The weather today was amazing, it was warm, dry and very little wind, the days before the display were cold and wet.

I arrived at the school at around 11.00am and found that Peter and Gary had already arrived.

A fairly large display of airfix models of various rockets and space vehicles had already been set up and there was also a water rocket display and workshop being set up.

After talking to the teachers for a while we set up the H.A.R.T. display with a number of rockets ranging from the small Gnome to the large Mirage rocket.

At 12.00pm a fairly large crowd of about 80 people had turned up and so after speaking to the person on the P.A. myself Gary and Peter and a group of six formers started to launch various Estes and Quest rockets.

We launched a lot of different rockets and showed the public the differences between the various engines and what the rockets can do, i.e. staging and carrying small payloads, etc.

As usual the display had one rocket which played up an this time is was my Mean Machine which took 5 attempts to launch, I changed the igniter 4 times and used 2 different engines and 3 different launches systems all without success, so after replacing the engine and igniter again I decided to pass the controller to one of the six formers and asked him to try, and as I expected he did a 5 second countdown and then pressed the launch button and the rocket immediately came to life and headed skywards with a large cheer from the crowd.

After nearly an hour around 25 rockets had being launched and we had launched most of the rockets, so I started to arm H.A.R.T. Attack for the finale of the display

The rocket was soon armed and I carried the rocket out to the pad.

I made sure everyone was standing on their feet, as a precaution if one or more of the engines cato'ed, before I connected the clips and got ready to launch.

I was a bit unsure where the rocket was going to land as the field was fairly small and had large trees on the edge and so I angled the launch rod in the only angle I could see that would give the rocket the best chance to land safely.

I asked the teachers to start a loud 10 second count down and then pushed the button,

H.A.R.T. Attack's 7 D engines came to life and the rocket slowly powered itself of the pad and climbed skywards while producing a large smoke trail.

I counted the 3 second delay and then I quietly asked for the parachute, and as if the rocket heard me, the parachute deployed and opened perfectly.

The rocket came down slowly but drifted towards the schools tennis courts and as the rocket landed the parachute went over the high fences and got caught by the shock cord and shroud lines.

Luckily the lines were only draped over the top of the fence and quickly a teacher arrived with a ladder and got the parachute down.

The public started to leave and a lot of people came up to me and said that they really enjoyed the rocket display and were now thinking about getting into the hobby.

The next 2 hours were spent talking to the public that stayed and talked to them about how the rockets engines work and how to start in rocketry.

As I said goodbye to the teachers they said that they really enjoyed the display and are hoping that they can have us back again next year.

Finally I must also express my thanks to Gary and Peter who helped a lot in making the day a very enjoyable one and one that many people will remember for a long time.