Hurricane flight?

[Paul Lowell]

My order of balloons has been stuck in customs for about a month.  That's given me some time to work on electronics.  The balloons have finally arrived, so it's time to fly!

It looks like I'll be working 3rd shift storm coverage at work, so that leaves daytime Friday open for a hurricane flight or two.  Now I just need to find some place to launch that can shield me from the wind.  Maybe I'll try a parking deck again.

Flight ideas I'm toying with:

-live daytime images of the rain bands from 100,000 ft

-recorded nighttime video of the thunderstorms in hopes of capturing sprites

I'll post here if I manage to go through with any of these

--Paul   KD4BFP

[Aurora Toennisson]

My vote is for the rain bands during the day!

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Aurora Toennisson

[Jeremy Davis]

Pics at sunrise or sunset would be nice too. I have been traveling and doing photography a lot lately. The best pics always seem before or after a storm when there are clouds and misty air with a rising or setting sun to highlight and contrast the clouds with colored light. 

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[Ray Chilcote]

Hey Paul,

I saw the balloon on aprs.fi.  I went over to where it "landed."  Expected to see you there.

I couldn't, well, wouldn't go over to where it is, as it's right next to a back yard of a house.  

I didn't see it.  But locationally, it looks like it's in some very tall hardwoods.

If you haven't gone over there yet, go to the "end of state maintenance".  Then go to the house on the right.  It's in the woods on the other side of their back yard.

Hope all is well!

Ray

KC4VTX

[Ray Chilcote]

[Paul Lowell]

We were there just a few minutes after it landed.   It's stuck WAY up a pine tree.  :(

Sorry we didn't post anything on this semi-private list about the landing -- I was very sleep deprived.  Our standard operating procedure is to keep quiet on social media until the payload is recovered (theft prevention).

Initial flight report:

My 12 hr shift at the TV station ended at 0430 Friday morning, so Chris and I showed up at Horseshoe Park in North Raleigh just after 5am to attempt a sunrise flight.  The park was gated closed (Doah!) and my low-light camera decided to lose its config and then break further.  We took it as an omen and scrubbed the flight.  I went to get an hour of sleep.

Aurora, Chris, and I met back around 0830EDT at a parking deck up on Six Forks for the daytime flight NSL-75.  I found this flight to be a lot of fun, but I may have just been punchy.  The weather was pretty awesome -- partly cloudy, cool with only occasional bands of wind.

As I was setting up the payload, the simple wire antenna on my Pi-in-the-sky broke off.    We didn't have immediate access to a soldering iron, so we reattached it by crimping it on with needle-nose pliers and crazy-glue!   Weeeee

At the last moment, we decided to add an additional camera.  So we took the payload box from the aborted sunrise flight and ripped the failed low-light camera out.  We stuck an old Mobius Mini camera in the box and sealed it up.  We then chopped-off the parachute and tied the string so that it hung about 3m below the existing flight chain.

Balloon fill was fine -- somewhat calm.  But as soon as we starting walking the gear up to the top of the parking deck, the winds came up strong!  Chris wrestled the balloon and kept his cool.  I was sure it would pop.  As soon as the gust abated, we launched as fast as we could.  We came very close to a light pole with the newly added camera box on the bottom.

The rest of the flight was pretty normal.  The pi-in-the-sky camera sent back nice photos up to a point and then stopped.  The pi kept sending telemetry fine, so perhaps the camera died from the cold.  The crimped on antenna worked great!

At 30km altitude, Aurora and I were waiting for the payload at the projected landing area -- I-40 & US-42.  We were able to see the balloon in the partly cloudy sky and knew when it popped visually.

We hung out at the landing site near nice open fields.  But the remains of the balloon tangled in the parachute and the thing fell fast.  Normally around 6km altitude we expect to see the speed start to drop from 15m/s down to 10 and eventually 5m/s.   Well this went from 15m/s to 19m/s.  Uh oh.

So we high-tailed it north as the projected landing site recalculated to Lake Benson.  At the last minute, we were not sure if we would have to swim for the payload or not (I kinda wish we had).

The string of payloads landed about 30m from the shore of Lake Benson.  But also 30m up!   At least no one was hit as it landed at 16m/s.

This is one of the hardest to get to tree landings I've seen.  I have no idea how/if we will get it.  Some of the payloads were held together with ribbon instead of string, so it may be years before it comes down.

[Richard Stember]

Our last HAB landed in a lodge pole pine about 30m high. We used a drone to get a line around one of the two payload boxes and pulled it down. It took a very experienced drone operator with a drone release mechanism to pull off the trick.

Richard Stember, KM6HCB

Science Heads Inc.

Www.scienceheads.org

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[Christopher Gorski]

If anybody’s interested, there are a few pictures here: https://flickr.com/photos/16095548@N00/sets/72157710730122883

I’m glad we had a live downlink!  But these are all the ones we got from altitude.  There should be a lot more on the chip, if and when we get it back.

Homeowner is aware of us and knows there’s a phone number to call on the box, if it ever comes down... weirder things have happened.

--me

Sent from my iPhone

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[Paul Lowell]

Here's Dorian !
I'll put everything up on www.ncnearspace.org this week

[Paul Lowell]

The initial write-up can be found at  http://www.ncnearspace.org/missions/nsl-75

On Wednesday, September 4, 2019 at 2:13:03 PM UTC-4, Paul Lowell wrote:

[Red Davies]

With the landowners consent you may be able to sweet-talk a local tree company to retrieve it for you.  When they're not busy they may do it just for the story.

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[Paul Lowell]

That's sort-of what happened.  Tree climber was interested and got it for us last Sunday.  He was a cool guy!

[Jonathan R. Trappe]

Hello team:

Does someone have a 600g Kaymont in Raleigh that they might sell me?

I'm worried about getting one on time if I order online, and I recall that one of our members had some cells 'stuck in customs' for a while-- but I think they must have eventually made it through.  

Anyone have a 600g Kaymont to sell?

Thanks so much!

-Trappe

[Paul Lowell]

I've got one for you.  Narrow neck 600g Kaymont, unopened bag.

   paul  -at-  lowell.to  919-723-8682

[Christopher Gorski]

Hey, Trappe,

I have a 600 gram cell, new in bag (new minus a few months in my closet), but no Kaymont markings.  It’s whatever was inexpensive from Scientific Sales—probably Hwoyee.  Neck is 3-1/2 inches laying flat.  Don’t know how important Kaymont is to you.

Give me a shout if you need it... you probably still have my cell # , or if not I can send it to you off list 

--me

Sent from my iPhone

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[Jonathan R. Trappe]

Hello Chris!

Thanks so much for reaching out.   

The way I understand it, Totex Japan makes both latex balloons for the scientific market, and the cholorprene balloons for the toy market.  Then, Kaymont is the sole US importer of the Totex scientfific balloons, and Pioneer is the sole importer of the Toy-tex cholorprene toy-market balloons.

I have 50 of the Pioneer 'Toy-Tex' Cholorprene baloons-- and I wanted to compare to a Kaymont.  I understand both balloons are made from the same molds, just dipped in different material (latex vs. cholorprene.)   I wanted to compare them side-by-side, so I'm after a "Totex / Kaymont" specifically -- to compare to the "Toy-tex / Pioneer" balloons I have.

Note the label in the bag with the balloon says 'Pioneer'--- but also 'Toy-Tex'--- which sounds an aweful lot like Totex. 

Vs. Totex:

Here are the ones used by the NWS Upper Air observation stations.  They only say Kaymont, but I'm pretty sure they are just the importer of the Totex Japan balloons. The box says 'Made in Japan'-- but doesn't actually say Totex:

And, for the NWS balloons, they don't say Totex either--- but I'm pretty sure that's what they are-- Totex, imported by Kaymont:

I was trying to kinda confirm the above hypothesis.

-Trappe

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[Christopher Gorski]

Hi, Trappe,

Had heard the hypothesis before, good luck proving it!  I’m not sure how to demonstrate similarity between the chloroprene and latex aside from physical measurements... our SWAG after one or two chloroprene flights was that it’s slightly less stretchy, but I’ll readily admit we don’t have enough data to really say (and we weren’t good at measuring fills at the time anyway)... and we’ve mostly been using latex since then, partially for environmental reasons (... it takes a long time for the latex to break down, but I’ve seen it start w/ one of our flights that was lost for a year before somebody called us).

I should say:  Kaymont *does* currently claim to distribute Totex balloons.   I’m unsure of the origins of Toy-Tex; form factor at the neck end was similar so I could believe your hypothesis, though it’s also possible they just copied it so the same fillers would work. 

I’ve heard NWS uses Kaymont but am not certain if that’s universally true, typically true, or whatever.  

Anyhow, I suppose my probable-Hwoyee won’t help you this time, but I’m curious what you learn!  

Good to hear from you, sir!

73 de kj4cqq k

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 15, 2019, at 9:37 AM, 'Jonathan R. Trappe' via NC Near Space Research <ncnea...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hello Chris!

Thanks so much for reaching out.   

The way I understand it, Totex Japan makes both latex balloons for the scientific market, and the cholorprene balloons for the toy market.  Then, Kaymont is the sole US importer of the Totex scientfific balloons, and Pioneer is the sole importer of the Toy-tex cholorprene toy-market balloons.

I have 50 of the Pioneer 'Toy-Tex' Cholorprene baloons-- and I wanted to compare to a Kaymont.  I understand both balloons are made from the same molds, just dipped in different material (latex vs. cholorprene.)   I wanted to compare them side-by-side, so I'm after a "Totex / Kaymont" specifically -- to compare to the "Toy-tex / Pioneer" balloons I have.

Note the label in the bag with the balloon says 'Pioneer'--- but also 'Toy-Tex'--- which sounds an aweful lot like Totex. 

<1568554093247blob.jpg>

Vs. Totex:

<1568554147276blob.jpg>

Here are the ones used by the NWS Upper Air observation stations.  They only say Kaymont, but I'm pretty sure they are just the importer of the Totex Japan balloons. The box says 'Made in Japan'-- but doesn't actually say Totex:

<1568554447383blob.jpg>

And, for the NWS balloons, they don't say Totex either--- but I'm pretty sure that's what they are-- Totex, imported by Kaymont:

<1568554458897blob.jpg>

I was trying to kinda confirm the above hypothesis.

-Trappe

On Saturday, September 14, 2019, 06:02:30 PM EDT, Christopher Gorski <cpgo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey, Trappe,

I have a 600 gram cell, new in bag (new minus a few months in my closet), but no Kaymont markings.  It’s whatever was inexpensive from Scientific Sales—probably Hwoyee.  Neck is 3-1/2 inches laying flat.  Don’t know how important Kaymont is to you.

Give me a shout if you need it... you probably still have my cell # , or if not I can send it to you off list 

--me

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ncnearspace/1272822551.1500037.1568554651857%40mail.yahoo.com.

<1568554093247blob.jpg>

<1568554147276blob.jpg>

<1568554447383blob.jpg>

<1568554458897blob.jpg>

<image1.jpeg>

[Jonathan R. Trappe]

One way to find out!

ROAD TRIP!

   

https://www.google.com/maps/place/%E3%83%88%E3%83%BC%E3%83%86%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E6%A0%AA%E5%BC%8F%E4%BC%9A%E7%A4%BE/@35.9417542,139.5577125,909m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6018c505603fffff:0x555c6dc7221128f!8m2!3d35.9417499!4d139.5599065

-Trappe

------------------------------- ------------------------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------

[Christopher Gorski]

For appropriate values of “road”!

I’m interested... ( :

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 15, 2019, at 3:47 PM, 'Jonathan R. Trappe' via NC Near Space Research <ncnea...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

One way to find out!

ROAD TRIP!

   <1568576738539blob.jpg>

https://www.google.com/maps/place/%E3%83%88%E3%83%BC%E3%83%86%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E6%A0%AA%E5%BC%8F%E4%BC%9A%E7%A4%BE/@35.9417542,139.5577125,909m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6018c505603fffff:0x555c6dc7221128f!8m2!3d35.9417499!4d139.5599065

-Trappe

------------------------------- ------------------------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------

On Sunday, September 15, 2019, 09:37:32 AM EDT, Jonathan R. Trappe <jtr...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello Chris!

Thanks so much for reaching out.   

The way I understand it, Totex Japan makes both latex balloons for the scientific market, and the cholorprene balloons for the toy market.  Then, Kaymont is the sole US importer of the Totex scientfific balloons, and Pioneer is the sole importer of the Toy-tex cholorprene toy-market balloons.

I have 50 of the Pioneer 'Toy-Tex' Cholorprene baloons-- and I wanted to compare to a Kaymont.  I understand both balloons are made from the same molds, just dipped in different material (latex vs. cholorprene.)   I wanted to compare them side-by-side, so I'm after a "Totex / Kaymont" specifically -- to compare to the "Toy-tex / Pioneer" balloons I have.

Note the label in the bag with the balloon says 'Pioneer'--- but also 'Toy-Tex'--- which sounds an aweful lot like Totex. 

<1568554093247blob.jpg>

Vs. Totex:

<1568554147276blob.jpg>

Here are the ones used by the NWS Upper Air observation stations.  They only say Kaymont, but I'm pretty sure they are just the importer of the Totex Japan balloons. The box says 'Made in Japan'-- but doesn't actually say Totex:

<1568554447383blob.jpg>

And, for the NWS balloons, they don't say Totex either--- but I'm pretty sure that's what they are-- Totex, imported by Kaymont:

<1568554458897blob.jpg>

I was trying to kinda confirm the above hypothesis.

-Trappe

On Saturday, September 14, 2019, 06:02:30 PM EDT, Christopher Gorski <cpgo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey, Trappe,

I have a 600 gram cell, new in bag (new minus a few months in my closet), but no Kaymont markings.  It’s whatever was inexpensive from Scientific Sales—probably Hwoyee.  Neck is 3-1/2 inches laying flat.  Don’t know how important Kaymont is to you.

Give me a shout if you need it... you probably still have my cell # , or if not I can send it to you off list 

--me

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ncnearspace/1277017291.1617995.1568576853125%40mail.yahoo.com.

<1568576738539blob.jpg>

<1568554093247blob.jpg>

<image1.jpeg>

<1568554458897blob.jpg>

<1568554447383blob.jpg>

<1568554147276blob.jpg>

[Tim Wiwel]

I have a 350gr. 

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