Rocketry Planet is pleased to bring you a guest editorial by Mark Mayfield, editor-in-chief of LAUNCH Magazine.  Mark has been in the publishing business long enough to know what works, having served as editor-in-chief of House Beautiful, America's oldest home magazine.  Mark also had a unique role as an founding staff member of USA Today, where he spent 10 years.  Today, he leads what has already become recognized as the largest circulation rocketry publication after just three issues. 

One of the greatest things about enjoying hobby rocketry today is the advancements that have been made in multimedia.  If you so desire, you can surround yourself with a myriad of information about the sport from a wide variety of sources.  If you are eager to learn about a certain subject, there's information about it available in numerous formats to meet your need.

The goal of presenting regular website reviews is to help introduce you, the reader, to the wealth of information that is available to you and to help uncover the specific information that you find enjoyable, beneficial and a valuable addition to your participation in the hobby. One of the subjects that seems to intrigue many modelers is the construction of composite components. 

Certifying Level 3 is no easy accomplishment, but through the combination of careful planning, hard work and following the advice of your certification advisors, you can get the job done.  The process is designed to test the skills and knowledge of the builder in order to prove you are capable of safely flying large, high performance hobby rockets.

WE LIVE IN FAST-PACED TIMES, with so much happening around us so quickly that it's often hard to keep up.  We are inundated with information constantly, from a myriad of sources: Internet, television, radio, cell phones, it's everywhere.  The demand on individuals is at an all-time height, not only to comprehend this onslaught of information, but respond to it as well.

When most rocketeers think of the state of Florida, their mind immediately goes to Cape Canaveral, the launching point used by NASA to compete in the great space race during the 50's and 60's. Certainly that is a very good conclusion to jump to. But Florida is also known for a lot of other things, like being the lightning capital of the world, and Tampa and the surrounding area has become known as the lightning capital of the state!

Jim Jarvis completed his Level 3 certification at LDRS 25 in supreme fashion, flying a 4" minimum diameter carbon fiber rocket on an N4000 to 35,000 feet!  This qualified Jim for the Tripoli N altitude record without him even knowing he had accomplished the feat. I asked Jim it if would be possible for us to collaborate on a feature article about his rocket and the flight, knowing the readers here would love such a piece.  Being the thorough person that Jim is, he did all the work in order to share his success with everyone. 

As large as the Internet is, it's strange to end up geographically in similar places, yet this Website Review finds us back in Birmingham, Alabama where Clark Word lives and earns a living as a graphic artist while also attending college.  Word, age 40, is a member of both the National Association of Rocketry and the Tripoli Rocketry Association as well as a member of the United States Parachute Association, where he enjoys hanging under a parachute just like his rockets do.