Not to sound too parochial, but one those “radical” three-fin guys back in the
40’s was a founder of JPL, Frank Malina specifically. Even though he was sure
that it would work since three-flechted arrows seemed to work fine!
From: http://www.olats.org/pionniers/malina/aeronautique/memoir3.php
To check the flight characteristics of the WAC-booster combination, tests
were made with a 1/5 scale model, called the BABY WAC. These were launched
from a scaled-down launching tower at Camp Irwin, California, beginning 4
July 1945 . One of the interesting aspects of these tests was the
verification of the suitability of employing three instead of the traditional
four tail fins. For some reason, rockets in the past and aerial bombs were
equipped with four fins. Stewart, to save weight, proposed we use three but
Ordnance "experts" told us the WAC would then not be stable in flight. When
he pointed out that arrows for ages had three fins and had performed very
nicely, he was still doubted. The tests of the BABY WAC settled all
arguments; the model behaved very well, as later did the three-finned
full-scale WAC. The BABY WAC reached an altitude of around 3,000 ft.
On Jun 16, 2015, at 10:21 AM, John Coker <john@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
As an aside, early rocketeers thought four fins were necessary and it wasn't
until some adventurous experimentation that they discovered that three were
enough.
