Parachute in Big Daddy nose cone

[Dannybeans]

Hi, folks. I'm new here, but have been flying off and on for about 25 years now.

I recently was gifted an Estes Big Daddy, and am building it now. I'm considering putting a baffle system in it, but that leaves me almost no room to spare in the body. A look at this thread suggests that putting the parachute in the (enormous) nose cone is a viable idea, but I've thought up a twist. Since it's going to be so high up the body, what about attaching the shroud lines to the baffle's eye bolt rather than the nose cone? It seems to me that that reduces the danger of the 'chute getting stuck up there - rather than pulling out of the nose cone, the nose cone will move out from around it. It's a 24" chute, and I'm almost certainly going to be reefing it a bit (my main launch site is a bit on the small side), so I'm not worried about the lines being long enough.

Does this seem reasonable? I'm also fine with ditching the baffle idea altogether and just using wadding.

 

[kuririn]

If you attach the shroud lines directly to the baffle without a shock cord you stand a good chance of ripping out the shroud lines. Attach a shock cord to the baffle, anchor the other end to the nose cone, and attach the chute 1/3 of the way down. The shock cord will pull the chute away from the nose cone at ejection. Cheers.

 

[UhClem]

My Big Daddy has the parachute in the nose.

But I built it differently. The bottom ends in a coupler (with a centering ring to the motor mount) and the nose (with base removed) has a piece of body tube attached. The shock cord attaches to the nose cone at the tip. Something I seem to do a lot.

Deployment is something like this: https://www.dars.org/gallery/nthp20/dave.mpg

See also Ted Cochran's NARAM 42 R&D report: "Photographic Analysis of Parachute Recovery Failures" aka "Where should the parachute go?" Available to NAR members on the NAR web site.

 

[Bat-mite]

The Big Daddy is famous for failing to get the NC out. Apparently the sloped side of the NC shoulder let's the pressure out and the NC fails to deploy. Gets worse over time. There are threads on TRF of what people have done to mitigate this. Just an FYI.

 

[cherokeej]

If you're going to do this, be sure to use a nylon or Kevlar cord, and plenty of ejection charge, and you might consider installing some mass in the very tip of the n/c. Initially, the ejection pressure will push the chute farther up into the n/c, then you will be relying on the momentum of the n/c to pull the chute back out. Keep in mind that the Daddy n/c is plastic, and has little mass. And with a baffle... I'm not getting that warm and fuzzy feeling about this whole thing.

I know someone that puts his chute in the n/c of his Big Daddy. But he has to. It's the only way when flying it on a J800. (Did I mention his BD is a fiberglass clone?)

My Big Daddy Deluxe... I put an accelerometer and some batts in my Big Daddy nosecone. Then I made c/r's out of thin ply with a central 24 and two 18mm outboards.

Kinda heavy, so it won't go high, but ground pounding Blue Thunder then air-starting black powder motors is about 3 tons of fun on a low power range.

 

[Flyfalcons]

I am doing the same thing with Angry Daddy. Just leave plenty of shock cord between the parachute and the nose cone anchor point - the parachute will come out no problem.