Re: Armadillo May 2, 2004

On Mon, 3 May 2004 [email protected] wrote:
>     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.

Actually, there are a number of existing rockets that use jet vanes and
similar doodads for steering.  Not *space launchers*, mind you, where the
jet-drag penalty and the difficulty of making vanes stand up to a hot,
fast exhaust jet have generally ruled them out.  But they're not at all
uncommon in tactical missiles. 

Oh, and the first stage of the Scout orbital launcher used coupled fins
and jet vanes. 

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       [email protected]