Perth Advanced Rocket Club members and spectators were in Shock & Awe at the successful launch of a 3" Aerobee Hi, a two stage composite kit from the folks at Cosmodrome Rocketry.

After much nay saying and assorted controversy, many folks had been led to believe that staged composite launches would probably never happen in WA. As is the CGN way, we took this as a challenge and can now give a hearty 'meh' to all those without an imagination.

Ironically, this 1st successful launch was preceded by a somewhat more unsuccessful attempt.

Everything started well...

...Just didn't end so well

Scoop had this to say on the Ausrocketry Forum

On to my disaster.....the Aerobee Hi 2 stage.....I had decided on a G80T-4 in the booster to an F52T-8 in the sustainer.
All the motors were set up and the minitimer was set for an ignition at 2 seconds after the G switch detected launch condition.
All was looking sweet on the pad, conditions favorable.

The booster lit and the bird got away and was flying very straight in the initial boost stage....but thats where it started to go wrong...failure to light the all important second stage after the alloted time frame.

The sustainer arched over into the death dive and plummeted to terra firma.

Diagnosis of failure is unknown at this time.
Future......build a new one ....faster...higher ...better!

Today's story was much more successful, I just wish I could move the camera fast enough to get a separation shot.

MarkH was able to get this video footage of the launch. If you got sound, turn it up - the sustainer lighting up sounds AWESOME!