With the clock running down we finally got the break we had been looking for.
As always happens, last week we thought that Thursday would be the day and guess what? It was.
Truth be told, tomorrow would have been better but the flight is in the bag and there was no option to wait another day.
Assessment of the met on Tuesday night had us decide that the 25,000 foot flight was going to end in tears with a fast landing in a potentially remote area. Not being able to retrieve the balloon or damaging it would put paid to the main flight to 39,000 feet so a Cessna 207 was booked for Wednesday so Glen, Heather and Greg could jump their buns off all day.
I had a great day flying around them in the R44 chopper shooting video and even got to have a play on the controls. At the end of the day I hitched a ride in the 207 jump plane from Curtain Springs to Ayers Rock and with in minutes of take off had the controls and flew all the way in to the circuit.
The guys got some amazing shots over Mount Connor but unfortunately Australian Geographic have first bid on them so we can't publish anything until it is all released.
All in all a great day of aviation.
After a late group get together Wednesday night, it was into bed before the alarms started going off at 0250 when the alarms started going off.
While not totally calm on the surface, it was enough to give us a shot. The upper winds were still not strong enough and the direction also was not great but again, it was within our minimums for a flight attempt. A chilly -53 deg. C and 80 knots was on order for the top end of the flight.
Glenn, Heather, John and myself sat in chairs pre-breathing O2 for an hour while the crew inflated the balloon. It was soon obvious that the ground wind was picking up at the nearly empty 400 bounced around on the launch rope.
Once our hour was up it was into the basket and soon away for the flight. It was a good hour before sunrise as we slipped into the dark sky with hardly a line of light on the horizon.
I was flying the balloon while John chatted to ATC for out clearances. I kept the climb rate at a pretty solid 800 to 1000 feet per minute and in no time the temperature was dropping as we cruised past 24,000 feet.
Around this time the only normally aspirated pilot light failed but the two on O2 feed burned quite nicely.
At just under 31,000 feet we had a total flame out and some quick and practiced hits with the striker had the main burner re-light and the pilot lights running again and we were on our way.
By 34,000 feet I was tweaking everything on the burners to keep the happy and one tweak too much had another total flame out. Again, re-light was not too much of a problem.
In the end we aborted the climb at over 37,000 feet indicated. A really rough adjustment from the logged data indicates that it might have been as high as 38,800 feet but none of that can be confirmed until the record is actually ratified.The landing was as wild as expected with around 32knots down to about 500 feet before easing off to 16-17 knots on the surface. Not a lot of fun in a lightly loaded 400 I can tell you.
The good news is that it was filmed from two helicopters and from what I have seen it looked every bit as exciting from outside as it looked from my end on the burner and vent. Expect some Youtube video as soon as we are allowed to play with it.As for the Jumpers, well that is their part of the story and is owned by 60 minutes so I can't really say much else at this time. Look out for it and some spectacular vision of the whole project on Sunday night in a weeks time (3rd of August I think).
The total flight time was 2 hours, 18 minutes, for a distance of 76.9Nm. Peak speed was about 92 Knots. Altitude is still to be confirmed but is probably in excess of 38,000 feet. Maximum climb rate was 1161 ft/min and a the fastest descent rate was 1575 ft/min. All in all great stuff.
