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This is my preferred website for winds aloft, and what I use for flight planning.

http://aviationweather.gov/adds/winds/

Just put in the date and altitude (flight levels for cjl's N5800)... 😯
As i write, you can only get a forecast out to Saturday 12:00 UTC, (6:00 local) but it will keep getting better as the launch approaches.

Yep - I've been using both that site and weather.com, and they both seem to agree that on Saturday, we'll be on the edge of the jet stream. Oh well - as long as I don't dump the main at apogee, I should be OK...

(I've been mainly looking at FL240-360, since FL360 is just a hair below my expected apogee)

On a side note, are you going to be there at Mayhem?

GFS model today shows tornado potential for Monday in NE Colorado! Still too far out to plan for at this point, but keep an eye out.

Yep - I've been using both that site and weather.com, and they both seem to agree that on Saturday, we'll be on the edge of the jet stream. Oh well - as long as I don't dump the main at apogee, I should be OK...

(I've been mainly looking at FL240-360, since FL360 is just a hair below my expected apogee)

On a side note, are you going to be there at Mayhem?

Unfortunately not... I'm really going to try to get to the July 10-11 launch. My Intimidator 5 still needs its maden flight

80 knots is not bad (seriously). I'd forego the drogue chute, just breaking in half... which is how I always do it anyway.

We need to stay off the private property this year...

I want to reiterate what John has said. Jet stream or no, we must make every effort to keep our birds within the waiver cylinder (3m radius w/high alt windows) and to absolutely not end up on private land. IF your bird does - you MUST ask permission AND receive it before you go onto private land to look. Now that we have a real land use permit from USFS, complaints could well lose us our launch site - particularly after our little fire in 09. We have been told we have no more freebies - another major fire or significant complaints from adjoining landowners and we're history.

Sorry, can't manipulate the Jet Stream. Done everything I can to keep it moist and available for flights. Upper reaches are beyond my control.

It's a 5 nautical mile radius but that crosses property lines. Waiver protection only goes so far. Keep it close on the down and all's good.

80 knots is not bad (seriously). I'd forego the drogue chute, just breaking in half... which is how I always do it anyway.

We need to stay off the private property this year...

Thats the way I like it.

80 knots is not bad (seriously). I'd forego the drogue chute, just breaking in half... which is how I always do it anyway.

We need to stay off the private property this year...

I don't like foregoing the drogue - it leaves too much of the recovery up to chance. With a drogue, you can make sure everything is oriented properly so the booster is below the main when it deploys. That having been said, I am using a small drogue (reefed 28 inch) on a fairly heavy rocket (~35lbs recovery weight), so it should drop like a rock - I'm guessing 80-100fps in the lower atmosphere, and faster up in the thin air near apogee. I'm more concerned if I were to dump the main - I've taken quite a few precautions to prevent that, but it's always possible.

Also, the upper level winds are forecast to be pretty much straight east. Isn't the private property more to the north (just to clarify)?

Mike Konshak had posted a map here once a couple years back.
Search the archives.

You could use a very porous drogue - on my L3 I used a 36" parachute with a 18" hole in the center 🙂 Landed near the 3rd windmill.

Edward

The private property starts about 1 mile to the east (IIRC). It is closer than you think.

With regard to having laundry or no laundry on a drogue, I'm guessing I've gone with dual deploy about 200 times. 195 of those had no drogue, and I've never had entanglement or significant rebound damage. I've never - not even once - had a chute fail to open, at least once it gets out of the airframe.

As I've said many times on this forum - You've got to go with what you are comfortable with... and I'm surely not suggesting a drogue chute is bad. I'm saying I have had perfect success without them. More importantly, I think you need to overlay things with the fact that you have winds forecasted to 80 knots going towards private property. ANYTHING you can do to mitigate trespassing (including not flying into the jet stream) needs to be taken into consideration. I'm personally going to do everything I can do to avoid landing on private property, period.

Given the winds, I've cancelled my one sorta-planned flight - a 54mm MD full K and am planning on keeping my only other potential flight under 15K. I suggest you think about it if you're thinking of going higher. Much better to wait until another opportunity than to land on private property.