The Woomera 60th Aniversary coincided with this campaign so it was a must see.
The rockets that were flown were ex-military Zuni and Sighter missiles with payload/recovery modules. The Zuni rocket is an O class rocket with a burntime of just over a second. They break Mach 1 about 8m off the pad, and gain an altitude of near on 10km and land 6km downrange. The Sighters have a similar flight profile, but cannot lift the payloads that a Zuni can due to thier size.
It was a buzz to work on these large rockets, and to be part of the launch team. We all had a hand in prepping the payload and recovery systems, and I spent a lot of time on Road Block 2 with the other guys, but luckily I also got a chance to be in the bunker for one of the Zuni flights. We were present for ASRIs 100th launch at Woomera, and also the first Sighter to be flown with the new recovery module (up to now, they came in ballistic)

The trip was an awesome experience, and I cant wait for the October Campaign. Heres some photos of the trip.

With any of these phots, just click on the thumbnail to get a full-sized image!!

This one is of Launch Area 9 where rockets like the Black Arrow, Blue Streak and Europa were launched from. It is getting a little run down, which is a pity to see, but there is no-one, no use and no money to maintain it.



Heres Sam at what I think is a camera house at LA6. It has been used by the SAS for a machinegun target during training. Heaps of the stuff out here has either been blown up for demolitions practice, has damage from splinters, or has bullet holes in it.



Heres a photo that Ryan managed to capture of a Zuni at liftoff. You can see the car just in front of the pad, this gives you some idea of the tower of flame that these rockets spew out. As they blast off the pad at such high velocity, it is very hard to get this on film.



Heres a photo of Z84 on the pad. This Zuni carried a video camera and RDAS flight computer. The payload was built by an RMIT student named Kate. The footage and data recovered was AWESOME. The boys are setting the recovery system and arming the payload. The fins are not yet folded out on the motor.



This view is of the Observation area as seen from Launch Area 9. The big mound in the foreground is a shelter of some sort, where some of the guys park thier cars to prevent them from being showered with rocks and debris when the rocket blasts off. The little white dot in the background is the Obs area. This is the closest that you can get to directly view the launches.



This one is of Len (Tarpazium) and myself working on the Sighter recovery system. In the background is Richard, who is a bit of a wiz with things Radio. He is another Brisbane boy who will be helping us with our Zuni payload we are going to build.



Heres me with a Lupus Booster that we found sticking out of the ground about 1km downrange from the Launch Pad. Theres all kinds of goodies lying around here, but being a military controlled range, it is a BIG no-no to take anything away. We found all sorts of interesting things, peices of rapier missile, bits of Zuni rockets, peices of target drones and theres even a Bloodhound missile sticking out of the ground furthur downrange!



I came home with around 1.5gig of photos, so I can only post a small sample. The missile park in the middle of Woomera township has heaps of cool rockets, but that will be another post I am afraid. For anyone interested in Scale Modelling, I am in the process of converting my photos into scale drawings. I have already completed the drawings for the Kookaburra 3, so if you are interested let me know. Contact Peter