Our club does a few outreach events every year and having something interactive for kids is always fun. I've made a controller they can use to "launch" rockets. It plugs into a USB port and runs a local webapp. The controller is made from the guts of a cheap $5 USB number keypad.

Many model rockets have a fairly empty airframe. Why not fill that space with compressed air and augment the thrust of your solid motor for more performance? The proof-of-concept AirHawk successfully flew twice today! Video coming soon. (100psi + C6-3 motor).

This is AirHawk. Looks innocent enough. We'll be testing 5 new concepts with it tomorrow. Lots of unknowns. The bottom end looks strange. Can't show the launcher as it may give clues to what we are testing. If all goes well, we'll scale it up!

Here is the full length video of our World Record flight from last year. It goes into details of launch day operations, the launch, and flight data analysis. Includes special announcement at the end of the video. https://t.co/OK0z58oZsX

New Horizon video is now out! https://t.co/46E8vATO55 I thought I'd try a different intro/outro this time. It sure got plenty of looks at the beach. :)

Almost finished Part #42 of the Horizon series video. It took a bit of time to edit this one, it will be about 24 minutes long. This video covers us finishing the rocket to get it ready for flight. The next video after this will be the full length launch day operations.

Part 40 of the Horizon series is now out. https://t.co/mO51SoDayJ We cover the booster's parachute deployment, it's twin camera package, and the upgrades to the sustainer deployment. We also perform booster electronics flight tests.

Happy New Year! I'm finally getting around to finishing the next video in the Horizon series. This one covers details of the parachute deployment mechanisms. I'm hoping to have that done in the next few days.

Dare to be bold! What SpaceX just achieved is mind blowing. Hats off to the whole SpaceX team for inspiring the next generation of engineers. Now that this achievement has been unlocked, who in the model rocket community will be first to repeat it?

The club had a stand again at this year's Macquarie University Astronomy Open Night. It's always a great night to talk to the general public interested in science. This is a good perspective of the size of the Horizon rocket. Photo credit: Derek Waterman.

Video is now out of our World Record flight with Horizon to 5,313 feet (1.62km). :) https://t.co/SfAtd0WAD0

Just got back from the Horizon launch. The flight exceeded our expectations ... by a lot. Currently processing photos and videos from 11 cameras. We'll share those and flight details over the next few days. Here is team Air Command shortly before flight.

Booster and sustainer packed. They are both too long for our normal rocket box so had to cut some holes. T-2 Days to launch attempt.

Sustainer avionics are now done. This was a fun one in trying to squeze all the upgrades into the existing design. Here are some details:

Painting complete. The ToDo list is getting shorter. 6 days to go.

Horizon Rising! Full integration test today. Tuesday will be full wet dress rehearsal where we fill it with water, power on all avionics and remotely activate release (rocket will not be pressurised). Painting the booster is later this week. Less than 2 weeks to launch.

Instead of a non return valve we add a 1.5mm flow restrictor to the stager. This allows us to depressurise the sustainer if needed, and if the staging fails to release in flight the sustainer will depressurise in ~50s while booster is under parachute.

Hardware! Sometimes it doesn't quite look like water rocketry. Booster is all glued with removable fins. Wet dress rehearsal this weekend and then painting. Only 2 weeks to launch.

T-21 Camera pod finished. This goes on top of one of the Horizon booster segments. It has a GoPro looking out to the side (looks down when under parachute) and a second camera that looks down the rocket at the ground.