Brief:
Custom made, 36" Diameter, 12 Gore, Hemispherical Parachute

While working on my Mercury Redstone from Sheri's Hot Rockets, I decided that I wanted to use a chute that looked somewhat NASAish. I contacted several rocketry chute providers (not all, by any means) and most did not want to take the custom job. Scott of K&S did. We decided on a 36", 12 gore, semi-hemispherical chute.

Scott was very upfront with me and explained that it would take a while to get the white material and I said there would be no problem with that. This turned out to be true, but when the chute came in it was worth the wait. It looked good, had heavy stitching, a spillhole at the top and was folded much nicer than it would ever be folded again.

Flight:
Although I ordered this chute to use in a Sheri's Hot Rockets Mercury Redstone, I was unable to use it for that purpose for two reasons. The main reason is that during the construction of the rocket I blundered with the placement of a centering ring so that I had much less space for recovery gear than I should have. The second reason is that this chute has heavy nylon shrouds that have some bulk to them. Taken with my small available volume, the result was that I could in no way stuff the chute into place.

Months later, the Redstone had still not flown but I started work on a LOC Cyclotron. It came with a chute of the same size but much thinner (and fewer) shrouds. I decided to switch and used the K&S chute on the maiden flight of my Cyclotron.

When I displayed the chute to the others present, they were very appreciative of its appearance. I severely regretted not being able to use it on the Redstone but was glad to have a chance to use it at all.

The rocket flight was great and the deployment was just as good. This chute looked good in the air and brought the fairly heavy rocket down gently with no damage.

Flight Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
This is a nice product. When in the market for another custom chute, I will definitely keep K&S in mind. I do have a BIG Saturn V in the waiting pile and think it would be great to have a cluster of chutes of this type...

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5