High Altitude Tests Part1

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As promised I will start my high altitude journey. My aim is to come up with some videos until next summer. Yes you are right it is too much time but I need to start from some where and there is too much to learn.

Here are some basic sketches how it is designed for in the first place

high-altitude-design1

 

Basic calculation and assumptions.
From: http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/lift.html

Lift of Helium Balloons
Dia. Ft.  Vol. l     Lift gr.    Lift Lbs.
1      14.83       15.2        0.03
2     118.62      121.7        0.27
3     400.34      410.9        0.91
4     948.96      973.9        2.15
5    1853.45     1902.2        4.19
6    3202.76     3287.0        7.25
7    5085.86     5219.7       11.51
8    7591.72     7791.5       17.18
9   10809.30    11093.7       24.46

It is advised to have 2X weight for a good lift and give it a slack for expansion when the balloon is going up. It will expand…

It is hart to buy weather balloons and they are expensive. I would go for Jumbo party balloons ( that would be easy to find and it would be a good starting point) What I have learned from past is you should always start small and cheap until you know what you want.

You can easily find 36 inch or 45 inch party balloons. Now lets take 45 inch 3.75 feet 650 Gr lift. 36 inch giving 400 gr lift. I would need to lift at least 1000gr.

36 inch x 4 = 1,600 gr lift
45 inch x 4 = 2,600 gr lift. I definitely need at least 4 x 45 inch balloons. I need to inflate 1/2 to give me room for expansion once released to high altitudes
45 inch x 3 = 1900 gr lift. That might also work? I would prefer this because it would be easier to detect the balloon busting.
I now need a small light weight APM controllable glider?
I need to tune and recode APM arduino code to perform the mission.

As said there is too much to do.

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