BASE 41

Dear friends,

BASE 41 went up came down and we brought everything home. Less than five hours and 125 miles on the vehicle for the entire trip.

Only two significant problems.

One - the 144.39 MHz APRS radio had developed some battery problem that
was not noticed during the reprogramming and recharge earlier this
week. The emergency battery pack that was quickly spliced into the
power input failed at a connector to one of the batteries (evidentally
at about 25 kft ASL).

Two - the initially filled 1000 gram Kaysam balloon tore apart at the
top of the spreader ring just before we tied it off. The steady winds
had driven the balloon into a fascinating oscillation pattern. One of
my students caught the balloon with his hand, but there was no neck
left to tie off. That balloon did serve as a good indicator of the
initial launch direction, but we already knew that with the 10+
mile/hour surface winds. A 1200 gram Kaymont was fitted to the flight
string and the flight went off after the additional twenty minute delay.

Burst was just under 90 kft ASL and the landing was witnessed by the
launch team and a set of construction workers. The foreman retrieved
the payloads before I secured permission to enter.

Additional details will be posted. All experiments appeared to work. Now the data analysis begins.

Howard