6th
of January, 2006. For this particular project that was
obviously going to be in public space, I had arranged
a launch team to lend me a hand.
Unfortunately,
the night before, I had contacted the Civil Aviation
Safety Authority (CASA) regarding the balloon launch.
They granted me a maximum flying height of 100m AGL
(above ground level). You may visit CASA's website for
more information on legal balloon heights in Australia.
Better to be safe than sorry! |
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By 10am,
the launch crew were ready, and we promptly started
trying to figure out how on earth the helium cylinder
worked.
By the way,
that looks like a big balloon... |
Finally
we figured out that you actually had to twist the stupid
nozzle to pump the helium out. Clearly, we have not
attended any kids parties for too long.
Here
is the balloon being inflated, with the rest of the
enthusiastic launch crew out of sight for fear of injury
resulting from balloon explosion. |
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Measuring
the diameter of the balloon to make sure we were on
the right track...
Turns out
that my number crunching had been exact, and the full
tank of helium pumped the balloon up to exactly the
size required. |
Attaching
the payload (with camera) onto the neck of the balloon.
One thing we noticed here was the low lift energy of
the balloon - it appeared that I had not included a
sufficient amount of weight assigned for balloon lift
only. So instead of raising the payload quickly off
the ground, it hovered around like some kind of UFO. |
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Regardless
of previous observation... The launch crew ready to
set the big pink balloon free into the air! |
And
woohooo, its flying! For a few seconds anyway...
Notice
the colour of the clouds at this point in time. Possibly
the worst sign of things to come. Isn't it just frustrating
when the weather forecast is simply wrong? |
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Here the
balloon was rising...
Seconds later
it fell and became tangled in the tree.. Not only did
the string tangle so badly that we couldnt even retrieve
the poor balloon, but it started raining. Oh dear.
Talk about
friggin bad luck. And, in hindsight, a serious lack
of preparation :) |
Well,
we gotta be optimistic about things. The launch crew
gives a 'that's gold' handsign to keep up the spirits.
We
do a little better in Launch II,
so check that out.
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