Nice video and interesting comments.
Back in the late 80's I supervised a group of four seniors at Iowa State University doing a supersonic model rocket project for their senior project. My goal, aside from enabling four students to graduate, was to improve on Chuck Mund's earlier process and results. My report, a synthesis and correction of the students reports, was submitted to a NARAM R&D competition. I have no experience with the Aspire, but the students' rockets looked more like the Estes Alpha.
Like most engineering projects, progress is slow and deadlines loom. I taught the students some real world methods, like writing the report with stubs and TBD before the data is in. When I ordered the motors, F80s and E50s, directly from AT, they were out of stock. Fortunately I was able to get AT to produce the motors in time and ship then via Flying Tigers. We did some static motor testing, and some day time flying to verify structural integrity. The real flights were to be made at a nearby farm at night in April, before crops became an issue. And then it rained. Luckily, I was able to get an extension on the deadline for the students submitting their final reports, because it was raining.
After the weather cleared, we got all the flights in and flight measurements recorded on film without any mishaps. I thought the flights would be mostly fire and forget, and I thought the students would be working day and night to finish their reports. However, the students went back the next morning and found about half of the number of rockets flown. One did have a broken shock cord, but I was amazed that they found anything. So they actually achieved M1.1 with the E50, and Mach 1.42 with the F80, with some recoveries from a night launch. So much for fire and forget.
At that time there was a 24mm AT F101 that would have been awesome for supersonic flights, but it is not a model rocket motor, and only model rockets can be flown at night. There was also a 29MM AT G60 that was not a speed demon, but could have accelerated some instrumentation to low supersonic speed. An AT G80 could certainly carry some instrumentation to supersonic speeds. I think night launching is still viable, but you would probably want to update the process to use digital cameras. Indeed, you should be able to get the data in daylight with digital cameras. I'm not sure the complication of using drones is the best approach; I'd like to see the error analysis. However, at this time it does seem to be an advance in the state of the art.
I'm not sure the launch area chosen is ideal. the clearing is nice but it is surrounded by dense forest. There is plenty of desert surrounded by more desert, and farmland surrounded by yet more farmland.
