Hi Rocketry Forum,
In April I will be competing in TARC, and for those that don't know, this year the goal of the competition is to launch three eggs as close to 856 ft as possible and then recover the eggs with a total flight time of 43-46 seconds. You can find the full rules here.
Although I could just do a bunch of test flights and simulations to determine the parachute size that would get closest to the 43-46 second goal, I had an idea to use a single motor and propeller in addition to the parachute in order to have more control over the time. The motor and propeller wouldn't be strong enough to allow the rocket body to hover, but while the propeller is going, it can "reduce" the weight of the rocket and consequently slow the descent. In my really preliminary calculations I found that I can expect a pretty decent range (~10 seconds of variability) of times by either having the motor on or off. Ideally I would be able to program the on board flight computer to autonomously adjust the motor speed to dial in the time.
I also thought of using something a bit more stable like a drone, but I've found even the smallest ones are still too big to comfortably fit in a rocket that has a weight limit of 650 grams. Also I was hoping I wouldn't need the stability either because it would still use a parachute.
I was wondering if either this has been done to some extent by other previously or if this idea is totally stupid and way out of my grasp and experience (as a rocket novice but decent programmer).
Any feedback would be appreciated.
In April I will be competing in TARC, and for those that don't know, this year the goal of the competition is to launch three eggs as close to 856 ft as possible and then recover the eggs with a total flight time of 43-46 seconds. You can find the full rules here.
Although I could just do a bunch of test flights and simulations to determine the parachute size that would get closest to the 43-46 second goal, I had an idea to use a single motor and propeller in addition to the parachute in order to have more control over the time. The motor and propeller wouldn't be strong enough to allow the rocket body to hover, but while the propeller is going, it can "reduce" the weight of the rocket and consequently slow the descent. In my really preliminary calculations I found that I can expect a pretty decent range (~10 seconds of variability) of times by either having the motor on or off. Ideally I would be able to program the on board flight computer to autonomously adjust the motor speed to dial in the time.
I also thought of using something a bit more stable like a drone, but I've found even the smallest ones are still too big to comfortably fit in a rocket that has a weight limit of 650 grams. Also I was hoping I wouldn't need the stability either because it would still use a parachute.
I was wondering if either this has been done to some extent by other previously or if this idea is totally stupid and way out of my grasp and experience (as a rocket novice but decent programmer).
Any feedback would be appreciated.