{"id":2061,"date":"2017-05-09T14:44:13","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T14:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2017-05-09T14:44:13","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T14:44:13","slug":"strat-the-bats-big-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=2061","title":{"rendered":"Strat The Bat’s Big Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a high altitude balloonist for about 6 years, but a fan of Jim Steinman’s music since Bat Out Of Hell hit the world in 1977. \u00a0The latter has had something of a renaissance lately with the musical version previewing in Manchester, and soon to open at The Coliseum in London. \u00a0I saw the show on opening night and it blew me away about as much as Meat and Karla did on The Old Grey Whistle Test back when I was barely 17!<\/p>\n

Those who know me know that I like puns, and I found an obvious one in the name of the musical’s lead character – Strat. \u00a0So I figured that somehow I should send Strat into the Stratosphere – a joke that I’ve been milking since I thought of it a few weeks ago. \u00a0The actual Strat would need a very large balloon to enter the stratosphere, and would probably die more permanently than he does in the show, so I decided instead to send a little foam bat:<\/p>\n

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that I bought in Paris at another musical with Jim Steinman’s music – Tanz der Vampire.<\/p>\n

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So, how to send the little critter (now renamed as Strat) up into the stratosphere? \u00a0Well, the sending-up part is really easy – get a weather balloon, fill with hydrogen, attach bat to balloon and let go – the balloon goes up, getting gradually larger in the rarified air as it rises, and eventually gets as large as it can before bursting, at which point everything heads Earthward very very quickly. \u00a0A parachute is needed to slow the flight down as the air gets thicker at lower altitudes, with the payload (bat) hopefully landing safely in a field somewhere. \u00a0I\u00a0wanted to have a video of Strat’s flight, so I glued him on to a short rod for positioning in front of the camera:<\/p>\n

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That “somewhere” is planned in advance using wind prediction software, but the actual flight could land a few miles from the target so it needs to be tracked. \u00a0For that, the payload carries a GPS device so it knows where it is, a radio transmitter to relay that position down to the ground, and a small computer board that glues those components together and adds various functions such as providing a live prediction of where the landing might be, and adding photographs from a tiny camera. \u00a0I added a video camera to take a continuous video of the entire flight, and some extra trackers I was testing. \u00a0This is the entire payload including batteries and foam boxes to protect the contents and whatever it all lands on.<\/p>\n

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And here I’m testing the view on the camera:
\n\"\"The total weight was 550g, which is about average, and I chose a 500g balloon which was calculated to send the flight up to about 30km which is plenty high enough to get good pictures. \u00a0I have no photographs of the launch (I didn’t have any help) but it was easy enough.<\/p>\n

The flight was expected to take about 2.5 hours, with a landing near Glastonbury about 2 hours away, so I set off in the chase car (fully equipped with radio tracking kit and other items – more on those later). \u00a0Here’s the entire flight path that it actually took (and was very close to the prediction):<\/p>\n

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You may be used to the view from 30,000 feet or so, where commercial jets fly, but that’s just the top of the Troposphere. \u00a0Above that is the Stratosphere, where the sky becomes increasingly black (because there’s almost no atmosphere above). \u00a0Weather balloons can, depending on payload weight and balloon size, get well above 100,000 feet, well above any jet commercial or military, and to get any higher requires a large rocket. \u00a0This photo is from early in the flight, still with a blue sky:<\/p>\n

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and this is later, where the sky has gone black:<\/p>\n

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and you can see the thin blue line of the atmosphere on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the video camera was recording Strat’s flight. \u00a0Here’s the launch (from the field behind my house):<\/p>\n