[W5SFA] End of the Line

[Roger Klein]

We’re thinking there’s more than a little bit of luck involved to get a long flight.  Two of our balloons (W5SFA and KF5ZRT) have circumnavigated at least once, and I think three others have made it across the Atlantic – WA5IWB, K5FRT and N5ATH.  A lot has to do with balloon prep – I suspect Ray waves a dead chicken over the balloon, while hopping on one foot in a circle when the moon is full!

 

Still, there’s a lot of effort that goes into properly stretching the balloon, making sure there are no balloon defects that might cause failure, how it’s sealed, how much “free lift” is ideal – seems like the latter is around 7 grams.  On top of that there’s weather –in the summer some thunderstorms can reach as high as the balloon float altitude (around 12,000m).

 

One fascinating part of the flight was that the balloon went dark for a day when it passed over Ukraine.  It got some signal reports, but the GPS was garbled (probably jamming).  It also flew over North Korea twice, so those (unnamed persons) who are responsible are probably on a list for a long vacation in the gulag making gravel J

 

As far as I know, nothing was done differently with the W5SFA balloon than the others, although it did seem to travel more in the higher latitudes.  We’ll see how the next one goes.

 

Roger N5RWK

 

From: w5sfa [mailto:w5sfa-bounces at w5sfa.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Dietz
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2023 4:07 PM
To: Mail List for the W5SFA Radio Club
Subject: Re: [W5SFA] End of the Line

 

That was an amazing achievement. I had no idea that would even be possible. 

 

Chuck W5PR 

 

On Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 4:01 PM Roger Klein <rwklein at protonmail.com> wrote:

Also, a special tip of the hat to our balloon-meister and gas-passer, WA5IWB!

 

Sent with Proton Mail <https://proton.me/>  secure email. 

 

------- Original Message -------


On Monday, June 19th, 2023 at 3:43 PM, Gary Baldwin <kf5zrt at gmail.com> wrote:




Well done Roger. A great achievement with 86 days of flying. We now have some goals to strive for in the future. The Balloon Team is proud to share our experience and achievements. Looking forward to the next launch. 

73 to all

Gary KF5ZRT

On 6/19/23 3:35 PM, Roger Klein wrote:

Folks,

 

Looks like the W5SFA balloon that was launched on March 25 has finally gone down after 86 days, 5 hours of flight. It recently completed its fourth circuit around the globe, and was well out into the Atlantic Ocean this afternoon when it started to gradually lose altitude. Its last report was at 2:34 this afternoon Central time at an altitude of 3660m.

 

This will be a hard record to beat, but we have more balloons queued up!

 

73,

 

Roger N5RWK

 

Sent with Proton Mail <https://proton.me/>  secure email. 

 

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