98mm Aero Pack Retainer

[Tim Thomas]

Bruce, if I may jump in at this point. I am in the design of my Level 3 also. What is the best way to deploy? Is it better to have the booster on its own recovery, and bring down the front half on its own? Or do you keep them together on a long shockcord? And what about a deployment bag? Art, Con, John S. and anyone elce, you guys see and fly the big boys alot, we could you your thoughts. 8)

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Personally, I’m not separating anything! 🙂 I want it all to come down together, so I can find it. 🙂 Tim’s L3 is going to be really spectacular, BTW. Tim, we should probably start an L3 topic thread somewhere. I’ll copy part of your post and start it in “Construction.”

[Conway StevensParticipant]

Bruce, if I may jump in at this point. I am in the design of my Level 3 also. What is the best way to deploy? Is it better to have the booster on its own recovery, and bring down the front half on its own? Or do you keep them together on a long shockcord? And what about a deployment bag? Art, Con, John S. and anyone elce, you guys see and fly the big boys alot, we could you your thoughts. 8)

I would recomend to keep them together. Even on rockets the size of event horizon its not hard. Just have to build the recovery set up for that weight. Like in mine being at 55lbs 6″ diameter 14ft tall. I will be using 1/2 inch tubular Kevlar harnes. Im doing typical Zipperles deployment. At apogee I will deply my Tac series 3ft chute on a 35 ft long harness between the booster section and the mid airframe. Then the mains deploy via the nose cone exit stage left and anothe 35 feet of 1/2 inch tubular kevlar harness. With a Rocket Rage chute bring it down safely at about 12 to 15 feet per second.

Now You can bring 2 sections down indepedantly but for my likes I think thats another potential for problems (unless we are taking like a rocket weighing in at 500 lbs then thats pretty well what you would have to do) Also Im not sure what you expect for Altitude. In my case I will be 13 to 14K in altitude with the power of the AMW N2020 White Wolf. SO It needs to be dual deploy so it doesnt drift out of the waivers 1 mile radius. As well as it would be yuky to walk that far and have to pack some 55lb brute over my shoulder all the way back. Deployment bags.. Ive never used them I did order a Tac Bag fromGLR.. and to be honest I will probably not use it. Kinda had issues with it myself. So I will just use a great big chute protector and wrap the chute like I do and make kind of a piston out of it.
But thats what I would do as well as what I will be doing.. Look forward to seeing the project!!!Let me know if anyone needs some help in signing off as a wittness or anything as I will be glad to help.

Conway

[Doug GerrardParticipant]

I am in the design of my Level 3 also. What is the best way to deploy? Is it better to have the booster on its own recovery, and bring down the front half on its own? Or do you keep them together on a long shockcord? And what about a deployment bag?

You know what they say about opinions… I prefer to separate my pieces. Only with a few exceptions, BDCR being one of them, I prefer my payload section to be separate from the rocket. My thinking is that I don’t want them to be possibly banging into each other and I can go with two smaller chutes than one larger one, hopefully greater chance for deployment.

As far as them separating on recovery, if they have nearly the same descent rate, they do land close to each other. Like I mentioned BDCR was an exception because its “payload” was very lightweight I do keep it with the rocket. For my next project, I will likely go back to using different chutes for the payload section and booster.

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Well, I took my time drilling the holes nicely and neatly, but when it came time to screw the threaded inserts into the G10 bulkplate, uh, they shredded. Nothing in the instructions say the Aero Pack 98mm retainer can’t be set into G10. I wrote them for more threaded inserts, and I guess I’ll make the 15/64 holes slightly larger, and epoxy them in. Any suggestions? Hate it when this happens. 🙂 Unless, of course, they’re supposed to do that. The screw thread is really embedded into the G10 plate. Hmmm… 😳

[Conway StevensParticipant]

The threaded inserts they send are normally for wood. I belve they are even a brass material or just a soft alloy. Anyhow. This is another area where I used the Nutserts like I use for my rail button mounts. much easier for me anyway.

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Oh, boy. Got an e-mail from Aero Pack, and you’re right, Conway. Their retainer is only for wood, and they’ll update their instructions. Well, good for me. It was recommended that I turn the retainer and thread for 8-32 into the G10. I could just sh^$. The only good thing is, Conway, that the nut-serts may prevent having to do that. 😥 🙂 I’ve already drilled 15/64 holes. Can they be fitted into that? Help!!! I could just…

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