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John Williams

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Okay so this is probably a dumb question but I'm gonna ask it anyway at the risk of sounding incredibly foolish. My tac-1 parachute has a pilot chute loop at the top of the canopy. Can I attach another parachute to it that is larger than a normal pilot chute to get a slower descent rate?
 
Yes and No . You can add as big of a piolet chute as you want , but at a certain size , it will try and pull the main canapy closed . This will then be lowering the effective drag ratio , cancelling any effects of a bigger piolet chute.
 
Yes and No . You can add as big of a piolet chute as you want , but at a certain size , it will try and pull the main canapy closed . This will then be lowering the effective drag ratio , cancelling any effects of a bigger piolet chute.
Okay so the rocket is built like a tank it's heavily reinforced in the fin can fruity chutes descent calculator has my chute coming down at 22 to 24 fps given the weight. Do you think I would be better off going with that and ditching the pilot chute?
 
Okay so the rocket is built like a tank it's heavily reinforced in the fin can fruity chutes descent calculator has my chute coming down at 22 to 24 fps given the weight. Do you think I would be better off going with that and ditching the pilot chute?
It depends on the surface you will be landing on. For the hard desert floor, I shoot for 15fps descent on the main parachute. If the ground is soft, faster is probably OK.
 
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