My High Altitude Balloon Flight (1 Viewer)

[DBK]

As we don't have a ballooning section on the forum I'm putting this here as the main focus of it is really about the images not the balloon.

I launched a small helium filled balloon on Sunday and it had a very successfully flight. It reached a maximum altitude of 31,858m (104,521 ft) which was slightly above the expected altitude. The balloon burst at this point, having reached an estimated diameter of 4.8m. Under a small parachute the Raspberry Pi powered payload took nearly two and a half hours to descend making a safe landing in a field of sheep near the A30 north of Dartmoor. Although the payload had transmitted reduced size images by radio throughout the flight the full sized images were stored on an on-board SD card which I was able to extract. This YouTube video shows a bit of the launch preparation and some of the best images. And yes, the camera angle of the video section has cut off my feet!

 

[Two on Tour]

I hope you issue a NOTAM.

 

[Robert Clark]

Brilliant!

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[DBK]

I hope you issue a NOTAM.

Yes, all fully fully legal and I also had insurance although this isn't a legal requirement.

 

[bungy]

Brilliant!

 

[Just smiffy]

Excellent John.... when are you doing the first manned flight...? I’ll volunteer for the first mission...

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[Skez]

Very cool! Had you any idea when launched how far you would have to travel to recover??

 

[David and Sally]

Awesome!

 

[The Dotties]

Tanfastic. That’s put getting a drone into perspective.

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[DBK]

Very cool! Had you any idea when launched how far you would have to travel to recover??

Yes, there's a website you can enter the details into - rate of ascent and expected highest altitude (calculated using another website ) and it will predict the flight path. It was very accurate. This was the prediction it made on Tuesday, five days before launch and the actual flight path was very close to this. The only real difference was the balloon didn't fly south west after launch or curl around before landing. It was still saying it would on the day of the launch but it didn't follow this path although the actual landing site was very close to the predicted one. I think the model is very good at the higher level air currents but below a thousand metres it wasn't so good. The red starburst on the flight path is the expected point of burst and this was very close too.

 

[Spriddler]

Triff!
It would be just my luck for it to land and be run over on the A30 or 50' up a tree.
(I used to chase my free-light 'planes on foot all over the South Downs).
Just seen your map - it drifted quite a long way after the balloon burst.

 

[DBK]

Triff!
It would be just my luck for it to land and be run over on the A30 or 50' up a tree.
(I used to chase my free-light 'planes on foot all over the South Downs).

That's the worry and for a moment as we were monitoring the flight it was going to land on the A30 but this only remained for a few moments. The main issue was trees as the area it was going to land in has quite a few of them. Ultimately, you can't be sure of recovering it so you have to be ready accept its loss.

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[PhilMary]

As we don't have a ballooning section on the forum I'm putting this here as the main focus of it is really about the images not the balloon.

I launched a small helium filled balloon on Sunday and it had a very successfully flight. It reached a maximum altitude of 31,858m (104,521 ft) which was slightly above the expected altitude. The balloon burst at this point, having reached an estimated diameter of 4.8m. Under a small parachute the Raspberry Pi powered payload took nearly two and a half hours to descend making a safe landing in a field of sheep near the A30 north of Dartmoor. Although the payload had transmitted reduced size images by radio throughout the flight the full sized images were stored on an on-board SD card which I was able to extract. This YouTube video shows a bit of the launch preparation and some of the best images. And yes, the camera angle of the video section has cut off my feet!

Incredible !!!!!
Phil

 

[Scotch mist]

Love it ,very different BUT you have to much time on your hands John , lol

 

[Figaro]

Fantastic flight, thanks for sharing. I hope your audience at the launch site were suitably impressed.

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[Spriddler]

That's the worry and for a moment as we were monitoring the flight it was going to land on the A30 but this only remained for a few moments. The main issue was trees as the area it was going to land in has quite a few of them. Ultimately, you can't be sure of recovering it so you have to be ready accept its loss.

That would be a pity, but at least you would have a video record of the flight. I had to recover one 'plane from a tree with a grappling hook on a length of cord but only the engine was any good afterwards. That was in the pre-digital days when we just stuck our name and address on them. Sadly, squirrels can't read.

 

[phillipsheila]

enjoyed it very much

 

[FIDGET]

Thank you for sharing it with us , brilliant !!

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[DBK]

Love it ,very different BUT you have to much time on your hands John , lol

I guess it was a socially distanced launch with two distinct "bubbles" in the field. But not the first such launch in the UK, I know of two other launches made since March.

 

[DBK]

That would be a pity, but at least you would have a video record of the flight. I had to recover one 'plane from a tree with a grappling hook on a length of cord but only the engine was any good afterwards. That was in the pre-digital days when we just stuck our name and address on them. Sadly, squirrels can't read.

It did have sticker on it with my details and offering a £20 reward. Fortunately I spotted it on the ground before No 1 Son did - that's the lanky one in the video.

 

[gus-lopez]

Excellent! Stunning photos .

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[funflair]

So how do you know it’s not going to cause a pile up on the motorway when it comes down and smashes someone’s widescreen or takes a biker out?

Martin

 

[Hellski]

So how do you know it’s not going to cause a pile up on the motorway when it comes down and smashes someone’s widescreen or takes a biker out?

Martin

interesting question for DBK

 

[DBK]

So how do you know it’s not going to cause a pile up on the motorway when it comes down and smashes someone’s widescreen or takes a biker out?

Martin

It weighs about a 100g and is mostly 20mm thick expanded polystyrene. It was falling just before landing at 4 m/s (9 mph) which is quite slow. A pigeon or pheasant would do much more damage and they are a lot more common.

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[Brendan]

Amazing project, well done.

 

[funflair]

It weighs about a 100g and is mostly 20mm thick expanded polystyrene. It was falling just before landing at 4 m/s (9 mph) which is quite slow. A pigeon or pheasant would do much more damage and they are a lot more common.

And don’t carry insurance

 

[jwells]

Please can you let us have the technical information regarding raspberry Pi/camera /transmission /tracking /etc. Or where we can find the information! Really interested in your projects! Many thanks. John

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[DBK]

Please can you let us have the technical information regarding raspberry Pi/camera /transmission /tracking /etc. Or where we can find the information! Really interested in your projects! Many thanks. John

A good place to start would be here:

Dave Akerman – High Altitude Ballooning

www.daveakerman.com

There are several links from this website which are worth exploring.

This page describes the construction of the tracker and has a link from it to a page describing the gateway, which is the receiver so to speak.

DIY Lightweight Pi Tracker with SSDV – Dave Akerman

www.daveakerman.com

It shows the Pi Zero built into a case but I didn't do that. Mine looked like this:

I made up the payload container from layers of 20 mm thick expanded polystyrene. The things on wires are the GPS chip and the BME280 sensor which measures air pressure, humidity and temperature.

The gateway displays the data coming from the tracker:

You can see the lines containing GPS position and various other numbers which include the data from the BME280. The SSDV packets are the images. It sends them down split into packets, typically around 60 for a 640 by 480 sized image. The full sized images were around 3500 by 2500 pixels but these are too big to send over the radio so that was why it was important to recover the payload and access them on the SD card. The tracker on the flight was transmitting on 434.300 MHz. The screenshot above shows it at 433.250 which I was originally going to use before someone pointed out I couldn't use this frequency!

You can also see a line saying the frequency changed to 433.700. This is when the gateway plays a clever trick and sends a message to the tracker identifying any missing image packets and telling the tracker to send them again. It does this every minute. Clever stuff!

 

[PhilMary]

DBK
I am interested to see how you go on with airplanes as I can see your device went to 100kft that's right through the height that airplanes use?
Phil

 

[Pausim]

Fascinating, I am impressed. I shall have to resign from the Flat Earth Society.

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