We launched AA6DY/4 and KK9H/2 last night at 7pm from Willow Hill Golf Course just North of Chicago Illinois, what a nice place. We never got a reading from AA6DY/4 though the launch looked beautiful.

We got our first reading this morning at 5:58 a.m. Central Daylight Time, 10:58 zulu. KK9H/2 woke up over Ft. Wayne Indiana, well that’s what the map says. I believe it actually woke up near Hershey, Pennsylvania and lost contact East of Ocean City Maryland at 10:18 a.m. 15:08 zulu. Flight 10 hours asleep and 5 hours awake. Total flight time 15 hours and 8 minutes. I’ll send this back to our Technical Team if it’s possible to go from Ft. Wayne Indiana to Hershey Pennsylvania in 2 minutes. First reading was at EN71mb at 10:58 zulu and FN10sg at 11:00 zulu.

Our Technical team had our max altitude at 26,000 feet and steadily losing altitude while awake. Guessing our Max Altitude during the first 10 hours of flight, that’s a tough one and another reason to launch early.

After losing several balloons in the trees leading up to yesterday’s launch, we were looking for anytime, day or evening where the weather would be favorable for a launch. Our best opportunity was 7 p.m. last night. Well, now that we got that evening launch out of our system, we’re going to try again for a morning launch, more data early on.

Looking at our arsenal of somewhere close to 100 balloons,; 36″ Chinese Round pancake, SAG, Yokohama and another 30″ Chinese made Sphere. We’ve had some nice flights with the 36″ Round, albeit, not at the desired altitude. We’re back to the testing phase. I’d like to launch one of each balloon at the same time, I’ll see if I can convince the group.

73, Cary KD9ITO