtube;uHWgrsvF7VM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHWgrsvF7VM&feature=youtu.be[/video]

I'm still very much in development, but here's a video of me looking silly with my custom single skin parafoil while I was testing my bridle:

[video=youtube;0PywmxXToD4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PywmxXToD4[/video]