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Recovery Drift for Rockets


Raider5678

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Hey, I've run into a minor question I've had while trying to work out the physics for my rockets and building others. Mainly because I live in a fairly populated place and launching my rockets off of basic math isn't as accurate as I'd like.

 

Let's say I have a model rocket about 20 inches tall weighing about 5 pounds. It deploys a parachute, and it's decent rate is 15 feet per second.

If the wind is blowing south east at 5 miles per hour, how can I calculate how far it will drift per foot in altitude that it loses?

Let's set a basic height it's expected to reach at 750 feet.

How far in which direction should I expect it to land? And how many degrees should I set my launch rod to tilt at to for the most part neutralize the effect of the wind?

 

Important factor I discovered is that tilting the rocket can dramatically decrease how high it will travel, hence throwing off some estimates. But I haven't been able to test this extensively. 

 

 

I'm mostly looking for the right formula to use. We can go ahead and assume perfectly flat ground for 1 mile in all directions(it's not. But for the sake of simplicity)

 

If it's easier to answer in metric I'm okay with that too.

 

Actually, someone answered on another forum.

I'll post it here in case anyone ever wants to look.

 

"A simple way to think about wind drift is to scale the problem to a 10 mph wind and the standard descent rate of 15 fps.

10 mph is 15 fps, so if you descend at 15 fps in a 10 mph wind, your rocket drifts 1' sideway for every foot of altitude lost. For example, if you apogee at 1 kft, take a 1 kft walk.

With a 5 mph wind, the drift is half, and with the max 20 mph wind it doubles."

 

I had already just used the standard descent rate.

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