A baggie or the like really tends to get in the way of adding proper padding.
So, I never use a bag or anything like that. If the egg breaks, well, the capsules are plastic, so its no big deal to pour our the egg gunk into a trash bag, then use some water to rinse out the capsule. If there is not a lot of water to rinse thoroughly, then do an initial rinse, then put the capsule in a bag and wash more thoroughly at home.
I think the baggie stuff came from long ago when there were no plastic egg capsules, where the payload compartment involved a paper body tube and balsa nose cone and balsa nose block or adapter. Or sometimes a plastic tube like the old Estes Scrambler, but even that had the balsa nose and adapter. And yet, with plastic capsules having been around for many years, with no real need to use a baggie for the egg so as not to ruin the capsule, a lot of people do it because a lot of people heard long ago to use a bag, and they advise others to do it, and so forth and so on.
I certainly see the sense of it in trying to contain a "mess" by using a bag. But to me, if the choice is between doing the best padding job possible, or compromising the padding to add a plastic bag in, the bag loses every time. I do not mind cleaning up a plastic capsule that a broken egg leaked inside of.
Now, if we were talking about a TARC rocket or some other rocket that tends to have a lot of room available, a plastic bag would be fine. But to optimize the padding effectiveness, Id suggest putting plenty of padding around he egg first, then putting the padded egg inside of the plastic bag. And then more padding....
For padding contest egglofters, I like to cut out the cup parts of foam egg cartons. The ones at the corners are best, since two of the 4 dies are not joined, the other 8 cups are linked on 3 sides. I wish I could vac-form custom padding from that same kind of egg carton foam, I do not know how they form those. It might be more like a press while heated than vac-forming.
For C eggloft duration, if a person is using something like a 2 Minute Egg, the issues become chute size versus wind and field size. A 36 or larger chute can make the model fly off pretty easily if there is significant wind and/or a small site. If the event was B Eggloft Duration, then unless it was really windy, or a tiny field then a bigger chute would be desirable. I have usually been able to get a 42 chute deploy from a 2 minute Egg, sometimes a 48 but not as reliably. That was using 1/4 mil dropcloth, which is a lot thinner that Dry Cleaner bag plastic.
FWIW - some photos by Chris Taylor from Tuesday at NARAM-48, in 2006, when B Eggloft Duration was flown:
https://naramlive.com/naramlive-2006/naramlive/05tuesday/index.html
But back to C power, I suggest this. Have several sizes of chutes available to choose form depending on the wind, and depending on what times the other competitors are putting in. Unless the wind is really low, Id suggest not using a really big chute. Use something smaller, and get in a solid flight that you are pretty sure you can get back. After all ,the scoring for that event is best of two flights, not total of two. Then for the second flight, go with a bigger chute, and try for a better score, hopefully without having it fly off the field.
- George Gassaway