Neat pix from Armadillo Aerospace...

[luke strawwalker]

Neat pic from Armadillo Aerospace...


Love the mach diamonds... this would make a nice scaler for those who like sounding rocket looks...

The Rio Grande Valley of Texas from a couple hundred thousand feet...

Later! OL JR

 

[New Ocean]

Still waiting for video footage from the latest flight! Perhaps it was lost during recovery? I suggest rocketman kevlar chute over ballute next time.

 

[bobkrech]

[YOUTUBE]WXKQ0v_YPWw[/YOUTUBE]

These guys have been around for 12 years. I would have thought by now they woud be taking advantage of the knowledtge gained by NASA and published in NASA's technical reports and handbooks.

If you deploy a ballute at 140 kft, it should be attached to the rocket and not on a cord because it's not going to inflate for a while due to the low density atmosphere. Rockets that go very high will backslide, so it can deploy from and be attached to a canister in the nose. There's no reason to make it out of such heavy fabric and it can contain tied off baloons or coiled carbon fiber spar springs that will expand to shape the ballute until ram air inflation takes over.

At some lower altitude you release a link to release the ballute and pull out a drouge which in turn pulls out a reefed main that opens in a controlled manner so it won't be stripped if the rocket is going faster than expected.

Bob