28%, Humm: That couldn't have anything to do with the fact many of those Naram flights were not by High precentage flyers to begin with could it? Folks using kit supplied FAR to short shocklines and/or attaching streamers with way to light a thread. Those folks out flying for flight points who attend Naram more for the social event the the competition?
There is no correlation between the serious/casual rating of the competitor and qualifiaction percentagein STREAMER duration in the NARAM data I studied (spanning about 7 years). In fact, looking at 2007's top-10 C division performers for the year, their career NARAM performance (for the 7-year study period) was actually slightly worse than the average competitor. The focus of my R & D was not specifically on the flight data, nor on other events, but if I had to toss out an educated guess (as I was asked to do in my oral presentation), I'd say that because the event is perceived to be so easy, we tend to think we need to push the envelope if we want to do better than flight points, and therefore shave too many corners trying to juice out every inch/second of performance.
As for whether they fly kits or scratch, I have no data. Personal observation hanging with the "big timers" is that none use kits/all build scratch, so I can say for that roughly dozen or so C division flyers, kit shortcomings like wimpy shock cords are not an issue.
My S/D & P/D rates were over 95 percent also, once I started using longer kevlar shocklines and slightly heavier Shrould lines and streamer anchor
attachments.
Basic 18mm body models (BT-20's) easily handle 6" x60" or even 8" x 80" 1/2Mil. mylar or micafilm streamers if packed properly. I've seen several BTC's pack 10" x 100" in 19mm birds and max all three flights.
Congrats on your 95% success rate, though I only see one flight record of you flying streamer in my NARAM data, for 100% success rate, so obviously the majority of your exerience is either local/regional or older NARAMS . Note, though, I'm talking specifically streamer in my comments, though the thread is streamer and chute. I do know chute DQ rate is much lower.
Packing larger streamers/chutes in 18mm bodies is definitely not a problem, but depends hugely on the material involved and packing technique. I know, for example, of people that can pack 100" tracing paper streamers in a BT-20, but it is (in my opinion) overly tight/higher DQ risk, and those people that can do it are exceptional--most flyers that try to pack a 100" tracing paper streamer in a BT-20 will not pull it off or it will be ridiculously tight and DQ. Since we're talking A impulse, though, I'd question whether the larger streamer would actually result in better time, given the lower boost. The published studies are a bit thin, but would tend to contradict the benefits of a 10x100 streamer in A-SD.
Switching to other materials like half mil Mylar or 1 mil Mylar makes it much easier to pack, but then we get into a whole 'nother debate about material weight versus streamer performance, and optimum streamer size versus weight by material, and even optimum folding techniques (accordion fold versus scorpion tail/claw technique).
Please don't take this as a disrespectful comment/swipe, but I gotta tell you, I put a poopload of time/effort into researching streamer duration last year--read everything I could get my hands on, built/flew just about every possible commerical kit and published plan over the past 10+ years, and did a pretty thorough failure mode & effects analysis on it, and if you've got something that qualifies 95% of the time, deploying the type of big honkin' streamers you're describing, and presumably winning at the regional level, you really should consider putting it into some publication (R & D report, document posted on NAR site, etc.) to advance the topic rather than keep that stuff in this forum. TRF is a great place, but I'm telling you the hard data out there would suggest that your performance is truly cutting edge/fringe/exceptional, higher than the Trip Barber/Chad Ring/Bruce Marzelweski's of the world.
