Dr. Zooch Saturn SA5 Wadding Flight Prep

I had a heck of a time packing the parachute in my Dr. Zooch Saturn SA5 rocket for last week's R.O.C.K. launch.

Looking in from the top, you can see there isn't enough room for the parachute, wadding and the adapter shoulder.

I have plenty of my home-cut crepe paper wadding. See HERE

I rolled it into a "piston" to fit down inside the BT-20 stuffer tube.

This took a bit more wadding than you might normally use in a BT-20 tube, but I did want to protect the parachute. This model is too detailed to risk it recovering under a melted parachute blob.

After adding squares to the roll, I finally found the right amount to make a sliding fit into the BT-20 tube. A small circle cut from another square was set on top of the stuffer tube just to be sure.

Even with the wadding piston below the open parachute compartment, it was still a tight fit.

In the end, the Saturn had a great ride on a C6-5 and a complete, unmelted parachute recovery.