This was the fourth test of the Ganymede nose cone deployment. I decided to quit playing around and run a deployment test using the actual flight configuration.
Here are the components laid out and the chutes ready to be "rolled together".
The way I went about this was to fold the chutes in my usual accordion style, the orange chute is the nose cone chute and was folded over one more time to contain the shroud lines. About 5" from the apex of the chutes I ran a small rubber band over both chutes. The rubber band is strong enough to keep the chutes together as they are pulled out of the body tube, but the band will still pop off when the chutes inflate. I think it's important here to keep the rubber band near the apex, that way the band won't keep the chutes from inflating if it doesn't come off both chutes when they are deployed. Once the final fold over was done on the orange chute, I rolled up both chutes together just like I would with a single chute. The package was covered in a sacrificial piece of Nomex cloth and inserted into the body tube section.
Here's the "Worlds Ugliest Rocket" moving up the rail.
Right at motor burn out. Interesting to see the propellant slivers burn off outside the motor.
John was running the video camera, I'm afraid he'll admit he's not very good at it. He didn't get much of the deployment, but here you can see both rocket sections under drogue chutes.
Joel moves in to pick up the nose cone.
Here's the nose cone/payload section in fine shape.
Here's the booster section. We almost stuck the landing, if I had flat fin trailing edges I think it would have stayed standing.
I carry off the lower body section.
The entire system worked great on this flight. From the remote launch controller and the mini telemetry system to the deployment scheme. I'm comfortable enough to say I'm ready for a real flight with this system. There certainly was some risk in these flights, I was relying on the telemetry system as the sole means of deployment. I could have used an altimeter as a backup, but I wanted to make sure the telemetry system was the one doing the deployment.
Descent rate under drogue and main was 24.43 fps