Ideas on Aerial Parachute Shells?

[bjc4073]

I am trying to make some daytime shells. I was thinking a 2'' can shell with a lift cup, then a small amount of bp and a 12'' nylon parahute with a 1oz lead sinker. Maybe just tape the top of the can on since I wouldn't imagine you would need too much pressure. Has anyone tried this?

[Arthur]

Shmitzu's sectoin on Poka shells has all the info,

[bjc4073]

Shmitzu's sectoin on Poka shells has all the info,

Could you add a link? I am not finding much on it.

[stix]

Could you add a link? I am not finding much on it.

 

I don't believe that any of Dr. Shimizu's pyrotechnics publications are legally available for free in electronic format - nor should they be.

 

I don't have any of his books myself, but they would be nice to own.

[schroedinger]

He is talking about the book F.A.S.T. by Takeo Shimizu. If you don't have, get it it is worth the money.

 

The parachute and daytime figure he describes are packed into a ball shell.

 

No to strong pasting and filled from top to bottom like:

Folded parachute

String to parachute running through a layer of sawdust (fireprotection)

Weight (e.g. comet, fuse)

Burstcharge in a bag.

 

The problem with a 2 " will be that it doesn't get very high and just the drop until the parachute opens are easly 10m if it goes fast. You will be better of using a rocket.

[OblivionFall]

Why not try this great idea that I had? By "Fast Smoke Mix" I meant just melting KNO3:Sugar on the stove until it is light brown in colour instead of melting it into wax.

It might be difficult to attach something like a salute (because most daytime fireworks have them) unless you attach at least three ones so it is balanced. But even then you'd have to make it so they fall off the parachute and this gets things complicated.

Edited August 14, 2015 by OblivionFall

[Arthur]

The parachute may be made from a fire retardant material including suitable paper, there will be a fire resistant packing between the burst and the chute, the leader may be a steel wire for fire resistance, Personally I doubt a parachute shell less than four inches will work well.

[ddewees]

parachutes on rockets are the easiest to make, and they typically will go higher than a shell...

 

I filled a header once with about 50 tiny "parachute monsters"... and if the kids found the ones with a black dot on them, they won $1.

 

 

Then I made another one, with a really large, nice quality parachute... with a standard full size American Flag, but it ended up in the lake. Never did get to see that one again. I ran a long cable from the parachute, with the bottom weighted, and the flag attached near the center. It worked fairly well.

 

I've seem some made at Winterblast that seemed to travel miles... parachutes are great fun.

[schroedinger]

Here is an awesome video of parachute shells (but filmed very bad). I don't know which size they are but it look like 8" or bigger. Just look how long they fly, it's not very long.

 

Followed by one of the best videos on daylight fireworks that i know:

 

 

Specially have a look at the figure parachutes after 35 seconds. Here the figure is also the parachute with the weight contained in the bottom opening ring.
But the smoke dragon is a stunnign effect, right?



Here a rocket made by BengalFlare with two parachutes and red flares - have a look at the tutorials section of APC -

 

A commercial 3" shell

At this you can see that it has quite a big pachute with is also able to pick up on thermal winds, nothing in a 2" will be good at this.

 

 

@Oblivion your design is nonsense as it is displayed there. The rocket would go up, the delay starts to burn, ignites the visco when the rocket stopps to coast (maybe 1 second after the thrust phase in a endburner, more likely it will burn untill the rocket allready dropped a couple meters). The visco starts to burn an ignites the smoke star. If everything works good it burns like a BATES grain (and on the outside) giving a 2nd thrust phase. But more likely it throws out the whole cup containing the parachute. Then sometime the visco burns into the cup and ejects the chute (if not burning it while migrating into the chute during storage). But most likely it will pop on the ground.

Also one other question, why would it be hard to attach a salute to it? You have normally have four strings or more tied to the same lengt joined into a loop under the middle of the parachute. Into this loop you attach your efffects on a single line with individual timefuses. Put the shortest duration TF as the lowest one and leave 1 m space between them, all good, no balancing or else needed.
But daylight the parachute is most times used to display something else, either by painting the chute itself, hanging a flag under it, attaching a smoke pot or figure to it.

Edited August 14, 2015 by schroedinger

[ddewees]

I bought two cases of Dominator 8" windbell shells one year, and thought they looked nice. You can see some around the 0:30 mark.

 

[Video]

 

They're incredibly light.

[Arthur]

Yes they are very light. There are two compartments one with the break and the star and the other with the parachute and the sawdust. the "string" to the star may well be steel.