Light Weight Elliptical Parachutes
| Published: Mar 29, 2016
Our smaller Elliptical parachutes are popular with the rocket folks as both drogue or main chutes. We now have lightweight and compact versions of these for our complete lineup from the CFC-12-S to the CFC-36-S.
The Elliptical Parachutes were part of our original product offering in 2007. We originally made these with 550 paracord. While strong, they were pretty hefty as well! They did make good drogue chutes and for rockets the weight was not necessarily a problem. Over the years we have evolved the design to use a lighter weight flat paraline (IIa or IIIa). They are still a bit bulky, so the next step is to use our 400# Spectra to cut weight furthur. We have been rolling these out a few at a time since September 2015.
The Compact Elliptical chutes all have the same strength or more than the standard nylon chutes. All the new chutes use 400# Spectra lines. Additionally, by switching to Spectra we save around 30% of the weight. Below is a comparison of all the chutes models.
All the compact elliptical chutes come pre-mounted and ready to go. Best yet, all are available now in our webstore! Take a look at our collection of Compact Elliptical Parachutes.