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About R/C Skydiving
Have you ever seen R/C parachuting? Dropping parachutes from model airplanes Do I need a big airplane to drop parachutes? Drag Chutes Percy Have you ever seen R/C parachuting? Chances are that you haven't seen R/C skydiving because it is relatively obscure. There isn't anything mysterious about it. There just isn't much information about it. If you would like to see some jumping, we have a video tape that shows several jumps and how the skydivers work and some good shots of the Para foil. Give me a call at (606)679-3792 and I will send you some literature to look at. I think you will find it very interesting. Dropping parachutes from model airplanes That sounds like a lot of fun, but I don't have any idea how to go about doing it. I've heard a lot of people say that, in fact I was saying that several years ago myself. I decided to give it a try. Wow, what a trip. I never had any idea watt I was starting. At first I made a skydiver out of an old sock and sewed arms and legs on him, and dropped him out of the cockpit of a 1/4 scale biplane. He had a crude round parachute with no way to control it. He drifted on the wind, and if you were a little too high and the wind was a little too strong it was goodbye Charley. I lost several that way. Then I decided that if I could control his chute that would solve my problem. I built a crude little dude with a rudimentary steering arrangement. It worked, somewhat, but the worst of my problems weren't with the steering. My worst problem was that almost every time I dropped him his chute was opening as he dropped free of the airplane. Yes he finally got snagged on the tail and I had an awful crash. I eventually solved that problem, but there were always more, always. Now, many years and many sod sucking dirt dives later we have perfected our little dude. He now has a ram air Para foil 49" x 22". He can free-fall as far as you like and open on demand. Then if you haven't misjudged the wind you can fly him back to you, slow his forward speed and flair and drop him softly at your feet. Do I need a big airplane to drop parachutes? This is one of the first things that people ask when talking about R/C parachuting. The truth is that and good size trainer will make a great drop plane. You should, however, have a good strong 40 or 46 engine. I have a Sig Cadet LT40 ARF with an OS 46 FX and it makes a great combination. The skydiver weights 2 pounds and it hauls it beautifully. You will need to build a drop box to attach to the belly of the model. This makes things so much easier. You could fasten the dude to the top of the plane, but you take a chance of disturbing the air flow over the tail. That is bad news. We have a tape and drawings of a very good drop box and release mechanism that is easy and fast to construct. One Saturday of leisurely modeling should find you at the end of the day with a great little piece of parachuting equipment. Drag Chutes 
When we were first developing our parachutes and jumpers we were using drag chutes. You wouldn’t believe how many problems we were having trying to develop a reliable skydiver. We had no thought of ever selling them. With all the other problems we were having we discovered that our drag chutes were causing a lot of grief. Sometimes it would be tangled around the diver’s legs, we never did figure that one out. We slowly solved most of our problems but the drag chute was still causing carnage. Imagine your diver falling from 500 ft. head first with the drag chute tangled around his legs and the main chute still in the pack. It was ugly!!!! So, we discontinued using them. After we began selling our divers we discovered that about once or twice a year we would have a dirt dive and we could plainly see that the pack was open and the chute was fluttering inside but it was as if it was tied in with an invisible string. One day I was talking to a skydiver and mentioned to him the problem we were having. And he said “Oh we have that problem too, it is a vacuum formed by the air rushing past the body and creating a suction on top, we just turn our body sideways a little and the wind then blows the canopy out.” Of course we can’t do that with our little dudes, so we have designed a drag chute that solves that problem and also the problem of it getting tangled up around the feet. I got the idea from a drag chute I saw once on an old round parachute. It had a spring in it that threw it clear of the turbulent air around the skydiver. Our design is only loosely based on the real thing but it has a spring and it works beautifully. So now when the chute decides to stay in the pack, the drag chute is flung upwards at a considerable velocity and drags the chute, kicking and screaming out of its pack. I don’t anticipate any further problems with the chute remaining in the pack even though it is wide open. We’re not going to sell our skydivers with the drag chute. We will sell it as an add on. it can be installed in less than a minute because we are sewing an attachment point on the top of all the chutes that we sell. The drag chute isn’t needed to open the canopy, it bangs open really well without it, but that one time that it decides to stay in its pack….well I think you can see that it is probably worth while to install one. “Ain't it fun?” Percy 
This is Percy, one of my jumpers, the reason I'm showing you this is so that you can see what can happen when a vacuum forms over the chute pack as a result of the air flowing around the body in a free fall. This doesn't happen very often, in my case it has been more than a year since it happened, but these little dudes fall so stable that once in a great while it will happen. The pack opens but the chute can't come out because of the vacuum.....result....sod sucking dirt dive. You can see that he went in face first. This is why I developed the spring loaded drag chute shown elsewhere. You can see that we use standard size servos, a regular square battery pack. The receiver is normally under the battery but it has been removed to be repaired after the sudden stop from about 500 feet. These little dudes are easily repaired. You can see that he is ready to go back into action, and he will be at MUNCY on the 21st and 22nd. See you there. C.R. Fowler |