Balloon

13th Launch, KK9H/2 April 1st 2022

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  • Michael is filling the balloon, little at a time
  • A new way to secure, Kapton Tape used by NASA
  • Checking the weight 15 grams for the package, plus free lift, total 24.4 grams
  • Michael AA6DY tying off the balloon assisted with Stewart KB9LM and Don KK9H holding the tube
  • Michael holding the tracker waiting for launch
  • And the Release, just beautiful
  • There it goes, nice and slow lift

I want to get this out to everyone and will share pictures of our balloon prep and launch

After a long dry spell, we were able to get together to launch KK9H/2 for Don Whiteman. We met at Olson Park in Highland Park, IL at 2:30 p.m. with a small group of avid supporters. As I mentioned in the previous post, though we hadn’t launched in a while, we have been busy preparing. We had a successful launch at 3:00 p.m.

We’ve been looking at getting a balloon that would give us that sweet spot of an altitude close to 40,000 feet. With the research from Tom Medlin W5KUB we purchased a package of the Yokohama 32″ Sphere pictured below.

This is the 4 panel 32″ Yokohama Sphere balloon which will provide a larger volume and higher altitude

We purchased 10 of these balloons at $22.00 each, and used one of them to test the best way to seal the valve shown on the lower left hand side. John, KD9THB part of our Technical Team suggested using Kapton tape which is used in the space program. All of our balloons are used in the party industry and are not intended for long flights. The Yokohama we purchased has a small neck coming right up to the body of the balloon, on the end of the valve which we will tape over, seal and punch a hole through the tape to hold our tracker package.

John did some weather and trajectory projections using NOAA HYSPLIT Models see below

March 7th 2022 Whether to launch is all about the weather

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We can’t seem to get a break. Since February 8th we’ve been looking for a good day to launch. On February 8th we launched KC9RP/3 which flew for 27 hours. On February 28th we launched KC9RP/4 which went about 200 yards and transmitted for two days from a tree. We were hoping to get a balloon up tomorrow but the weather just isn’t cooperating. We only have a few sunny days in the next couple of weeks and with these sunny days we have wind gust up to 55 miles per hour. What we do have is a great Technical team with John KD9THB who is able to give us our launch window up to 3 days in advance. John told us our best opportunity for launch was between 7am and 8am tomorrow March 8th. We have a saying here in Chicago, if you don’t like the weather wait 15 minutes. Although that works well if you’re planning a walk but with the hour or so it takes to get a balloon or two ready before a launch makes it really difficult to plan. In like a lion and out like a lamb, March 20th is the first day of Spring, looking for better days.