JerryB
04-03-2016, 10:16 PM
Hi folks,
Back in September, a local skydiving facility owner invited me to come out for a get-together that they were having. So I went. While there I met a couple of Mech Engr students from Oregon State University (OSU). Since I'm a retired ME, I got to chatting with them & I wished them well with their studies.
In October I got a phone call from one of them. He said that he was part of a team working on a student rocket project that they hoped to enter into an international competition in June 2016. Another student and he wanted to come up and see what I might be able to do, in the way of rigging, to help with their project. The project team is about 15 people and these two, along with a few others, are working on canopy recovery of the rocket.
So the two of them came up & we talked about what they wanted/needed and what I might be able to do for them. We talked about making a square ram-air canopy for the recovery of the rocket ( a good many years ago I built my own canopy so I do have experience doing this ). As I quizzed them, we decided that a 10 sq ft canopy would do the job. I explained what would be a canopy building project and about what I would expect it to take. I gave them an extra square canopy that I had and told them to take measurements for scaling this canopy.
A few weeks later they returned and they had a 10 sq ft canopy. They had done their homework and contacted a number of parachute manufacturers. This resulted in a manufacturer of a parachute auto-opening device supplying a bunch of cutters and Aerodyne built them a canopy ( it is the one you will see in the video ) and two small pilot chutes ( these are the things that pull the actual canopy out so it can open ). I did some rigging/sewing for them & sent them on their way.
Another few weeks later they called and said that they had broken a line on the canopy & could I fix it. So I drove down to OSU, looked over their project room, met some other team members, talked to them about deployment altitudes, cutter mounting, loop location within the rocket housing, etc. They had been dropping the canopy from the top of the OSU football stadium to check deployments and had broken a steering line. The line is an extremely small line; since I did not have any of this line, I changed out the entire lower steering lines on both sides with loop material that I had for other purposes. It took a couple of tries, but I got everything dimensionally right on the 2nd effort.
A few weeks later they did a deployment test out at the Pacific Northwest Skydiving Center. The first attempt was not fully successful in that the circuit board that was to fire the two cutters on the payload had turned itself off just after loading into the plane. However, we did find that the payload would fall somewhat stable in pilot chute fall ( a smaller version of a tandem pair in drogue-fall ). The two pilot chutes that Aerodyne had provided were a 12" diameter one and a 10" diameter one. We went with the 12" one.
One of the next tests was a steering control test. This is the one that you will see in the video. The white wheels that you see are the spools that wind up & back to control the canopy. One problem that we had to solve was that there is no person to release the brakes once the canopy deploys. A lot of brainstorming resulted in trying a deployment without brakes; and it worked perfectly.
One thing you will see in the video is that the jumper ( Connor Kelsay ) is holding a pink device in his hand. That is a 'wrap' that I made for him to hold onto the payload, during his deployment, until he releases his grip then the 'wrap' opens up and away goes the payload.
My biggest problem in this project is not taking over & telling them what to do at each step. I have to keep telling myself that this is a learning project for them, it is not for me. However, I am having the time of my life working with them. For me, it is unbelievably satisfying to be around & working with a bunch of eager, smart, soon-to-be engineers. They are the future, folks.
Anyway, here is one video; I hope you like it:
https://vimeo.com/158157565
They have another actual launch test scheduled for later this month at an amateur rocket site located east of Bend, Oregon. I went over for a previous launch test ( some good, some not so good results ) and plan on going over for this next one; it is scheduled for 29 Apr 16.
Jerry Baumchen
PS) I own AeroSports USA.
Back in September, a local skydiving facility owner invited me to come out for a get-together that they were having. So I went. While there I met a couple of Mech Engr students from Oregon State University (OSU). Since I'm a retired ME, I got to chatting with them & I wished them well with their studies.
In October I got a phone call from one of them. He said that he was part of a team working on a student rocket project that they hoped to enter into an international competition in June 2016. Another student and he wanted to come up and see what I might be able to do, in the way of rigging, to help with their project. The project team is about 15 people and these two, along with a few others, are working on canopy recovery of the rocket.
So the two of them came up & we talked about what they wanted/needed and what I might be able to do for them. We talked about making a square ram-air canopy for the recovery of the rocket ( a good many years ago I built my own canopy so I do have experience doing this ). As I quizzed them, we decided that a 10 sq ft canopy would do the job. I explained what would be a canopy building project and about what I would expect it to take. I gave them an extra square canopy that I had and told them to take measurements for scaling this canopy.
A few weeks later they returned and they had a 10 sq ft canopy. They had done their homework and contacted a number of parachute manufacturers. This resulted in a manufacturer of a parachute auto-opening device supplying a bunch of cutters and Aerodyne built them a canopy ( it is the one you will see in the video ) and two small pilot chutes ( these are the things that pull the actual canopy out so it can open ). I did some rigging/sewing for them & sent them on their way.
Another few weeks later they called and said that they had broken a line on the canopy & could I fix it. So I drove down to OSU, looked over their project room, met some other team members, talked to them about deployment altitudes, cutter mounting, loop location within the rocket housing, etc. They had been dropping the canopy from the top of the OSU football stadium to check deployments and had broken a steering line. The line is an extremely small line; since I did not have any of this line, I changed out the entire lower steering lines on both sides with loop material that I had for other purposes. It took a couple of tries, but I got everything dimensionally right on the 2nd effort.
A few weeks later they did a deployment test out at the Pacific Northwest Skydiving Center. The first attempt was not fully successful in that the circuit board that was to fire the two cutters on the payload had turned itself off just after loading into the plane. However, we did find that the payload would fall somewhat stable in pilot chute fall ( a smaller version of a tandem pair in drogue-fall ). The two pilot chutes that Aerodyne had provided were a 12" diameter one and a 10" diameter one. We went with the 12" one.
One of the next tests was a steering control test. This is the one that you will see in the video. The white wheels that you see are the spools that wind up & back to control the canopy. One problem that we had to solve was that there is no person to release the brakes once the canopy deploys. A lot of brainstorming resulted in trying a deployment without brakes; and it worked perfectly.
One thing you will see in the video is that the jumper ( Connor Kelsay ) is holding a pink device in his hand. That is a 'wrap' that I made for him to hold onto the payload, during his deployment, until he releases his grip then the 'wrap' opens up and away goes the payload.
My biggest problem in this project is not taking over & telling them what to do at each step. I have to keep telling myself that this is a learning project for them, it is not for me. However, I am having the time of my life working with them. For me, it is unbelievably satisfying to be around & working with a bunch of eager, smart, soon-to-be engineers. They are the future, folks.
Anyway, here is one video; I hope you like it:
https://vimeo.com/158157565
They have another actual launch test scheduled for later this month at an amateur rocket site located east of Bend, Oregon. I went over for a previous launch test ( some good, some not so good results ) and plan on going over for this next one; it is scheduled for 29 Apr 16.
Jerry Baumchen
PS) I own AeroSports USA.