I have some ideas how to make a fully functional dragshute. But are there anyone else out there who have a opinion?

Gudmund

John Redman has them figured out. Not sure if he can make different sizes.

I am sure he will come on here in a bit and tell you all of the gory details.

BTW your F-16 is awesome.

I can do the dragchute thing for you if you are interested. They took much more time to come to a fully operational chute than I had expected. I believe those that are using them have been quite happy with the results.

I currently have a 16, 20, and 24 panel chute available which end up at around a 14.8", 15.7" and 17" canopy.

I have begun the process of the split ring chute and hope to bring it to life shortly. I will assure you it won't be cheap but will definitely bring the cool factor and realism factor up ten fold over the standard chute.

Let me know if I can help.

Hi John.

I had allready made mine when I posted this.
It was just to see if anyone had done this the same way I came up whith. No?

I considered three ways to do this, and the best came out close to the fullsize version.
First, I ordered very fine ripstop inner-cloth from a extrem - tent producer.
Extremely high quality...Ohh. It`s like powder, but very strong!
The shute was made close to the fullsize look, whith most of the slots and details. All slots was reinforced whith a second layer of the same cloth, glued whith "Acuasure", a Neoprene glue, then cutted whith a siccor.

36 threads at EXACTLY the same length ( + - 1 mm at 80 cm). The line (thread) was rolled out from one of my salmon fly reels, 0,2 mm thick, capable of 19 kilos each... Labeled as "Fireline". Really, it just looks as a bunch of trash, holding it in my hand. But once in a airstrem, I see the very effective way of produce drag.. Slots are open, to ensure lots of airflow through the shute. WOAHH...

This is very effective in high airspeeds (above 40 km/h ), but it collapses beneath 15 km/h.
These 36 threads was then fitted to a swirvl like those attached to fishing lures.
Then, this was car-tested in 80 km/h, to secure the strength and to observe any unstability.Had some fun!!

It prooved rock steady and very strong, frozen like a picture.
Next step is to come up whith a fully reliable solution.
Some braintwisting and failures after, I finally though I had it... And I did. A week later, it was finished.

There is a VERY limited space in the dragshute-housing to do anything at all, so this had to be compact...
I made a sylinder of 3mm hard balsa, CA glued to the exact opening of the housing, the same size all the way back.
This goes all the way back to the rudder servo.
Inside this sylinder, I made a piston out of 3 mm X-balsa, also very hard quality. This must have a EXACT fit inside the sylinder, to prevent any trouble when ejecting the shute. The piston is 20 mm long to secure stability inside, as I moove it back and forth.
I considered several methods of ejecting the piston, but landed on rubberbands.....Yello: Rubberbandman?
One on the top, and one to the bottom of the piston.
This ensures equal forces to eject the piston.
The rubberbands are inside the sylinder, attached to the piston in the upper and lower position, seen from beneath. In rear, I glued whem between the sylinder and the epoxy housing, wrapped bakcwards outside the sylinder.

Some headace occured then I tried to get the shute inside, forcing the piston backwards.
It was almost like trying to force a roll of knityarn inside it. Hmmm[:-]
Woke up next morning, and did what brains found out during the night..
The shut wrapped in a certain way, around a rectangular balsa- piece, makes a strong package to force the piston backwards. Now I can close the chamber to eject the shute.
To do this, I simply copied the fullsize method, but whith a slight modification.
Instead of wrapping the shute to a package like the original, I simply made these four pads glued to each side of the opening, whith one loop to be thread through the others left.

Operated by a microservo beneath the sylinder, this shute goes out two meters (or seven feet), before it drops to the floor ( at zero speed).
Some day now, this will be tested for real..
I`m looking forward to it, as I have been up in this Falcon for a year, daily....
My wife is somkind of restless too, hmm [:@]

So this was my way of solving the dragshute task. Not the easy way, but close to the original.
And thats the point, isn`t it?
If you say A, then you have to say.... Have some pix.
I use the Kevlar Fireline for releasing from the servo, most serious fishing dealers have it.

Gudmund

Sorry!

I have tried thre times to upload images, but no luck.
I`ll be back..

Gudmund

And the opening picture comes here..
God, I hate this PC thing, NOT reliable..
Sorry for my very poor english..

Gudmund

Gudmund,

I have been using one of John's chutes for about 5 months now on a BVM F-4 there is a very specific way to pack the chute so that it deploys everytime. You should also seriously consider a way to "blow" the chute should it accidentally deploy in the air. Once John comes up with the slotted chute I will defeintely have to have one for my F-100.

BTW you might want to consider a plunger with a spring attached to the back of it for deploying the chute.

Like David R. I am very happy with the drag-chute that John Redman made for me ,very easy to use, and looks Great, I use the three position switch ,top to lock, middle to deploy,and last one to release,(I find a little difficult to taxi w/chute open)

Well, I like to find solutions for myself, so this is why I came up whith my way of doing it.
Btw, the size of the dragshute on the Eurofighter seems far to small... A F-16 shute is rather big compared to that one.

Gudmund