Giant Leap Rocketry leads the industry in innovative new products.  Their latest kit, the Elipse, has taken their design paradigm to a new level.  According to Ed at Giant Leap, “this design was inspired by the lines of the famous Jaguar XKE. I wanted to create a kit with curves that depart from the same old straight lines found in other rockets.” 

February is the dead of Winter in Butte, Montana and that's the perfect opportunity to seek warmer climates.  Steve Shannon did just that, by planning a family get-away in the sunnier South, just in time for the Arizona Rocket Gathering.  While there, he grabbed a Polecat Aerospace 5.5" Nike Smoke kit for a Winter project and this is its story.

PLEASE DON'T START A STAMPEDE OR KILL EACH OTHER TRYING TO JUMP THE LINE, but would someone please tell me what I am doing wrong?  I know there are plenty of takers that would love the opportunity to tell me where to get off, but I think I must be losing touch with reality here. After all, it wasn't that many years ago when I discovered hobby rocketry on the Internet and founded a similar hobby rocketry portal.

In a recent edition of Design News, Texas rocketeer Joe Peck had an article published about his model rocketry project.  "Case #97: Project Dragon Fish: Joe Takes Rocket Science to New Depths" was Peck's version of his own Polaris program featuring underwater rocketry.

A strange thing happens on "The Astronaut Farmer's" mad dash for mediocrity: reality comes crashing into his happy story of make-believe and shakes things up. A fantasy about a dreamer who refuses to concede his quest to fly one day into space—going so far as to build a towering rocket ship in his barn—the new film from the Polish brothers (the same pair who brought us "Twin Falls Idaho" and "Northfork") is a fairy-tale for the terrorism age.

There is nothing quite as thrilling as that first certification flight, unless it is your second or third certification such as when going for your Level 2 or Level 3.  But Level 1, that first rush, is usually the one that gets its hooks in your soul as well as your wallet. Recently, Mark Willett of Texas, a member of the Austin Area Rocketry Group, enjoyed the thrill of certifying Level 1 himself, and was asked to share about his construction and flight for others to enjoy as well.

American's have become fascinated with the video format, having developed their addiction to camcorders and furthered with the advent of the personal computer, the Internet. Prime-time television leveraged this popularity some time back, through the highly-watched America's Funniest Videos television show on ABC.  Imagine my surprise to see my favorite hobby showcased in video on the show after all these years.

At LDRS 22 in Argonia, Kansas, a group of Texas high power rocketeers got together to fly their scale version of the National Aero-Space Plane, the X-30. This unique craft was the United States attempt to build a "single stage to orbit" spacecraft.  Real life pilot Dave Schaefer teamed up with several other members from the Dallas Area Rocket Society (DARS) to create high power rocketry's own version of the X-30.  Having already launched successfully the previous year, Team X-30 flying at LDRS 22 was a natural.