Shelley and I had several launches testing helicopter reocvery and the first attempt at parachute recovery.
The helicopter launched with the blades unfolded. It ascended to about 30 feet, nosed over and then turned upright about 15 feet over the ground. It’s descent was slower than a lawn dart, but it didn’t spin as designed.
The parachute took off and the nose separated from the body at about 30 feet. the body kept going to about 40 feet well down range. The nose and parachute, which didn’t open, tumbled to the ground.
We tried adding a l/8″ launch rod to the gardena launcher to give initial launch stablity to those rockets. The rockets were still unstable at launch and had totally unpredictable flight paths.
Oh, well, as they say, “Back to the drawing boards!”