Streamer packing - Fold or Roll

[ghostfather]

I've been using a few of the long streamers made by Rocketman, the 30 ft and 60 ft sizes. They are great for spotting your rocket after apogee at high altitude: my eyes aren't getting any younger.
As long as I get a descent speed of about 23 m/s (75 ft/s), I'm good.

Occasionally, I'll get a partial tangle with the shock cord, and have experimented with two different ways of packing the streamer: Folding and Rolling.

Folding: fold in half, then quarts, then eighths, etc., until the streamer is about a foot long, then roll the last bit in its Nomex wrapper
the streamer deploys very quickly
Rolling: roll the whole length (yeah, all 60 ft) into its Nomex wrapper
the streamer deploys very slowly

Is there a preferred manner of deployment? Are there other ways of packing the streamer?
My primary aim is to avoid tangles with the long Kevlar shock cord.

 

[waltr]

I have had rolled streamer not fully deploy whereas folded always deploy.

 

[Hobie1dog]

it takes too long to unroll when it's that long.

 

[manixFan]

When I used long streamers like that I ‘zipper’ folder them. (Really just z folds). I started at the far end and folded about 2-4” (depending on overall length and body tube size) and then folded it back the opposite direction the same amount. You get a long zig-zag fold. But the trouble I had is the streamer often got tangled up with other parts once the main deployed. And in the end, I found they weren’t as visible as I had expected.


Tony

 

[dhbarr]

I do a z-fold-then-roll ( so in thirds, then rolled ). I would suspect that shock cord packing is more significant here than how we bundle the streamer, but that's mostly just a guess.