Spring launchers or air launchers

My car got crashed at knoxville dragway this past weekend because chutes did not deploy. Naturally it mowed down some trees and destroyed the body and engine forward. 8 inch thick trees are no fun to mow down. I am in the process of getting another chassis built since I have a few bodies and the powerplant was not hurt including the rearend and am wondering should I put a spring launcher setup on the new car to keep this from happening again. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I take it you had air launchers befour,
I bet there will be many oppinions on this, I know of cars that have gone off the track whith chute faillers iv personaly got a car with Air and TBH i hate it, I will change to spring
, air is ok but the faster you go the bigger the wake and the bigger the low presure area behind the car sucking down your chutes,
springs on the outside edges aiming outward if possible would be my choice if not in the middle aiming as high as you can

 

I've had a few well over 200 MPH runs on short tracks where the chutes didn't deploy even though I had spring launchers. Not saying they are bad but make sure everything is right no matter what system you have and check it before each run or you may end up with a surprise that is no less than exhilarating. Sorry about your crash.

 

spring launchers or air

I had the 14 foot alcohol chutes with chute metal products bags and hd pilot chutes. Been having problems with them deploying all year but this time it bit hard.

 

spring or air

Not to mention funny cars are not known to steer very well.

 

I hate to hear about your loss. I have often wondered why I dont see the pro funny cars, using a launcher. I have the simpson chutes on my limited street car and have thought about the launcher but I dont see many fuel cars or funny cars running them. Knoxville is no place to have a chute failure. Mine is 3200 plus pounds and I went twice last year and won both times I went, but wont be back untill its longer or the race is run 500 ft. 160 plus mph 1/8 mile at 3200 is nearly impossible for me to stop there, with both chutes out. Sorry about your loss.

 

i don't know much about the air launchers, but I like the springs for a couple of reasons. First, you still have regular pilots just in case something happens to the spring, or the spring pin didn't get pulled. Also, they're an all in one package, meaning there's nothing outside of the pack needed to make them work. Air lines can break or burn, bottles can leak or not be turned on

 

why not use an air cylinder hooked to your chute handles so you can use the an air depoly if you like, and if that happens to fail, you can still reach up and grab the handles.

 

I'm talking about the air launcher, where an air cylinder in the pack throws the chute out.

 

That is the best reason to use the spring launchers,
the air launchers eat C02 and many times in the staging lanes we had a panic bottle change brought about by a small leak, The first time it happend befour we got into the habit of having a spare charged bottle in the golf cart, luckily i suppose just cost me a fried lenco, which is better than no chutes at the big end,
aside from the obvious look at this pic of the AMS car and notice how severly the chutes are angled upwards
http://www.drag-zone.net/download/file.php?id=208
that was the only way they could get them to deploy everytime, the car was heavily crashed during one of it earlr runs due to chute failer,
bear also in mind this car was the fastest car out there for a few years, and the faster you go the worse it gets,
this was the fix

Graham

 

What's angled where?

 

well its cirtainly not the angle of the dangle

 

You got that shit right that curve comes up pretty quickly running low 4's

 

chutes

Yeah they are angled upward probably about 20 degrees maybe more maybe a lil less IDK without putting a meter on the body. But anyway thanks for everything I more than likely will go with the spring setup. Makes more sense to me.

 

Sorry to chirp in late in the topic, never ran air but Id always go with spring, less to fail, less to break with tyre shake etc etc

We angled ours up when we made rear frame, got to help them out and get into air