In This Issue

How Does
Drag Stability Work?

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ISSUE 325 NOVEMBER 6, 2012
How Does Drag Stability Work?
By Tim Van Milligan
We’ve all seen finless rockets that fly OK, even if they It is where the aerodynamic forces are said to balance on
are hard to model in RockSim (www.ApogeeRockets.com/ the rocket. In other words, the aerodynamic forces in front
Rocksim/). Today I’d like to talk about them. of the Center-of-Pressure equal the aerodynamic forces be-
The basic issue in designing a rocket is keeping it hind the center-of-pressure.
stable. Stable means that the rocket will fly in a manner What is an aerodynamic force, and how is it produced?
that is predictable. In general, a stable rocket is considered That is the basic question that you need to understand
low risk, while a unstable one has a high risk for creating before going forward.
damage. First of all, what is a “force?” This is easy. It is either a
In rocketry, there is a very specific definition of a stable PUSH or a PULL. When you push on something, you are
rocket. A stable rocket is one where the Center-of-Gravity exerting a force on it.
(CG) is forward of the Center-of-Pressure (CP). Figure 1 An aerodynamic force is a push or a pull that is created
shows a stable rocket. by “air.” Sounds simple, huh?
Furthermore, in order for a unbalanced force to be cre-
ated, the air must be moving. Either the air is blowing over
the object, or the object is moving through the air. What is
important is that there must be motion between the object
CP and the air.
CG
Without movement, there is NO aerodynamic force. A
rocket sitting on your desktop has no aerodynamic forces
Figure 1: A “stable rocket” is one where the CG is in on it.
front of the CP. The rocket will always rotate around the
Aerodynamic Forces
CG point.
There are only two types of aerodynamic forces: Lift
The Center-of-Gravity is the place on the rocket where and Drag
a rocket balances. In other words, the force of gravity pull- Lift is the force that is perpendicular to the motion of
ing down on the back of the rocket is balanced by the force the air, while drag is parallel to the motion of the air.
of gravity pulling down on the front of the rocket. It is easy
to find, because you can just balance the rocket on the We’ll draw them on the picture of the rocket as an
edge of a ruler. The point where the rocket just balances arrow. Remember, they are said to act at the Center-of-
perfectly level is the Center-of-Gravity of the rocket. Pressure.

The other unique thing about this point, is that the Airflow
rocket will always rotate around it. That means that if you Lift
put a dot on the Center-of-Gravity and then throw the
rocket up in the air and induce a spin, it will appear that the
Drag
dot stays in place. If you’re off a little bit in placing the dot,
CP
and then spin the rocket, the dot will form a circle. Why?
Because the rocket ALWAYS rotates around the point that
is the Center-of-Gravity. Always, always, always. Even if
Figure 2: Lift and Drag act at the CP point.
the rocket is in outer space where there is no gravity.
Now the Center-of-Pressure is harder to understand. Continued on page 3
About this Newsletter Newsletter Staff

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Page 2 ISSUE 325 NOVEMBER 6, 2012

Continued from page 2

How Does Drag Stability Work? For a well-designed rocket, this is fine. What happens
is that the lift force causes the rocket to rotate back into the
Lift is created by every part of the rocket to some wind, as shown in Figure 4.
extent, but the fins are vastly superior in creating lift force.
That is what they are designed to do. The important things in this situation is the size of the
lift force, and the distance that it acts from the CG point.
But they only create an unbalanced lift force when the This is the lever-arm distance, and we’ll call it L1, as shown
air flows over them at an angle. When the air flows straight in Figure 5.
along the fin, because of their symmetrical airfoil shape,
it produces zero lift. In this configuration, the only aerody- Airflow
namic force created is drag. Lift

Airflow

No Rotation
L1
Drag
CP Figure 5: The Lift force multiplied by the distance L1
creates a pitch moment that rotates the rocket back
toward the direction of the airflow.
Figure 3: When the rocket cuts the air cleanly (straight
When the Lift force is multiplied by the distance L1,
on), it creates no unbalanced lift force. Only drag acts
it creates what is called a “pitch moment”. This is what
on the rocket.
causes the rocket to rotate back towards the on-coming air.
When the rocket is at any angle-of-attack, such that
The larger the pitch moment, the faster the rocket re-
the air is coming off to one side, like a gust of wind hitting
acts to the disturbance. This can be a good thing.
the rocket, then a sudden lift force is created.
Therefore, we can increase the pitch moment in two
Airflow ways: make the lift force larger, or make the distance L1
Lift
greater.
Making the distance (L1) greater is typically easier. You
Drag can make the rocket longer, or add nose weight to the front
end. You can also change the shape of the fins, although
this is not as effective. If you have RockSim, you can
quickly see how the CP shifts location when you change
Figure 4: Lift on the fins is created when the rocket the shape of the fins.
begins flying at an angle-of-attack (AOA). Drag also
increases. Continued on page 4

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ISSUE 325 NOVEMBER 6, 2012 Page 3
Continued from page 3

How Does Drag Stability Work? That distance is so small in fact, that it can be negli-
Changing the magnitude of the Lift force itself is harder gible, which is why it is ignored in the Barrowman Stability
to control. A good airfoil is the best way. Using a symmetri- equations. Additionally, a small pitching moment might not
cal streamlined airfoil will create a larger Lift force than a be enough to overcome the inertia of the rocket quickly
fin that has a flat-plate airfoil (where the leading and the enough.
trailing edges are blunt). If it is not quick enough, the rocket can get hit by an-
other gust of wind, and make the situation even worse. This
Rocket Stability is the reason that you have to be careful in using Drag sta-
When we talk about rocket stability, we are generally bility on your rockets. It is sluggish. And in rocketry, things
talking about the Lift force created by the rocket. We typi- happen very quickly.
cally ignore the Drag force, even though it does contribute
to the stability of the rocket. Designing for drag stability
In Figure 6, we see that the Drag force also has a lever As in using Lift force, there are some things you can do
arm that causes a pitching moment that rotates the rocket to increase the stability of the rocket.
around its center-of-gravity. 1. Increase the length of the rocket, as shown in Figure
As before, we multiply the force (Drag) times the lever 7. What this does is make the lever-arm larger at the same
arm, which in this case is L2 to get the pitching moment. angle-of-attack. Compare the length of L2 in the top versus
the bottom drawing.
This pitching moment is going to be much smaller than
the pitching moment created by the Lift force on the fins. 2. Increase the weight of the front part of the rocket by
The reason is that the distance L2 is significantly smaller
Airflow
than L1 (shown in Figure 5).
Because the distance L2 is much smaller than L1, we
can say that using Drag to stabilize the rocket is much less Drag
effective than using lift on the fins.
L2

Airflow
Airflow

Drag
Drag
L2

L2
Figure 7: Increasing the length of the rocket increases
the effective lever arm that the Drag force acts upon.
Figure 6: Drag on the fins increases when the rocket
begins flying at an angle-of-attack (AOA). Continued on page 5

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Page 4 ISSUE 325 NOVEMBER 6, 2012
Continued from page 4

How Does Drag Stability Work?

adding nose weight. This has the affect of moving the CG
forward. Again, this increases the moment arm.
3. Increase the Drag force on the rear of the rocket.
Increasing the Drag, as you know, has a major effect
on the performance of the rocket. It makes the rocket fly
slower and lower.
Slower is bad, right? If the rocket flies slower, the Drag
force falls off pretty fast. Remember, the Drag formula is: Figure 8: A stick-fin rocket creates Drag to stabilize the
Drag = 1/2 r Cd S V 2 flight of the vehicle.

where: inducing element: a simulated radar antenna. This is on the

Sirius Refit U.S.S. Atlantis rocket kit (www.apogeerockets.
r = density of air
com/Rocket_Kits/Skill_Level_5_Kits/Refit_U.S.S._Atlantis).
Cd = Drag Coefficient. This is the number you increase
Putting the drag-inducing elements further away from
when you want to add drag. We’ll talk how to do that further
the centerline of the rocket is like putting heavy weights on
on.
the tips of fins. What this does is to increase the radial mo-
S = Reference area. Typically this is the diameter of the ment of inertia (see Peak-of-Flight Newsletter 194 at: www.
rocket tube.
V = Rocket velocity
If you increase the Drag Coefficient (Cd), you will
increase the Drag force on the rocket. But this will have the
effect of slowing it down, so the velocity diminishes. And
since velocity is a squared term, the effect will be to negate
the positive effects of increasing the Drag Coefficient.
4. Increase the velocity by using a higher thrust rocket
engine. As the speed goes up, the Drag also increases.
Double the speed, and the Drag force goes up four times.
5. Increase the span of the Drag inducing elements.
The “drag inducing elements” are those things you
might add to the side of the rocket to increase the drag at
the base of the rocket. For example, in Figure 8 we see Figure 9: The radar antenna on the Sirius Refit U.S.S.
stick-fins. These create no lift, and them make pretty much Atlantis kit is a drag-producing element.
pure drag. In Figure 9, we see another example of a drag Continued on page 6

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ISSUE 325 NOVEMBER 6, 2012 Page 5

Continued from page 5

How Does Drag Stability Work? ApogeeRockets.com/Education/Downloads/Newsletter18.

pdf). You’ll have to use it in this case, unless you own a
ApogeeRockets.com/Education/Downloads/Newsletter194. wind tunnel. This is not a good situation, so you should
pdf). always design rockets using drag stabilization with an extra
Increasing this makes it harder for the rocket to rotate element of caution. Here are some general guidelines.
around its centerline.
Additional General Design Considerations
While this normally doesn’t matter, the by-product is
1. Keep the drag inducing devices symmetrical
that it also reduces yaw-roll and pitch-roll coupling (see
around the centerline of the rocket.
Peak-of-Flight Newsletter 220 at: www.ApogeeRockets.
com/Education/Downloads/Newsletter220.pdf). Don’t put more drag on one side of the rocket com-
pared to the other. Otherwise you’ll have an unbalanced
In simple terms, it makes the rocket harder to turn. This
force that will cause the rocket to pitch to one side.
is good, because you don’t want it to start to deviate from
the normal trajectory to begin with. The affect of this would be to move the CP off the cen-
terline of the rocket, and that by itself would start the rocket
Computing the Drag Force tumbling. It is destabilizing, as shown in Figure 11.
Even though we know the formula for Drag, we don’t Additionally, streamline the front of the rocket as much
have a good formula for the Drag Coefficient. This one as possible to lower its drag. The large bulbous nose on
missing variable is what makes it virtually impossible to
simulate Drag stabilized rockets in Rocksim.
Airflow
Really, the only tool you have is the Cardboard cutout
CP method (see Peak-of-Flight Newsletter 18 at: www. CP Drag

Delta II- Mars Pathfinder

Length: 113.8701 In. , Diameter: 8.9200 In. , Span diameter: 15.4000 In.
Mass 29029.900 g , Selected stage mass 29029.900 g (User specified)
CG: 75.7500 In., CP: 57.9999 In., Margin: -4.29 Unstable L2 Note the
Shown without engines. direction it
wants to spin!

Figure 11: More Drag on one side of the rocket causes

RockSim CP Cardboard-Cutout CP the CP to move off the rocket. This is very bad, as there
Figure 10: The only useful tool for designing drag sta- is no way for the rocket to correct itself.
blized rockets is the cardboard cutout CP method. Continued on page 7

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Page 6 ISSUE 325 NOVEMBER 6, 2012

Continued from page 6

How Does Drag Stability Work? on later flights. This allows you to test the model without
the Delta II rocket shown in Figure 10 is high-drag, and will sacrificing safety.
move the CP forward. This is going to require significant About the Author
nose weight to counteract, making the rocket heavy and
lumbering off the launch rod. Tim Van Milligan (a.k.a. “Mr.
Rocket”) is a real rocket scien-
2. Remember... with Drag stabilization the CP is tist who likes helping out other
further forward. rocketeers. Before he started
Since the Barrowman CP equations are based on Lift writing articles and books about
forces, and we don’t have rocketry, he worked on the Delta
any on the back part of the II rocket that launched satellites
rocket, the CP is going to into orbit. He has a B.S. in Aero-
move forward significantly. nautical Engineering from Embry-
Because of this, you want Riddle Aeronautical University in
the drag producing ele- Daytona Beach, Florida, and has
ments to hang them off worked toward a M.S. in Space
the bottom of the rocket Technology from the Florida Insti-
in order to move the CP tute of Technology in Melbourne,
rearward. This is why the Florida. Currently, he is the owner
stick fin rockets, like the of Apogee Components (http://
Odd’d Sputnik (www.Apo- Figure 12: Swept stick-fins www.apogeerockets.com) and the Streamers

geeRockets.com/Rock- move the CP rearward. curator of the rocketry education

et_Kits/Skill_Level_1_Kits/ web site: http://www.apogeerock-
Sputnik_Rocket_Kit) are swept backwards beneath the ets.com/education/. He is also
base of the rocket. the author of the books: “Model
Figure 13: Adding
3. You can use streamers attached to the base of Rocket Design and Construction,”
streamers to the
the rocket in a pinch to add more drag. See Figure 13. “69 Simple Science Fair Projects
rocket adds a lot of
with Model Rockets: Aeronautics”
The streamers can really help you add a lot of drag to drag and puts that
and publisher of a FREE e-zine
the rocket with minimal effort. I would suggest adding them force well behind the
newsletter about model rockets.
for the first flight of the rocket, and then cutting them back rocket.

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ISSUE 325 NOVEMBER 6, 2012 Page 7