Flight announcement Sunday 26th Oct: Elysium

[Mars Balloon]

Elysium, a MARSBalloon flight (www.marsballoon.com) is expected to launch at noon (+/- 1hour) on Sunday 26th Oct.

Launch from Mendips (51.254, -2.714). Expected to travel almost directly east for a landing near Basingstoke, 2:15 flight time, 30km altitude peak.

$$ELYSIUM tracker: (434.25MHz, USB RTTY 50 Baud 560Hz Shift ASCII-7 no parity 2 stop bits)

Flight will also contain a plane from Bristol SEDS, activated before launch and to be released at peak altitude, with a separate onboard tracker. Expected to fly further east than Basingstoke.

Callsign $$UBSEDS3 (434.6MHz LSB RTTY 50 baud 400Hz shift ASCII-8 no parity 2 stop bits)

Updates via @marsballoon

[Mark Jessop]

And I take it that you have CAA (or whatever the UK equivalent of CASA is) approval to drop a UAV from a balloon at 30km? Usually they're not that cool with things like that.

- Mark

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[Mars Balloon]

Hi Mark,

Good point but it is a paper plane with total mass + tracker of <20g and therefore is not a UAV and presents no danger to anyone or thing.

[Anthony Stirk]

Doesn't matter what it is or how small/light it is. Equipment must descend by parachute. This is why when we did it we floated outside of UK airspace and let it go over the North sea.

Anthony M0UPU

[Mars Balloon]

Ok thanks for the info, we will re-review the regs and decide what to do. 

Whatever happens both trackers will fly as UBSEDS want to test out their new pico-tracker; the plane was an optional extra.

[Steve Aerospace]

Here is my take:

*Strictly speaking* the balloon release permit gives permission for:

1b) scientific equipment to descend by parachute from the said balloon/s at the termination of flight/s 

Dropping of anything else isn’t covered by the permit.

See article 129 (in particular (2)) of the air navigation order for dropping of things:

http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=226

For the avoidance of doubt a balloon is an aircraft.

My reading is that *strictly speaking* you would need an "aerial application certificate” or some other permit from the CAA in order to drop somthing.

I note that a UK group have recently dropped a large number of paper planes from a HAB.   We specifically asked the CAA if we could do this as part of the Samsung Space Planes project in 2011 and were denied permission.  Strangely the group haven’t responded to my message about whether they had CAA permission for the drop.

You will note that I have used the term *strictly speaking* as I wonder (like you) whether the CAA would really care about a single 20g paper plane and tracker - so I asked them a few months back - but haven’t received an answer either way.

Steve G8KHW

[Bodmer]

My understanding is that the Samsung Space Planes launch was denied permission as it was considered to be dropping advertising leaflets, with no useful science or educational outcome, clearly this should not be encouraged.

For educational and scientific purposes it is doubtful there would be a ban on paper planes as they are free flight gliders and therefore do not come under the many rules that cover RC (and more recently FPV) models.

It is easy to fall foul of some regulation for example marine pollution in cases where there is little prospect of recovering the experiment, illegal radio frequency emissions over countries etc. etc.

It is all to easy to pontificate about such stuff and spoil the fun  ;-)

[Steve Aerospace]

Samsung Space Planes was denied permission on the basis of littering - at least thats the reason given in the CAA communication I saw.   I doubt that the CAA would (or even could) make any value judgements about advertising being less worthwhile than science/education - they should only be interested in the regulatory and safety aspects. 

The idea of dropping a plane from a HAB has been around years (its not exactly difficult to do) and most UK groups have decided not to do it in UK airspace given the regulation - its clearly not an issue of difficulty or technical competence.  A 20g paper plane glider is probably not a danger - but the regulation draws no line that I’m aware of.

I’m currently helping a local School do a paper planes project - but we have asked for CAA guidance given our reading of the regulation.  

Pontificate? I just point out the regulations as I read them.  Perhaps I should just keep quiet - but if people did that we would have balloon launches without permits and Ham radio licences being used for the radio tracking.  Sorry to spoil the fun.  I try to make no value judgements about one piece of regulation being more important than another - or that its OK to ignore bits if its for science / education but apply it if its (the clearly less worthwhile) advertising.

Steve

Steve Randall

Random Engineering Ltd

st...@randomaerospace.com

+44 7802 242135

[Bodmer]

Is suspect this has all been discussed before....

The CAA do not make decisions just based on risk, rather it is risk (ie safety, potential financial losses due to damage, environmental contamination etc) versus benefits.  Decisions are based on specific information for a launch. *Any* launch is a risk (even a tiny latex charity launch balloon), so there must be benefits that outweigh them (in that case charity funding is the primary benefit, see CAP 736).

It is unlikely they will just provide general guidance to a non-specific situation as this could be taken as acceptance of a deviation to a regulation... and unfortunately tends to be propagated as universally valid via the internet. The modern trend to regulations is to be less specific and more readable, as this tends to be a better "catch all" than detailed regulations, this is because more proscriptive regulations tend to have more legal holes that can be exploited.What you need to do is file a detailed flight plan and ask for a judgment to be made, show the planned route so higher risk airspaces can be assessed by the CAA, emphasise the benefits of the flight and the risk mitigation steps you are taking, the CAA will then make a judgment based on their own assessment of the risks for that particular mission against the perceived benefits. The benefits that carry most weight are launches that improve safety (such as weather balloons) where the benefits outweigh the small risks, education and scientific missions also carry benefits. A desire to be a "record breaker "or to advertise for profit however has no significant benefit value to those that bear the tiny risk (typically the general public) and are therefore unlikely to be approved.

Lastly, don't fly the metalised plastic foil balloons (Happy Birthday types etc), these pose significant risks due to being electrically conductive (an electricity supply was taken out in the US by a foil balloon). They show up on radar too, hence pose a risk (e.g. aircraft may mistakenly take evasive manoeuvers), and they are not biodegradable like latex ones, this is why shop outlets *always* fit a weight to the inflated balloon they sell you, it's a safety thing.

As for "pontificating", I thought I was the one doing that, no offence intended ;-)

Back on topic... Good Luck to the MARSBalloon team tomorrow, a most inspiring project!

[Anthony Stirk]

"don't fly the metalised plastic foil balloons"

Oops :)

[Bodmer]

Looks like the Elysium tracker has a minor software bug, it is not handling zeros immediately after the decimal point in the longitude figure, hence the incorrect positions from -2.1W to -2.0W (e.g. -2.09xxxxW is reported as -2.9xxxxxW).

[Anthony Stirk]

So common its even on the Wiki :

http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:common_coding_errors_payload_testing?s[]=common&s[]=coding#padding_issues

Anthony

[chris hillcox]

Steve, I looked at the document but it is a long one. Can you let us know where in the document we should look. Cheers, Chris M6 LZY

[Steve Aerospace]

errr - Article 129 paragraph (2) like I said.  (Thats in part 17 page 2 - about 30% through the document):

Dropping of articles and animals

129

(1) ….

(2) Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4), articles and animals (whether or not attached to a parachute) must not be dropped, or permitted to drop, to the surface from an aircraft flying over the United Kingdom except under and in accordance with the terms of an aerial application certificate granted under article 131. 

(3) …

(4) ...

Steve

[chris hillcox]

Steve , thanks for pointing that out. I thought the whole document was article 129. I have downloaded it and will take a good look. 

I have two questions about Anthony's point. If the plane is dropped outside UK airspace then under who's jurisdiction is the airspace, who governs it, and what are their rules? And second, is the payload complete with space plane compliant with CAA rules when launched from the UK? 

It also seems that like other aspects of rules governing HAB, there is a lot of variability over Europe. If the Samsung space plane mass drop was done over Germany then I guess their rules are more lax. I also recall a space plane flight over Finland last year. Can anyone else comment on which European countries allow space planes to be dropped from HABs?

[go.ver...@googlemail.com]

Doesn't that mean then that we cannot drop any payload of any sort by parachute?

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

From: Steve Aerospace Sent: Sunday, 26 October 2014 21:39 To: uk...@googlegroups.com Reply To: uk...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [UKHAS] Flight announcement Sunday 26th Oct: Elysium

[Steve Aerospace]

I’m no expert in this - but as I pointed out the balloon permit gives permission for  "scientific equipment to descend by parachute from the said balloon/s at the termination of flight/s”  so that aspect is covered IMO. 

Buy hey don’t ask me - I’m no aviation lawyer - I just read the regulations and flag up when people don’t appear to be sticking to them.  I’m quite open to other people reading them and trying to convince me otherwise if they read them differently. 

Steve

[Steve Aerospace]

Comments embedded below.

Steve (not an aviation lawyer)

On 26 Oct 2014, at 21:53, chris hillcox <ballo...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

Steve , thanks for pointing that out. I thought the whole document was article 129. I have downloaded it and will take a good look. 

I have two questions about Anthony's point. If the plane is dropped outside UK airspace then under who's jurisdiction is the airspace, who governs it, and what are their rules?

SR: I don’t know for certain - I’m not an aviation lawyer - but I suspect that once your balloon is outside UK territorial waters (i.e. above international waters) then it’s not in UK legal jurisdiction.  I asked this very point in a meeting with the CAA back in 2008 in relation to the North sea - I was told that their jurisdiction was to mid north sea - where it was picked up by France/Belgium/Netherlands/Germany/... - but I suspect this is from an air traffic control point of view rather than a purely legal standpoint.

And second, is the payload complete with space plane compliant with CAA rules when launched from the UK? 

SR: If you are talking about small paper planes then I don’t see why not if it isn’t dropped in UK airspace - but as Ive said I’m no aviation lawyer.  Of course once the balloon/plane enter another countries airspace then their regulations apply.

It also seems that like other aspects of rules governing HAB, there is a lot of variability over Europe. If the Samsung space plane mass drop was done over Germany then I guess their rules are more lax.

SR: I doubt that - IIRC permission was sought in Germany too - but they were less fussy about the littering aspect.  Many of the European countries (including Germany I think) have regulations based on ICAO rules - these are more restrictive than the UK.  I believe the CAA is going through an air regulation harmonisation process - so we may well see these applied to the UK as well.

[Radim Mutina]

Some notes from Slovakian rules - "L2 Rules of Flying":

3.1.4 Dropping objects and spraying 

Crashing any object in flight or sprayed chemicals may be only in accordance with the Authority and the relevant information, recommendations and (or) licenses of ATS unit.

But I’m afraid you can’t obtain permission for that. In general - our CAA/ATC restricted most of our airspace for HAB flights now :-( 

Radim OM2AMR

[go.ver...@googlemail.com]

Does that make the balloon permit an "aerial application certificate" then? Otherwise it would seem the CAA has tied themselves in knots. But where does it say that it is?

It's just so confusing.‎ Although the CAA has set a longstanding precedent by issuing the balloon permits, for balloons anyway.

I suppose people who want to fly high altitude gliding things should limit themselves to gliding *parachutes*, then nobody would ever know....

Ol

2E0LVR

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

From: Steve Aerospace Sent: Sunday, 26 October 2014 23:32

[David Akerman]

Well, that bit is clear, as the permit is an exemption from 129(2):

hereby exempts any standard meteorological balloon operated by Mr Habber, from the provisions of articles 3(1), 39, 129(2) and Schedule 5 of the said Order, and from Rules 35 and 37 of the Rules of 

the Air Regulations 2007, to the extent necessary to enable: ....

(a) the said balloons to fly within the United Kingdom controlled airspace and within the United  Kingdom airspace at or above Flight Level 245; and,

(b) scientific equipment to descend by parachute from the said balloons at the termination of each flight.

So the launcher is exempted to the extent necessary to enable the balloon flight in controlled/uncontrolled UK airspace and for scientific equipment to descend by parachute at the termination of the flight.

So (again I'm not a lawyer either) regardless of what 129(2) says you can, if you hold the permission, fly the balloon and have the payload descend by parachute.

You could argue that dropping something by parachute before the balloon flight terminates (i.e. balloon bursts) is not allowed, but I'm not sure it's clear either way.  It is clear (IMO) though that it has to fall by parachute.  I'd also say that if the parachute happens to be steerable, that's allowed, but (again) IANAL ...

Dave

[Steve Aerospace]

Steerable parachute? probably OK IMO - although this (guided flight) was one of the aspects the CAA specifically asked about back in back in August when I did the dual deployment stuff (XABEN 77).   Guided flight probably makes it a UAS - but I suspect it (just) avoids being classified as such by the wording of the UAS regulation (CAP772)

Steve (not an aviation lawyer)

[go.ver...@googlemail.com]

If someone wants to drop a paper airplane then presumably it is not guided, i.e it is an unguided glider.

So the appropriate substitution might be an unguided, gliding parachute. That might at least have the fun of a long horizontal flight after release, even if in random directions.

A guided parachute seems like a technological challenge, whether or not CAA approves it.

Still, any sort of guided descent arguaby makes our hobby SAFER and so presumably the CAA would approve? The worst that can happen is that the guidance fails and the parachute lands somewhere randomly, which is exactly what happens normally anyway.

IMHO... IANAL....

Ol

2E0LVR

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

From: Steve Aerospace Sent: Monday, 27 October 2014 10:17

[Steve Aerospace]

Most parachutes glide to some extent - in fact model rocketry style parachutes seem to rely on it to reduce the vertical speed.  If you watch a typical HAB landing you can see the gliding taking place.  So we already have unguided gliding parachutes.

What you say about guided decent makes some sense - the only downside I can see is that sustained gliding might impart a higher horizontal speed making worst case impacts faster.

Steve

[Nick Leaton]

http://www.rcparaglider.com/categories.asp

Nick

[go.ver...@googlemail.com]

I have always been most nervous on where the payloads land, not how fast they land (think of something coming down in front of cars on a motorway for instance). We can quite legally fly 4Ib/2.4kg payloads, and indeed this sort of weight seems routine in the States. Personally I think this sort of thing is only feasible if we intentionally land in the sea. For smaller payloads, guided, gliding descents well away from roads would seem welcome (and might help us get ‎insurance?)

Ol

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

From: Steve Aerospace Sent: Monday, 27 October 2014 11:09

[Steve Aerospace]

Ram air parafoils are (evidently) quite difficult to ensure inflation at HAB altitudes.  Perhaps some form of dual deployment parachute system with a drogue pulling out the parafoil at lower altitudes.

But given it may not work I don’t think the CAA would appreciate people testing this over UK airspace - at least not without lots of pre-testing. 

Steve

[Steve Aerospace]

Almost all my payloads have been 1Kg or less for this reason - believe me after 80+ flights you get a good idea of the risks.  IMO (and I see that might be contentious) if you can’t get your payload down to that sort of weight your just being lazy.

And yes some form of guided landing might well help with insurance.

Steve

[Joe]

You Say,,

"Still, any sort of guided descent arguaby makes our hobby SAFER and so presumably the CAA would approve?"

You would this so wouldn't you?  But here in the states I can send you a load of E-Mails from our FAA telling us that it is totally illegal, and not to do it. Interesting huh?

Joe WB9SBD

The Original Rolling Ball Clock
Idle Tyme
Idle-Tyme.com
http://www.idle-tyme.com

[Ed Moore]

Payloads of that kind of mass are quite normal in the UK too. More precedent than you can shake a stick at.