geez this thing looks like it belongs next to the Thomas Edison exhibit at the Smithsonian.

I had a long line that tied to the plane so after the tank dropped about 6 feet from the plane it pulled the parachute out. My problem is the chute was packed so tight it did not open no matter how high I got, it was an afterthought and a big enough chute to slow things down was a tight fit in the space i had.

But the overriding problem I had was knowing if the fuel was actually burning out of the drop tank. I used a combination tank fitting and drop fitting, (a metal Luer fitting) and that worked, but it was hard to seal completely when attached to the model. So when you flew if you pulled a bit of air into the mains, you did not know it and ended up dropping the 80 ounce tank with 20-30 ounces of fuel left in it (dropped like a stone) and you were 30 ounces short in the onboard mains. (oops)