I observed an interesting and rather scary thing this weekend. A long,
skinny (~3" diameter) rocket suffered a recovery harness failure at
apogee,
and the booster section did not come in on chute. What it did do was glide
-
a relatively long way, and very fast. It was amazingly stable, and flew in
a
slightly 'nose up' attitude. The winds were very slight, crosswind to the
flight line.
A guesstimate would put the glide distance in excess of 400 yards from
~1000', at a speed well in excess of 30mph. There was no nose cone or
forward section, just the open tube. There were no tag ends of harness
flapping in the breeze, so it must have broken at the mounting. The scary
part is that on its final leg, it took a turn toward the flight line and
came in arrow straight toward the crowd. It impacted the berm of a
drainage
ditch less than 30' in front of people.
I've never seen such a thing, and am really glad it is not a more common
occurance.
Kevin O
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