Had a great flying day saturday Sept. 11th at Middletwon Park, Maryand. I don't think we could have had a much nicer day. Temps in the mid 70's, 47% humidity, High broken clouds and bright blue skys all day. the only minor draw back was the constant 5-7mph wind for the southeast blowing the models across the tree lined creek up the hills toward other fields and baseball diamonds.
Testing for Steel city Smoke trail contest has been very interesting for the new 1/8A parachute duration NAR motor class. After posted a dismal 12 sec National record for 1/8A pd at Naram-46 in the HIGH Humidity and using a nasty old taped up 12" chute that refused to open.. it was back to the drawing boards to come up with a few alternate methods.
Since I loath laying up fibreglass super light model bodies I've been using different mylars and tracing vellums for many years. Originally designed back in the mid 80's to compete with the fibreglass 2 to 6 grams models flown by the FAI guys. these models hold up well (for 3 or 4 flights) and are competitive.
Unfortunately the micor-maxx motors both MM-1 and MM-II's just don't quite have enough ejection charge to deploy the larger chutes in these larger diameter models. My TaperPaper designs have evolved from the simple 7inch long, 10.5-7mm single taper to a little over 12" OA length .711-.544-.281" double taper models to hold up to 30" chutes.....Well; you can get the chutes in but getting them out is another matter
Test conducted Saturday tell me the double taper is a Cool looking model that flys extreamly well on both Micro-Maxx motors, though the old MM-I with it's slightlty longer 1.07 sec avg. delay is still to short of the Hi-performance models. neither motor has the umph to deploy even a 16" 1/4mil mylar chute completely out of the body. Wadding or 1/2" Thick styrofoam plug...neither would allow the chutes to come out more than about halfway. I'll go to a straight .518" x 8" vellum tube with the single 1" x .544 to .281" boattail to see if a foam plug will work on a 16" chute, I think this will make for a good comprimise to against the double taper.
The very good news is I thermaled away another 7" staight 10.5-7mm TaperPaper on a 12" 1/4mil mylar chute. last sighted at 362.35 seconds again going up toward south mountain. slightly over 6 minutes!!! the good news here is the tiny model and 12" silver mylar chute were VERY visible at this long distance. so it should be possible to use these smaller models and get one back I'll post a Group photo of the TaperPapers and Double TaperPapers below. the small dark and light green 7" model is the one that logged this impressive time. that model with motor and 12" 1/4mil mylar chute tipped the scales at 6.3grams. The largest and heaviest double taper with a 24inch mylar chute weighed in at 10.4grams. with a 16" chute the LO weight was 8.6grams.
I think these large double taper papers will be fun to fly as demo models with crape streamers if nothing else.
Testing for Steel city Smoke trail contest has been very interesting for the new 1/8A parachute duration NAR motor class. After posted a dismal 12 sec National record for 1/8A pd at Naram-46 in the HIGH Humidity and using a nasty old taped up 12" chute that refused to open.. it was back to the drawing boards to come up with a few alternate methods.
Since I loath laying up fibreglass super light model bodies I've been using different mylars and tracing vellums for many years. Originally designed back in the mid 80's to compete with the fibreglass 2 to 6 grams models flown by the FAI guys. these models hold up well (for 3 or 4 flights) and are competitive.
Unfortunately the micor-maxx motors both MM-1 and MM-II's just don't quite have enough ejection charge to deploy the larger chutes in these larger diameter models. My TaperPaper designs have evolved from the simple 7inch long, 10.5-7mm single taper to a little over 12" OA length .711-.544-.281" double taper models to hold up to 30" chutes.....Well; you can get the chutes in but getting them out is another matter
Test conducted Saturday tell me the double taper is a Cool looking model that flys extreamly well on both Micro-Maxx motors, though the old MM-I with it's slightlty longer 1.07 sec avg. delay is still to short of the Hi-performance models. neither motor has the umph to deploy even a 16" 1/4mil mylar chute completely out of the body. Wadding or 1/2" Thick styrofoam plug...neither would allow the chutes to come out more than about halfway. I'll go to a straight .518" x 8" vellum tube with the single 1" x .544 to .281" boattail to see if a foam plug will work on a 16" chute, I think this will make for a good comprimise to against the double taper.
The very good news is I thermaled away another 7" staight 10.5-7mm TaperPaper on a 12" 1/4mil mylar chute. last sighted at 362.35 seconds again going up toward south mountain. slightly over 6 minutes!!! the good news here is the tiny model and 12" silver mylar chute were VERY visible at this long distance. so it should be possible to use these smaller models and get one back
I'll post a Group photo of the TaperPapers and Double TaperPapers below. the small dark and light green 7" model is the one that logged this impressive time. that model with motor and 12" 1/4mil mylar chute tipped the scales at 6.3grams. The largest and heaviest double taper with a 24inch mylar chute weighed in at 10.4grams. with a 16" chute the LO weight was 8.6grams.I think these large double taper papers will be fun to fly as demo models with crape streamers if nothing else.
