Hello Amateur Radio Balloon Friends,
Here are a few notes about the flight, just in case you were wondering…
Congratulations to the balloon team!
Team members were…
· Santa Barbara Natural History Museum - Javier Rivera and Blanca Garcia
· Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club - Rod Fritz WB9KMO, Cyril Johnson AF6GW, Levi Maaia K6LCM, Mike Bales KI6VBK (SBHX)
· Consultants and Trackers - Bill Brown WB8ELK, Mark Caviezal NG0X and Jay Zatz WB6YQN
Yesterday was a memorable day. We imagined a successful balloon flight and we made it happen!
Saturday, July 16 was an ideal warm day on the beach in Santa Barbara (we get a lot of those, you know). The sun was out and there was a very slight breeze. A crowd had gathered as if a big party was at hand. Rod walked toward the crowd and said, “Hello everyone, why are we here?” The boisterous response was, “let’s launch a balloon!” So we did…
(Refer to the attached Balloon Launch photos.)
After assembling the payload and filling the balloon before about 50 excited onlookers, we launched the 6-pound near-space craft at 11:24am. It ascended straight up at about 900 feet per minute. Around 20,000 feet, it turned north, and reached speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour as it soared inland. At 60,000 feet, it shifted to the west, burst, and on its descent, shifted to the north again at about 60,000 feet. The maximum altitude, when the balloon burst over Fellows, CA, was over 93,000 feet!
The balloon package free-fell with only a little drag from what was left of the balloon as it lost over 10 miles of altitude. The air was too thin to pop the parachute open. Finally, at around 20,000 feet (about 4 miles up), the chute opened an the descent slowed to around 1200 feet per minute.
The balloon touched down around 2:00pm after 2 1/2 hours of flight. This is an Internet screen capture showing the last data that digital amateur radio repeaters received from the balloon’s WB9KMO APRS transmitter. The red dot is where Levi estimated the balloon might be found. Note the high-tension power lines at one of the largest power plants in California. At this point, we had some concerns, but we hoped for the best.
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After the launch and a little celebration and nourishment, the Chase Team started to drive toward the landing area near Taft, CA that we predicted at 8:00am.
The Chase Team consisted of a car and a van with Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club members, respectively. Both vehicles had Amateur Radio APRS tracking radios and we also relied on communication from other radio amateurs. We used cell phones and computers until they failed due to dead batteries and lost connections. Amateur radio saved the day.
(Refer to the Chase Team photos – to be sent later.)
We followed the balloon in our two vehicles, trying to get to it on the ground as soon as we could. The drive was beautiful and interesting, winding through the mountains north of Ventura and the arid oil fields and farm land near Maricopa and Taft.
Cyril and Rod arrived at the power plant around 4:00pm and couldn’t see or hear any evidence of the balloon. Since the balloon was 2800 feet over the plant when it was received and the plant was at 300 feet elevation, with a descent rate of 1200 feet per minute and traveling at four miles per hour, it flew past the plant for about two minutes. Doing some quick calculations in our head, we started to drive to where we thought it would be. It wasn’t there though, more on that later…
We enlarged our search. Just outside the plant, we heard the APRS transmitter on 144.39 MHz. Our receiver informed us that the balloon was about .5 miles northwest of our location. So we drove to Buttonwillow Park nearby, where our receiver indicated we were 0.0 miles away.
We couldn’t see the balloon package from the van. On foot, we went to a higher place and Cyril yelled, “I found it!” In the middle of what appeared to be a desert, we had made a water landing.
(Refer to the Recovery photos – to be sent later.)
Cyril, with Rod Fritz cheering at his side, had discovered the balloon in an irrigation canal near Buttonwillow Park in Buttonwillow, CA. Where’s that? It’s in Kern County, about 20 miles west of Bakersfield and about 10 miles north of where we predicted at 8am that it would land.
The other recovery car was close by and would have probably found the balloon in the next few minutes, too. We directed them to the landing site.
Blanca, Rose and Rod looked on as Javier and Cyril pulled the package from the canal. There appeared to be almost no water damage, but the lens of the Canon camera got a little wet. Examining the contents, it was obvious that the package had a rough ride or at least a rough landing. Several of the items were quite warm and a few of the batteries had shifted. Everything is intact though, and ready to fly again sometime soon.
Why was the balloon found to the northwest when it was flying southeast over the power plant. Bill put it this way…
“I was hoping that it would land south of that last point where it was 2800 feet directly above the power plant and was predicting a southward drift...however I am quite surprised to see that it was recovered NW of that last position report...so perhaps the lower winds made a big shift or perhaps it actually landed in the canal to the south of the plant and floated to the point where you recovered it.”
We’ll probably never know what really happened during those last few minutes. Pretty weird though. It defies common sense and the laws of physics. (There were reports of alien activities in the area though – not really, just kidding.)
Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Others may have a different perspective and I’d love to hear what that is.
Javier and Blanca will check out the cameras to see what we discovered about the trip and to see what near space is like. The electronics worked very well and we’re still tallying reception information from radio amateurs. Live reports from southern California were very encouraging. Rod will process video from the launch site and we’ll publish more interesting information and pictures later.
If you have any reception reports, flight data or personal stories, please send them to me (rod@sbatv.org) as soon as possible.
We’re planning to make an official press release tomorrow, Monday July 18.
Thank you for sharing this exciting event with us.
Rod Fritz, WB9KMO
SBARC OUTREACH Committee Chair