Re: Armadillo May 2, 2004

>
>     That's all very well. But I have to ask myself: Where are the existing
>rockets that use jet vanes for steering? AFAIK, they all use engine
>gimballing -- which suggests that vanes have some shortcoming.
>
>     (Yes, I know I'm in PCBH territory here. It's a region well known to
>me. <g>)
>
>Chris
>--
>PCBH -- politely corrected by Henry
>_______________________________________________

There are really only two downsides:

With hotter rocket engines, vanes have erosion problems.

You lose a couple % of your Isp due to vane drag.

The conventional space launch industry "wisdom" places an inordinately 
large value on Isp, at the expense of almost all other factors.

A great many missiles do still use jet vanes as a pragmatic and cost 
effective setup.

John Carmack