Ever since I founded Featherweight Altimeters in 2008, it has been a side business rather than my day job. I have always wondered what I could do if I worked on Featherweight full-time. We're about to find out! Starting very soon I'll be running Featherweight Altimeters full-time, including doing a lot more product development. For me it's a little scary, but pretty exciting.
First up on the new product front will be a successor to the Raven4 altimeter, the Blue Raven. I'll put up a Blue Raven product development thread with more details once I get a little farther along, but the basic idea is to cram a vast expansion of capability into the same small form factor of the Raven, and give it a Bluetooth 5.0 interface along with a brand new, easy-to-use custom app for both iPhones and Android phones. (yes, Android too; I'm not going to make the mistake of releasing on just one platform again) The Blue Raven will be capable of using Bluetooth to exchange information wirelessly during the flight with a separate GPS tracker that could be in another part of the rocket (e.g. the nosecone), and deliver it to your phone in real-time. And almost everything you could do in the Windows Featherweight Interface Program, along with some new mobile features, you will be able do on your phone without needing to connect to any other computer. I'll be powering up the first prototype of hardware this weekend, and then I'll spend the next several months on the software. The goal is to complete flight testing and have the first production run ready for sale before current stock of the Raven 4 runs out, which I'm projecting to happen in early fall 2022.
In more mundane news, I'll be unavailable to fill orders Sunday Feb 20 to Feb 26, so if you have been thinking about ordering and want it shipped before Feb 28th, please place your order tomorrow or Saturday.
Happy flying!
-Adrian
First up on the new product front will be a successor to the Raven4 altimeter, the Blue Raven. I'll put up a Blue Raven product development thread with more details once I get a little farther along, but the basic idea is to cram a vast expansion of capability into the same small form factor of the Raven, and give it a Bluetooth 5.0 interface along with a brand new, easy-to-use custom app for both iPhones and Android phones. (yes, Android too; I'm not going to make the mistake of releasing on just one platform again) The Blue Raven will be capable of using Bluetooth to exchange information wirelessly during the flight with a separate GPS tracker that could be in another part of the rocket (e.g. the nosecone), and deliver it to your phone in real-time. And almost everything you could do in the Windows Featherweight Interface Program, along with some new mobile features, you will be able do on your phone without needing to connect to any other computer. I'll be powering up the first prototype of hardware this weekend, and then I'll spend the next several months on the software. The goal is to complete flight testing and have the first production run ready for sale before current stock of the Raven 4 runs out, which I'm projecting to happen in early fall 2022.
In more mundane news, I'll be unavailable to fill orders Sunday Feb 20 to Feb 26, so if you have been thinking about ordering and want it shipped before Feb 28th, please place your order tomorrow or Saturday.
Happy flying!
-Adrian
Last edited: