The issue with the stock Centuri/Estes Saturn V with bigger motors is the tendency to not stay vertical through ejection with the higher and faster flight profile. The plastic chutes are fine for what it was designed for, but not for bigger motors because it will usually be moving along pretty good at ejection. Odds are the Comet didn't have a stock recovery system.

My point in the original post is that the model is perfectly good for what it is intended, but a person shouldn't blame the model when they start doing things beyond its design. It becomes their fault when it fails at that point. Failure modes may be due to poor motor/delay selection, flying in too much wind, bad CG/CP, which all lead to poor trajectory and high ejection speeds. They then build them like to make up for poor decisions.

I'm not saying don't modify or don't use anything but recommended motors. I'm just saying there's absolutely nothing wrong with a stock Saturn V when used within its design scope.

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