Yea…there are some very non-intuitive aspects to this stuff (a.k.a Classical Mechanics). The key to understanding your misunderstanding is what @michaelb pointed out: scalar addition vs. vector addition.
Do you feel comfortable that the above explanation(s) are correct, especially as to how to get the horizontal and vertical thrust (force) components from a single thrust (force) at a particular angle?
For those like me that enjoy the discussion of this, but wanted a real world example of this unintuitive result, here is a example explaining the relationship using a force table.
It’s good to see you getting better with the Force, young padawan.
LOL,
I’m also finding out how many of the people I interact with who are Google Experts rather than subject matter experts. I had this exact discussion on multiple other outlets and got the same answers as I did on TALK. In many cases, down to the same links being shared. All the discussions stopped at real examples of the principles, because that is not how google serves it back when searched.
I lucked out, a friend at my local Cigar Shop enjoys physics and remembered the force table example. Which finally gave me the keyword of “Force Table” and tada. I now have a flesh and blood example of how this relationship works in the real world.
I’m honestly growing in my techniques of questioning things that are not intuitive to me. As so many times now I get heavy push back of “answer from authority”, rather than “answer from understanding.” I just find people feel insulted when they can’t explain something they themselves only partially comprehend.
Nice video but holy crap it’s so much easier to just do the math!
I, for one, didn’t just Google the math. These calculations are exactly analogous to (banking turn) lift vectors and crosswind calculations when flying.
Plus trig is the only “A” I ever made in a math class in my life. Sadly, Plane Trig is a course UNT taught in 1990 and it won’t transfer to any other equivalent course anywhere. So f*ck it, I’m not going back to school. Because I hate math.
OH AH OA! (Sin, Cos, Tan). I’ve remembered that for 35 years!
I agree,
The Math was not difficult. The issue was the math was unintuitive. As it was giving a Compound response of a Vector, rather than a Scalar as the results and this could easily be miss read. This was the confusion that the Force Table completely put to rest. We were in many cases likely not correctly denoting our terms in the solution because of that caveat and the people that did use the term had inadequate explanations for my understanding.
The magic of learning we all do it differently.
I also did well in trig in High School, you know before they had electricity and central plumbing. LOL. But, I had only a semi working understanding of the process, aka I memorized it long enough to pass a test and let it go quickly after. You know how it is, they tell you that you will never need this stuff after you graduate. 
My son got into model rockets, I remember seeing calculators on
But I can’t find them now… I would start here if you don’t have an answer yet
Hey @Nick
Glad you posted your questions out here.
Going down the rabbit hole I learned something new -
Model rocketry with thrust vectoring. Some of the sites -
A model rocket with thrust vectoring controlled by an Arduino.
What could possibly go wrong…
Yeah Art,
I always like fleshing these ideas out on TALK. It is amazing when we stumble into a subject matter expert. But, even if we don’t have a subject matter expert, we often have talented people willing to scratch their head to try and figure it out.
Speaking of Thrust Vectoring, Mark Rober has been working with another Youtuber applying the principles to an Egg Drop. It is pretty funny when they start trying to reach out to subject matter experts and find out the GOV would find issues with sharing the knowledge.
Here is the vid for your enjoyment.
Wow…I didn’t realize this was still a thing. We had egg drop competitions in our high school physics classes every year (along with a few other similar challenges). lol…Egg drop from space…Cool.
The guy that wrote that first article has a video of his rocket launching. Holy wow!
It’s still not clear to me whether you want rotational thrust or not? The above answers for total vertical thrust are all correct but you can set the rotational thrust from zero to a maximum of 48sin(15) depending on the arrangement.
Vertical is the most important for my use. As lifting capability is the significant variable for the flight characteristics of the girandolas I’m working on. You can only add effects that the girandola can lift.
We are dealing with some tube burn through issues due to centripetal force. But, that issues happening in the last seconds of thrust. As long as we don’t have fusing over the area that typically burns through, it isn’t a large concern.
Here is a picture showing the burn through I mention.
Current solution to this is a faster burning BP, that way we get greater thrust over a shorter period, hopefully allowing out tubed to survive their duty cycle.