This Saturday (13th September) I’ll be helping\u00a0RS Components and Reading Hackspace to launch Superman into near space where he will jump down in the footsteps of Felix Baumgartner and (more famously) Babbage Bear, parachuting safely down to Earth. \u00a0Full details on how to watch or track will be here on Friday.<\/p>\n
“Superman” will be plastic model of course – the real one just uses his personal mono-directional gravity field, as any fool knows! \u00a0He’ll carry a radio tracker so we’ll be able to plot his course on a live map during the flight. \u00a0His capsule will carry several cameras – 3 4K models for what we hope will be some stunning video, plus 2 Raspberry Pi cameras which will send images down to the ground throughout the flight.<\/p>\n
The project started a few months ago with a meeting at Reading Hackspace, where we discussed the aims and challenges of the project, and how exactly we were going to achieve those aims.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We soon decided to do 2 flights – one to test the new 4K camera and to get some extra footage, and then the main flight. \u00a0The test flight was about a month ago, for which I mounted a Superman model to a balsa wood frame carrying the new camera, a Raspberry Pi camera, and 2 radio trackers:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The camera and the Pi tracker went inside the central payload area:<\/p>\n I spent some time thinking about how best to mount Superman. \u00a0I wanted it to look like he was hanging on to a parachute, but without the possibility of him flying out of shot and possibly getting tied up with the support lines after the balloon burst (potentially a very violent part of the flight). \u00a0The solution came with some hollow braided nylon cord, into which I carefully pushed some short lengths of carbon fibre rod. \u00a0So, a rigid support that looks like rope:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The rods were pushed into holes in the balsa wood frame above, and Superman’s hands (ouch!) below, then glued firmly with a special 2-part adhesive designed to adhere to any plastic:<\/p>\n Both ends were tied also to remove any possibility of Superman escaping.<\/p>\n The fill was easy, with only light winds …<\/p>\n as was the launch. \u00a0We then watched the images downloading over the radio link from the Raspberry Pi.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meanwhile the map was showing his path over the ground. \u00a0We set out to chase about this time, and you can see the long path that Superman took and the much shorter path of the chase car!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We were close by when Superman landed, safely at the edge of a field a short way from where we were parked:<\/p>\n![\"IMG_0574\"](\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0574.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>The flight got to about 35.5km (a bit higher than expected) before bursting, after which Superman really did look like he was “Falling With Style”!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n