This is a blog about my HAB (High Altitude Ballooning) projects.
To contact me: dave@daveakerman.com
Please note: This blog attracts quite a bit of spam now pretty much all of which is dealt with automatically. There’s a very small chance that if you make a comment it will be treated as spam. I no longer read the spam reports so if you think this has happened just drop me a line on the above email address.
At Prince William School in Oundle,Northamptonshire we are looking to launch a similar programme to what you have done with Buzz and Cloud. Can we please have some advise on some issues that we have encountered. The main problem is liability for the baloons decent and where it lands. Please may you tell us how you overcame this issue. Thank You on behalf the PWS Astronomy Club
Insurance is a tricky issue – people have tried but failed to get any insurance company interested. The actual risk is very low. If I remember correctly the met office launch 3 balloons daily from each of 6 locations in the UK, and they’ve had very few payouts (typically £200 for broken glass in a greenhouse). Average is something like 20 pence per flight. If you do manage to find insurance please let me know, but I’d be very surprised if you can.
Instead you should follow sensible precautions, principally using the flight predictor at http://habhub.org/predict/ to ensure you’re not going to land in a town or city or near an airport. UKHAS (UK High Altitude Society) has a set of guidelines at http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:guidelines and those are well worth following. Also ask on the #highaltitude IRC group for any particular advice. I’m on there most days, nickname “daveake”.
Thank you very much that is a real help to us!!
Another question that we have been undecided about is the payload to baloon size ratio. What size payload and baloon have you used for your projects
Many Thanks
OSP
Paradoxically, I’ve used larger balloons when I’ve had smaller payloads….
For photographic flights my payloads have been around 700-1000g, and for those I’ve used 1000g balloons. My other flights have been altitude record attempts, and for those I’ve used a 1600g balloon to carry a much smaller payload (100-150g).
Next time I’m hoping to fly a payload that weighs around 55g.
The best size depends on your payload weight and what you’re trying to achieve. Most “normal” payloads are around the 1kg mark and a 1000g balloon can take those to around 30km.
Dave, the blog about the foil balloons was really interesting. Do you happen to have any tables for foil balloon sizes, free lift, and payload weight…or any rough figures I could use?
Many Thanks
Chris Hillcox
Chris, I just aimed for 1m/s ascent rate, measured by letting go of the balloon indoors and letting it fly to upstairs!
There are some figures on the UKHAS wiki.
Dave
Hi Dave
I’m at the Movement Ecology Lab at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. We’re looking to develop a GPS receiver + transmitter + several other features for tracking birds. Top weight should not exceed 11-12 grams. From browsing through your blog it seems you were able to build very small dataloggers. I’d be happy if you could contact me at the attached e-mail address to discuss potential development procedure of such a device.
Thanks,
Ron Chen
Hi Dave,
I’m a science photographer based in London. Could you please contact me about a HAB photo project that I’d like to discuss with you.
Thanks, enrico
Dave
I’m helping set up a network of RaspberryJam events around the UK and beyond.
Would you be willing to present at one of our events?
Alan
Dave,
My school is running a similar project which I’m involved in, and I would love to know what type of knots you used that worked so well!
Thank you
Kate
I just make them up as I go along
Actually, I just do a few half-hitches and then put a small piece of duct tape over to stop it unwinding. Always tape up all knots.
Hi Dave,
I’m planning an interactive, educational HAB science experiment event to be held in Manchester next year and although I have started to purchase equipment (NTX2, GPS, GSM etc), I am now wondering if you and your associates would be interested in doing the HAB part, since it is probably best to leave that to the professionals? Rather than try to take too much on and re-invent the wheel. Would this be something you may be interested in doing via a video-link to Manchester?
Thanks,
Anthony
Hi Dave,
I’m organising the speakers for the AMSAT-UK meeting in Guildford in September this year. Any chance you or someone from UKHAS could give us a talk on your recent exploits. (SRD# / dl-fl-digi might go down well).
73
Dave
G4DPZ
September’s probably not good for me – I have a foreign trip plus a couple of talks booked already. Might be worth asking on the UKHAS mailing list especially as a couple of the others there know a lot more about SDR and dl-fldigi than I do.
Dave
Hello. After seeing your project i am interested in giving this ago myself. Currently doing research. Please can you help advice on what GPS device you use with your Arduino.
Thanks for any help you can provide on this.
Kind Regards,
Matt
Good morning,
I have just come across your project and I am both amazed and intreged. I there a possibility that I could attend a launch and or a retreval?
I will of coure make my own way to any launch area or start of a retrival. I of course appreciate that you must recieve many requests of this kind and that it may not be possible.
I would be greatful if you would contact me via me label.
Catherine Stephenson
Good morning,
I have just come across your project and I am both amazed and intreged. I there a possibility that I could attend a launch and or a retreval?
I will of coure make my own way to any launch area or start of a retrival. I of course appreciate that you must recieve many requests of this kind and that it may not be possible.
I would be greatful if you would contact me via my Email.
Catherine Stephenson
Hi Dave,
I’m building my own HAB right now inspired in the work you’ve done so far.
I am wondering if you ever thought about avoiding the ballon burst so that it can also be recovered and used again.
Regards
Nuno
No, the latex is delicate and would probably get damaged when it lands.
Probably doesn’t mean it is not possible.
The cost of the balloon itself deserves a second look at this issue. Maybe some kind of system that recovers the ballon to a box while the payload is descending.
Anyway, just an idea.
Possible – probably.
Pointless – definitely.
Latex is delicate. Recovering it would be very difficult. Equipment to recover it in flight would cost extra helium what you save in latex. Also, latex degrades with UV anyway. I would not spend any time trying to save something that is cheap to replace and very probably would need to be replaced even if recovered.
I guess you are right. Ok, let me then focus in building my HAB – my very first – and let’s see form there. Thanks.
Yes, the KISS principal applies to HAB, and especially applies to a first flight. I’ve done around 17 flights now and I still wouldn’t attempt to recover the latex even if I thought it was a worthwhile thing to do.
one more topic, just for discussion: have you ever thought about at certain altitude start releasing some of the helium inside the ballon, but still maitain lift. This way, hopefully, we can get higher.
Hello Dave,
Please get back to me at my email. I believe that we can have some exchange.
Best,
Fredrik
Hello Dave,
last Year we have made 4 HAB Starts.
This year i will use the PI for SSDV Pictures, ist will be nice if you get back per email that we can have some exchange about that.
Best Regards
Thorsten
Hi there Dave, I am putting together an article on what UK HABists have planned for 2013 and wonder where your project may go this year; particularly with the Raspberry Pi. I hope to hear from you soon – Chris – Balloonnews.wordpress.com
Next Pi flight will hopefully be on 26th or 27th January. It’ll have a few new things but, sorry, I’m keeping those as a surprise for now!
Hi there Dave, our Primary school is considering whether this sort of a project might be good as a fundraiser and as PR event for our school build project (we are in West Berks). Bit like the teddy launches that Cambridge and Southampton have done that made national press. I have read quite a bit about HAB but have no practical experience and was hoping you could provide some guidance on a first launch to get some fun upper atmosphere photos and (hopefully) recover some matchbox experiments from the airframe. I’ve contacted Reading Uni Meteorology department who are interested but apparently have not sent a radiosonde so high or done photos/recovery but could help with trajectory calcs to help with an event to get the kids switched on to science. Happy to come and see you to discuss and understand what kit I need to get to do this on a tight budget like Project Icarus MIT students http://space.1337arts.com/
Thanks, Phil
Phil,
Yes I’d be glad to help. Send me an email to dave@daveakerman.com to discuss.