I don want to just buy a camera system, Id rather design and build my own. Whats already been done and whats available for “homebrewers”?
Still Cameras The earliest hobby type rocket with a camera was reported on in the March 1983 issue of The Model Rocketeer (the predecessor to Sport Rocketry mag) in the article “King George VI’s Rocketeers.” As Chris Tavares (cdt@sw.stratus.com) reports: “A school group in Scotland formed what is possibly the first model rocketry club [in the late ’40s – JH]. Of course, there were no commercial model rocket motors available, but they used pennywhistle fireworks motors. The group’s advisor designed and flew a camera-bearing rocket with which he took several photos of a nearby loch. The motors were pre-manufactured by professionals, used once, and thrown away. The airframes were designed by the modelers, and made out of paper and light woods. It’s as valid an implementation of ‘model rocketry’ as what goes on today in eastern Europe.” According to Stine (Handbook, 2nd Edition) the first true “model rocket” (in the NAR Safety Code defined sense) camera payload was flown by Lewis Dewart in
