Advice on HAB Launch Site near London for a Newb

[Iqbal Hussain]

Hi everyone,

My name is Iqbal and I work at New City College in London.

I'm getting in touch with this community on behalf of our students, who are very excited to participate in a High-Altitude Balloon STEM project. They have designed and built a scientific payload to capture images and atmospheric data from the edge of space, and we are now at the final, launch-ready stage.

I want to assure you that this is a well-planned and supervised educational project. We have everything in place to ensure a safe and successful launch:

The final piece of the puzzle is finding a suitable site. Flight path predictions indicate our ideal launch area is west of London (e.g., in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, or Oxfordshire) to allow for a safe flight and recovery.

This is the first time we are running this project and could do with any advice or recommendations on where we can launch from or anything in general.

[Steve]

Exactly what rules the CAA use to determine the limitations they apply to a particular HAB launch site seem a bit of mystery.  Ideally you would ask the CAA where it would be good to launch - but it doesn't seem to work that way.  You apply for a permit on a particular site and 28 days later the CAA give you a permit with restrictions that apply to it.  Generally the CAA try to give you a permit - but may apply some stringent conditions (limited wind directions, launch times).

    You can apply for a permit here: https://applications.caa.co.uk/CAAPortal/servlet/SmartForm.html?formCode=BAL 

Its a good idea to look at airspace maps and try to find sites where you are launching into uncontrolled airspace and where your balloon won't immediately fly into controlled airspace.  The NOTAMinfo flight planning map is useful (click on Show Default airspace in Airspace details) - there is also an airspace kml you can download into google earth (search this group for details).

You will certainly want to keep well clear of London Heathrow airspace and avoid flying through the busy approach and departure paths.  Perhaps someone can come up with a site that they have used before.  I used a site to the west of Cambridge - but that is now much less ideal due to Luton Airport approach path changes.  I'm currently looking for a new site.

Wherever you go you will need land owner permission to launch - previously I have found some airfields amenable to balloon launches.

    Steve G8KHW

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[Nick McCloud]

I believe Westminster School in the heart of London launch at 5am - that is they prep so they can release at 5am - because at that time of day London Airspace is mostly empty - if you search this group their comments should come up.

Being sensible helps - which a student plan for a well known private school based near Slough totally failed on that test. 

Typically you'll have some restrictions on the balloons flight direction. Previously I launched from the High Peak at a flying club before they started flying in the morning. It was just outside one of the Manchester approaches to the East, so we had to launch with the balloon going West. New location on the outskirts of Bolton requires a Northerly flight. Look at the maps and run some predictions to see what the flight profile is like, export the KML and import to Google Maps to get a better idea of where your payload will be at various heights.

[Andrew Mulholland]

The Westminster school permission holder here! I can confirm it was quite a pain each launch to get the kids on site for 4am, with latest launch of 5:30am. It was always a dance though with ATC, as they never knew what it was, nor were they ever very happy about it... (as the CAA had done the approval, but Swanwick ATC still had to approve it on the day).

There was 2 occasions where we had everything ready, only for ATC to decide they didn't like the idea and cancel it last minute.

So I would suggest avoiding central London, it's a lot of hassle and a real risk they end up cancelling it on the morning. Best bet would be at least outside the M25, away from any of the major airports. We've had luck in the past contacting sports clubs or schools with fields in the countryside and asking to partner or just asking nicely about borrowing their facilities for an afternoon when they aren't otherwise in use.