Grant Willis's Blog – October 2010 Archive (8)

Folks,



Well here is the story behind why we failed to launch a balloon on 10.10.10. This is the story of 10.9.10 and what went wrong - Murphy's Law was well and truely with us that weekend.



Hope you… Continue

Hi Folks,



The first of the films from what was supposed to only be the test flight of the helium balloon HD camera experiment is now up on Vimeo. This is a short compilation of the images captured from the camera attached to the balloon itself. You can see it here:



This flight took a left turn at the last minute when the balloon didnt burst where it was predicted to - resulting in the payload being carried out to see and landing 50m offshore over 60km away… Continue

My final plan for filming on 10.10.10 was to try and capture images of things I felt made my home city of Adelaide unique. The raw footage for this has now been uploaded, and tonight I have finished my own short film version of that content. While I won't be submitting the edited footage formally, I have placed it directly on Vimeo for all to see and have embedded it here for you to enjoy.



Hopefully this inspires others to complete their own works for this amazing… Continue

Well, we have had an eventful afternoon. Saturday's launch on 10.9.10 which was predicted to be the safe launch did something very unexpected, with the burst of the balloon being delayed due to various factors. This lead to the payload travelling an additional 50-60km furtther than expected. The end result was that the payload landed in the ocean about 100m off shore. While we recovered it, the electronics were damaged, and so that payload will now not be available for 10.10.10.



We did… Continue

Well, as a trial run, Horus 8 is being flown today with two telemetry packages and the camera payload. This will give us a good idea of how things will work tomorrow morning.



Here is the current plot predictions showing where the balloon is from it's launch site to now - placing it 22.5km up. We expect to pack up and prepare to retrieve it in about 1.5hrs time!

The following link will take you to the tracking site for a live… Continue

Good news - we have just checked in with the project team and reviewed the predictions for the flight path and we have decided to go for a 2nd launch on Sunday morning!

More to follow!

Helium Balloon Camera Flight for 10.10.10 - In Doubt due to the Weather



Well, the weather is not working in our favour very well for the 10.10.10 proposed launch, with the stable high presure system moving east and shifting the flight path still close to water for a landing. Unlike two days ago however we have become a little more optimistic.



As the Project Horus group wish to definitely fly this weekend, we will be… Continue

First Flight Predictions



Now that we are within 7 days of the launch, we are able to start running predictions of where the balloon might actually fly. This is unfortunately raising some concerns as it is currently predicting that it will land in Lake Alexandrina - which will not permit recovery of the payloads - rendering the attempt pointless.



We can see the predictions here:…



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