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In 1958 Charles Hoult was initiated into the sounding rocket business as a freshly commissioned Air Force Second Lieutenant assigned to Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory in Bedford, MA. After leaving the service in 1961 he continued his sounding rocket work at AFCRL until 1968. His AFCRL responsibilities included systems engineering for, and flight test of, new sounding rockets. His experience there covered the spectrum of sounding rockets from Nike-Cajun thru Aerolab Argo D-4. From 1968 thru 1971 he worked on the Aerobee and Astrobee sounding rocket families while employed by Space General in El Monte, CA. From 1971 thru 1973 he was employed by Space Vector Corp., Canoga Park, CA working on the Aries guided sounding rocket and various guidance and attitude control systems. As a consultant he continued to work on sounding rockets until 1977.
After 1977 he worked for The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA, and TRW (later part of Northrop Grumman), Redondo Beach, CA until his retirement in 2007. During these thirty years he supported the Titan launch vehicle and various classified satellite and missile defense projects.
Starting in 2006 he returned to his first love, sounding rockets, by accepting an appointment as Mentor in the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Dept. at California State University Long Beach. Most recently, he has served as an Adjunct Professor in the same Department.
During his career he participated in launches from White Sands, NM; Ft. Churchill, Manitoba, Canada; Eglin AFB, FL; Barreira do Inferno, Natal, Brazil; Western Test Range, Vandenberg, CA, Eastern Test Range, Cape Canaveral, FL and the Friends of Amateur Rocketry Site, Mojave desert, CA.
He was educated at MIT and UCLA. He is a member of the AIAA, the Planetary Society and the Air Force Association. His sounding rocket publications include 17 papers on mission planning, structural loads, trajectory dispersion and postburnout attitude.