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
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