I was thinking, as folks have graduated away from the Estes starter stuff and into things that fly farther (and therefore potentially further downrange) that the need to know where the thing has come down becomes pretty important.
Is there a great need to invest in some kind of beacon or can you just trust the initial orientation, the weather gods and the luck to reacquire your hardware?
TBerk
Good question! Everyone seems to have their own best methods for finding their bird. Dual deployment helps, and where you're flying from can make a HUGE difference. Recoveries can sometimes be tough at my home field. I've lost several fine rockets there - all of which were too young to die.....
Some folks just seem to have a nose for finding stuff, and others (like me) have difficulty. A GPS and/or compass can be a lifesaver. FRS radios can be handy too, have someone stationary talk you along a vector to the landing site.
You should have an audible beeper at a minimum. Electronics use are up to you. If you find your rocket with electronics a couple of times under conditions that would be otherwise impossible, then the electronics just paid for themselves. Loss is an unfortunate part of the game sometimes.
If you concern is simply to locate your rocket, some in our club use GPS locaters to plot a line to follow when venturing out looking for their rockets. However, I think that you might have missed the bigger point of using electronics. Electronics are used so you can fly a variety of motors. Ejection timing is approximate at best. If you use electronics, it doesn't matter what motor you fly, ejection is at apogee regardless of how long the motor burns, how high it goes, etc. The secondary benefit is the recover distance. Start using electronics and you'll never look back. Start simple with something like the PML co-pilot. Later on, if you up the game, look into Black Sky or RDAS or ARTS or GWiz. Used a co-pilot for years and it's never, ever, let me down.
-Booms
Its time to ask the question that has been naggin me a while: if you have a pressure sensor inside a rocket how do vent it so your not measuring speed (either by vacuum or pressure) rather than altitude?
Please put my mind at rest because I'd hate to think all the altitude records are distorted by airflow induced pressure drops.
Halam
A vent hole in the side of the tube will not read velocity. You are thinking of a Pitot Tube which should point into the air stream. Even then, a Pitot Tube is not accurate unless there is a static pressure vent exactly like the vent hole you will put into your rocket wall.
If there was a significant effect because of airspeed, all altimiters would fire early because the apparent altitude would decrease as the rocket slowed down toward apogee.
Thanks for getting back to me Tom,
I'm with you except that you can measure velocity with a venturi - my ultralight had an airspeed guage that worked that way. Would we know if altimeters are firing early in the way you describe? That has been my concern.
Halam
Most (all?) barometric altimeters fire past apogee as a result of the algorithm they use. For example, Figure 2 in
Something like a Pratt Micro Beacon is a cheap ($10) investment, to save what can be a several hundred (or more) dollar investment in a rocket.
-Kevin
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