Recovery from high altitude

Can someone point me to some information about recovery from high altitude? I understand Dual Deployment and using drogues to get down fast before popping a larger chute. I am curious about actually getting the model back, not just having it survive the landing somewhere in the next county.

I am not trying to go particularly high, say 5000'. With a smallish rocket, there isn't room for telemetry so I am going to have to go visual. Is it just a matter of waiting for a particularly calm day with no winds aloft and hoping it comes down close? Or, is there more I can do. So a better way to ask my questions if probably: What can I do to improve the chances of retrieving a mid-power rocket from a 5-6000' foot flight without using TM?

enderw88 said:

With a smallish rocket, there isn't room for telemetry...

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If we are talking about a 24mm or larger diameter, there's always room for a small radio beacon.

Bottom line, there are some things you can try (e.g. tracking powder, shiny mylar streamers, flying on a totally flat lake bed) but a tracker is the only way to not lose a rocket under all conditions.

I launched a size E engine minimum diameter rocket projected to fly to approximately 3000 feet... I recovered it with a broken fin and broken 8" 'chute. I found it about 400 feet away, even with a broken 'chute it must have drifted. I found that it is very hard to gauge wind speed from the ground, it might seem that there is no wind, but I don't think you can really tell.

By way of ideas; maybe you could find a large area to launch (Several hundred acres), have someone else launch the rocket, travel a distance from the launch pad with a telescope or binoculars and track the rocket from launch to landing. If you follow the angle of the telescope far enough, you might be able to find it, or, you could follow the rockets descent, and when it lands, notice a tree or some other thing behind the rocket and follow the line between that and the telescope.

I hope this helps as I have not actually tried this, but it does seem that it could work. As an added benefit, if you have both a telescope and binoculars, you might be able to triangulate and find the altitude of the rocket!

Have fun,
BuiltFromTrash

launch at night with a nice bright LED or if that is out of the question and your launch is free of tall grass you could look at night and might have good odds. But a well lit rocket at night is INCREDIBLY EASY to see during the entire flight.

Launch with clear skies, use a loud buzzer, and have someone take photos as it lands so you have good visual references. There's a lot going on as a rocket comes down in your head...and what you think you saw...you may not have. I've found more than one rocket by going back to the photos, and I/someone else was in the totally wrong area.

enderw88 said:

Can someone point me to some information about recovery from high altitude? I understand Dual Deployment and using drogues to get down fast before popping a larger chute. I am curious about actually getting the model back, not just having it survive the landing somewhere in the next county.

I am not trying to go particularly high, say 5000'. With a smallish rocket, there isn't room for telemetry so I am going to have to go visual. Is it just a matter of waiting for a particularly calm day with no winds aloft and hoping it comes down close? Or, is there more I can do. So a better way to ask my questions if probably: What can I do to improve the chances of retrieving a mid-power rocket from a 5-6000' foot flight without using TM?

Click to expand...

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear mid-power and 5000' altitude is the Apogee Aspire on an F10. Recovery is with a streamer.

You might try a Mylar streamer. I have made some nice big easy-to-track Mylar streamers using a 12 foot Silver "Happy Birthday" banner from the party store.

If you go dual-deploy, you add weight (and lower the altitude) of the rocket. A Jolly Logic Altimeter2 is nice without adding much weight or complexity, so you can see just how fast and high you went.

Things to consider:

- Binoculars, A single use motor and a big streamer. - A good chance to track it visually, and if you loose it, not a huge Lo$$.
- Add a Recording Altimeter to prove how high you went, but this adds to the cost/hurt if you loose the rocket.
- Add a small RDF tracker. Adds very little weight and helps the recovery greatly. It is still possible to loose the rocket, even with a tracker.

LL Electronics XLF 6v tracker (picture below) will fit in almost any rocket.

Paint your rocket bright colors and use a brightly-colored parachute. I had a single deploy rocket come down from 6000 ft on a gigantic orange and white parachute, and the rocket itself was a giant orange monstrosity. The shock cord was also neon yellow. I had no problems spotting it all the way down.

Howhigh said:

launch at night with a nice bright LED or if that is out of the question and your launch is free of tall grass you could look at night and might have good odds. But a well lit rocket at night is INCREDIBLY EASY to see during the entire flight.

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You don't just have to use a light at night. Placing a light in a daylight flight is a good idea if there's a possibility of loss. There used to be kite strobes for night flying. They were cheap and the battery would last 24 hours or better because it was a flasher, xeon strobe type. I've looked at fishing strobes but they have to be wet to work and I don't feel like reworking one.

May be worth it though... buy 'em real cheap...bypass the wet circuit...I can always sell them to kite fliers

Howhigh said:

launch at night with a nice bright LED or if that is out of the question and your launch is free of tall grass you could look at night and might have good odds. But a well lit rocket at night is INCREDIBLY EASY to see during the entire flight.

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That works so long as the rocket doesn't snap it's shock cord.

I managed to find the remainder of the gloss white rocket (a Trident clone)... in the snow... the next morning.

Lookee what I found


https://www.intothewind.com/shop/Line_and_Accessories/Kite_Lights/Nifty_Kite_Lights

Thank you for all the replies. I wanted to rule out some magic flight technique. No magic.

tie a long string to it. follow string.

I think that would make it a TOW missile and subject to all sorts of federal fun!

Tie a long conductive strand to it and launch it on a stormy day... Don't worry about recovery.

Ravenex said:

Tie a long conductive strand to it and launch it on a stormy day... Don't worry about recovery.

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For science!

Ravenex said:

Tie a long conductive strand to it and launch it on a stormy day... Don't worry about recovery.

Click to expand...

For science!

If you are launching to 5000 ft and want to ensure recovery, you have to pick the right field first. Since waivers are based on recovery area, the higher the waiver the larger the recovery area. You'll have a much better chance of getting the rocket back launching at a field with a 15,000 waiver then a 6,000 ft waiver.

The next choice you make is weather conditions. You have to learn to fly the field and normal wind patterns play a part in that. Also remember that winds aloft will be much different then winds on the ground. A quick look at the closest winds aloft website (Richmond VA airport) shows current conditions as surface - Calm, 3000 ft - 16 mph, 6000 ft - 27 mph, 9000 ft - 36 mph, 12000 ft - 42 mph. It keeps going up until you get near 75 mph at 34,000 ft. With that said, we had a day last spring where the only winds were below 300 ft. My rocket deployed it's main at over 6,400 ft, took over 5 minutes to descend and came down right over the pads. At 300 ft it started drifting and landed about 500 ft from the pad. Observe the other flights and fly accordingly.

If you have to deal with winds and/or corn or soybean fields, brush, woods, tall grass, or anything else that can hide the rocket after it lands, then some sort of tracking assistance will be helpful. Dual deploy will help reduce the drift which makes it easier to watch where it lands. Chrome tape/streamers can help a lot with visual tracking on sunny days. Florescent paint and parachutes can assist. An audio beeper to let you find it in tall corn/grass, etc. might be all you need. A RDF transmitter like a Walston or the LL Electronics that Scott mentioned would be very small and light and can put you on the rocket in almost any condition. The next step up is GPS where the transmitters are larger and heavier but can give you the landing coordinates even if you don't get any signal after it lands.

Nothing is going to give you 100% assurance that you will recover the rocket, but various things will increase the odds of getting it back. The different methods all have different costs and benefits. It is up to you to decide how much to spend to up your odds of successful recovery.

You might want to check with the club you fly with. Our club at BattlePark has a Walston system the is free to use for members. That can up your odds a lot.