NZFF

I heard and saw a very large Chopper over the eastern city today.
It appeared to be about NH-90 size, but not RNZAF, it was painted in what my old eyes detected as ...maybe white and blue, just too far away to get any more detail.
It sounded like 2 or 3 Hueys in formation....did anybody else see or hear it?

It is Rocket Lab's Sikorsky S-92. They will be using it to recover the first stage of the next electron launch.

Thank you Sir

All that side area and they couldn't even be bothered putting ZK on it....

Their Rockets do not reach past the Gravity Shell.

SUBS17 wrote:Their Rockets do not reach past the Gravity Shell.

Don't think this forum is for you mate

Naki wrote:https://www.rocketlabusa.com/updates/rocket-lab-to-attempt-first-mid-air-helicopter-capture-of-the-electron-rocket-during-next-mission/

...which is tomorrow!
I hope Peter Beck puts his money where his Elon Musk is, and shows us the attempt.
Even if it doesn't get past the Gravity Shell.

Splitpin wrote:I heard and saw a very large Chopper over the eastern city today.
It appeared to be about NH-90 size, but not RNZAF, it was painted in what my old eyes detected as ...maybe white and blue, just too far away to get any more detail.
It sounded like 2 or 3 Hueys in formation....did anybody else see or hear it?

The Sikorsky S-92 certainly looks impressive in flight, you can watch a short clip of it, from a strop camera mount perspective, catching a Rocket Lab dummy Booster in a practice inflight run from this latest Stuff article released Saturday morning.

Rocket Lab reschedules attempt to catch falling rocket with helicopter to Monday

So it seems to snag the drogue chute - I am wondering how this streams out laterally instead of staying above the main?
It's central to the capture process.

Charl wrote:So it seems to snag the drogue chute - I am wondering how this streams out laterally instead of staying above the main?
It's central to the capture process.

SUBS17 might know.

it descends under a chute the same as a model rocket does

Charl wrote:So it seems to snag the drogue chute - I am wondering how this streams out laterally instead of staying above the main?
It's central to the capture process.

It appears to act like a windsock -- because it is tethered to the main chute, which slows it way down, it doesn't have to support anything, so the main force is from the lateral movement of the main chute.

Actually, you can see it a lot better in this video.

Great clip, now I've figured out it is 360 navigable!
I see now that it's a parafoil not a simple chute, so has a lot of forward motion.
Absolutely terrifying thought of a great wind gust flying the whole thing over the rotor and making spaghetti...

Bet Musk wishes he had thought of parafoiling Stage 1 back to base, save a bundle on barges with funny names.

The steerable chute thing is an interesting concept. Back when Gemini was on the drawing board, there was an idea to have it deploy a hang glider type wing once in the atmosphere so the astronauts could actually fly it to a landing. The concept had enough merit that they built one...

https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/paraglider-capsule-gemini-ttv-1/nasm_A19750833000