Two get very high, and other hot air balloon related foolery

Yuck, training again

2008-02-20T06:01:00.001+02:00

It is what it says!

Another mission, maybe so I had my last beer for a while two days ago and a pie at Fred and Sues yesterday.

Eyes down to loose weight!

G

Oh and its just gone 0600 on a misty rainy morning and I'm leaving for the gym, first time in a long while.

It starts

2006-03-24T13:14:00.000+02:00

Yes the training has begun, I have managed to take the new training shoes out twice now.

Did not manage it this morning as I went flying, guess I will just have to drag my self around the block later.

Boy my legs are sore though.

Getting ready for the high flight last year I was getting up to 30km a day on machines seems miles off right now.

I will add more detail about the new escapade soon.

G

Time for another hot air balloon prank

2006-03-21T08:23:00.000+02:00

I have bought another pair of trainers and now have to take the next step of well um stepping with them.

The next plan is to fly over the Sardine run a natural event that occurs of the coast of South Africa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3887599.stm

http://www.sardine-run.com/

http://www.seafever.co.za/newpage63.htm

The plan has started and later I will post it too my main website and add a link here

G

Time to get fit again

2006-03-15T23:07:00.000+02:00

Yes next silly balloon flight scheme has been hatched.

This time only for Gary

So next Moday, March 20th 2006 I will start to try and loose weight again! Honest.

This ones going to be very cool more details later though

G

Blast big gaps

2005-11-02T09:49:00.000+02:00

Not very good at this blogging thing! Heres the report of what happened written for the South African Balloon Club.

Two get very high - BAFSA report.

Part one.

So there we were, 30,000’ upside down, nothing on the clock but the maker’s name. All good flying stories should start with a line like that. For Lev David and I, it was sort of true.

Topping out at 30,334’, briefly we were the highest people stood outside anywhere. We shook hands and the feeling was humbling and then we had to return to a pressing need. Relighting the pilot lights, they had gone out 834 feet beforehand. I knew that the chances of getting them lit before we had dropped below 25,000’ were slim - the balloon factory in England had told me so!

The story began as so many do in a Beer tent. Splashy Fen 2004 Underberg Kwa Zulu Natal. I had met Lev David, producer and presenter of East Coast Radio’s breakfast show a month or two earlier. He stood on top of one of my balloons at the ABSA Stadium Durban. I was very impressed with his fearless manner.

Live on the show they had spoken via sat phone to a climber on top of Kilimanjaro, Lev asked if the balloon could get higher and I said of course. Reaching the height of Everest at 29,000’ and a bit seemed the way forward. With my beer head on, I had said the balloon could do it without really thinking about it. What would it matter we both would have forgotten the conversation by the morning.

The conversation was forgotten but only for a couple of weeks.

When revisited in the cold light of day, the problem of getting the balloon to height did not seem insurmountable. A quick check of the manufacturers slide rule load calculator proved that two of us could easily get up to 15,000’ with a couple of hundred spare kilos of lift in hand. Sitting down with the formulas would be required for an accurate idea of what we could lift higher. Time to ask grown ups for help.

I have a friend in Australia, Steve Griffin who makes a habit of taking small balloons to great heights. He holds several world records for one-man balloons and has even gone to the Arctic in order to get into efficient low temperatures. An email to Steve provided an excel spreadsheet which I had to modify slightly as he can’t get much above 18,000’ in a hopper. It had the maths sorted though. I ran the numbers and worked out that we would have at least 40Kg of spare lift at 30k.

Working the old saying, measure twice cut once, I checked with another grown up, Simon Forse, the technical guy at Lindstrand balloons in England. He sent this jaunty equation, based on a 180 at an internal temp of 100C

L = p x V
Therefore L = V x p0
Im = 3.28084ft
Where for 30Kft = 9143m or 9500m
P0 = 0.43890 kgIm3
T0 = 226.4 0K
V = 5100m3
T1 = 100 0C or 373 0K
0.60697
L = 5100 x 0.43890

L = 5100 x 0.43890 x 0.39303

L max = 879kg

Ok so we could certainly lift the two of us.

Getting into the stride of things it was time to address the environment in which we would be operating. The Internet, modern source of answers to everything quickly painted a picture. We potentially faced temperatures of -60C in 110 knot winds generally from the North West. I knew it was going to be cold but –60! The wind speed mattered not, other than selection of launch site. As long as it was slow for the landing.

Every 18,000’ that you climb halves the properties of the atmosphere at sea level. We would be operating close to ¼ of sea level density. Less than half the available air obviously means much less oxygen for

1. Us
2. The pilot lights.

All pilots have heard of hypoxia, once again the internet provides answers without oxygen you would last…
Times of Useful Consciousness
(Effective performance time)
Altitude Conscious time
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
40,000
45,000
50,000+ 5 – 12 minutes
2 – 3 minutes
45 – 75 seconds
30 – 60 seconds
10 – 30 seconds
12 – 15 seconds
12 or less seconds

Important also to realise that this is the time it will take you to become unconscious, at 30k death will follow after 2 minutes.

Obviously we would have to get the right oxygen equipment. I will not go in to great detail but the continuous flow systems often used in light aircraft for supplementary oxygen are not suitable for flight above 20,000’. A pulse breathing system and mask is required for higher altitudes and the amount of oxygen needed to be pumped at you increases dramatically.

Now when I started looking the only people that I could find that had that sort of gear were the military. The systems are used for high altitude parachute jumps by the Special Forces. Contact was made with the air force and at the same time SA flyer magazine, I figured they might well know someone who could help.

That was us, now for the pilot lights. In the past people have rigged up supplies of oxygen for the pilot lights but that is now considered rather dodgy. One hard landing and you have broken oxygen bottle feeding perhaps a tank fire. As you climb higher the burner flame starts to detach from the burner, moving higher. This is the point at which the correct mix of oxygen to support the flame is present. Eventually the flame will detach and disappear up into the envelope all by itself. To stop that happening you need to lean the fuel mixture. There are two ways, either moderates the flow using the tank valve or fit reduced jets. This is the option we took. Once above 25,000’ you leave the modified burner running continuously. A leaned burner means less power available. This will bring us up against a fundamental mistake made in high flight planning.

At sea level you can get about 220 kg per hour of fuel through the burners, burning flat out. Take those burners to 30k and the maximum you can get through is 20 kg whilst sustaining a flame. If you try and get more through it will simply blow out the flame too much fuel to air. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realise that you will not be able to generate lots of heat.

Load charts assume an internal temperature of 100C it is unlikely even with the burners operating flat out that you will generate that temperature. An internal temp of 80C is far more reasonable.

All further load calculations for the flight were made assuming an internal temp of 80C. This meant losing weight, from the equipment and from ourselves.

Going to a gym is a fairly alien concept for me but I knew weight had to go and fitness had to improve for altitude conditioning.

An unwelcome side effect of getting the equipment light for high altitude is the effect it has when you return to low level. If you do a really good job of getting the weight off and the internal temperature drops into the 40C range then you are in danger of going solar. The sun will keep you flying and make it devilishly hard to land; more especially stop on a windy day. That’s why when looking at the weather an overcast day might be a good idea.

Now we had an idea of what to expect, what sort of oxygen equipment we needed and what we needed to do to the kit. How long would it take? Another thumb suck approximation was made. Fuel for two hours should be enough.

Lev would broadcast live to the show and that bought a set of communication problems but radio being radio and not TV meant finding other ways to engage the listeners.

Live tracking of the balloon on the East Coast website was the method chosen. Time to find people that knew how to do it. By chance I came across Stuart Baynes from Joburg. He proved to be a great source of knowledge and eventually put us in touch with H Communications. They very kindly offered to build and find sponsors for the entire tracking gig.

It would be handy for the crew to be able to see where we were as well. If there was 110 knots of wind at altitude we would be a long way away quick. In order to do this we would need laptops. These were provided by HP one in the balloon and two on the ground.

The thought of high winds at altitude and a look at the charts and suitable landing areas pulled us towards choosing Estcourt airfield as a launch site. Another consideration was that if we had to standby for weather for any amount of time we could leave the gear rigged in a hanger and pull it out as required.

Next we had to make sure we would be allowed to climb to 30k in that area. Special use of airspace was cleared with CAMU for the first week of May which is when traditionally frost arrives in this wood of the neck. I must say that Tanya at CAMU was outstanding.

Lev sorted out clothing used by climbers on Everest, Foshini’s new outdoor clothing retailers, Due South kindly let us walk into a flagship store and choose what we wanted.

With bits coming together and knowledge being gathered we ordered the high altitude burner jets and once they arrived scheduled a practice flight. This was a month beforehand at the beginning of April. The idea behind that being we would have plenty of time to fix things or change stuff.

The tracking system required a relay station connected to an always on internet connection. It would also help if that was at a high spot. Andrew at the Antbear B&B in the hills above Estcourt helped with that. Rather annoyingly all the equipment worked at home and as soon as it was moved fell over. That meant that for the practice the only recording we would have would be from the following vehicle.

Unfortunately the weather didn’t play ball. The Saturday morning was forecast windy with rain. We took a decision not to drive all the way up to Estcourt and instead try and get as much done from home as possible.

We had hoped to fly four of us to 20k but with the forecast high speed winds at low level I was not happy carrying oxygen equipment kindly leant by Peter How of Composite Technologies I did not want to damage it.

It was all unravelling really. Still we went ahead with Charmaine from SA Flyer on board. As soon as we took off Henry informed us the tracking was not working. Lesson number one, we had put the tracking box in a different compartment to Lev. He had to climb across and open it up. Lesson number two, Henry had not turned it on!

Up we went to a very average 12,000’. Lev started getting used to driving the software for the 1:50000 maps that were on our laptop. All in all it was a fairly pleasant flight landing ironically on the other side of the highway from Estcourt airfield.

It may not have been a thundering success but it did get all the players together at the same time and introduce those that had not seen balloons before to what happens. It also gave what had now become a team, a more focussed and real goal.

Next came high altitude training with the air force at Waterkloof there we were taken without oxygen in the hyperbaric chamber to 20,000’ and then left to sit a while and become hypoxic. To be honest the chamber was the thing that I was most afraid of and the reason that I had been dragging myself to the gym every morning for two months. I had lost very little weight, only 6kg but was feeling much fitter. On average I was doing 22km a day on the machines.

Our blood oxygen saturation levels were measured and at the start Lev had a perfect score of 100 I lagged behind at 96 percent. Lev being only 24 and much fitter and leaner than me had not been as diligent with his training. I was somewhat miffed. Having sat a while our oxygen levels were checked again and Lev had dropped to 67% and I was happily a whole 11% better off at 78%. We can only put it down to me living up here at 4000 odd feet and training harder. Reviewing the video of our trip in the chamber you can clearly see us joking more and I vividly remember thinking how heavy the camera was becoming. On the way down at 4000 fpm my ears really started hurting after only two minutes I was complaining. The Sgt Major controlling events outside slowly took us back up to 18k again and then we started down again at a more leisurely rate. On examination by the doc afterwards my ear wax was said to have moved and blocked my left ear. Nice very nice.

The next day both Lev and I felt exhausted.

Many promises had been made by many people about the oxygen gear. This was what the flight hinged on. We were let down by a couple of companies and in the end I resorted to discovering who made the gear used here by the military. I found the company in the UK and they agreed to send me a couple of units. The only snag was that they are considered a weapon and we would have to apply for permission to import weapons! All too difficult with less than a month to go a real pain.

Another return to the internet and now I was looking probably where I should have been in the first place, the climbing world. I quickly found equipment from Mountain High and established that it was good for heights of up to 31,000’. As luck would have it they had an agent in South Africa. By chance he shared a combination of Lev and my surnames, David Mortimer. That omen seemed good and David let the project live once more. Not only does David import the gear he also fly’s it in his gliders and is the president of the Soaring Society. He would act as our official observer.

With two weeks to run I started tracking what the upper air winds were doing and plotting accurately where we would be taken.

Talk is cheap so it was time to fly.

Two get very high

Part two.

On the Sunday the 8th of May everybody assembled in Nottingham Road, accommodation was provided by Rawdons and a briefing took place at The Bier Fassl, a pub just up the road. Several weeks before we had started to refer to the Fassl as mission control. All systems go so after a meal entitled the last supper it was off to bed and a restless night.

We arrived at Estcourt well before sunrise and assembled the kit in quick order. The weather was perfect, flat calm on the surface with no more than 25 knots of wind all the way up.

To reduce weight we flew with only one pole and no covers. The crown line was also removed. The balloon was made ready to launch at 0640 just after the news! Conditions were so perfect that that I decided to go 20 minutes early. It seemed pointless waiting for the station.

We had a moment when we thought the oxygen system had failed, that would obviously have been a no go item. David fixed the problem and at five minutes later than hoped and after a count down from mission control we lifted at 0625.

Back in Nottingham Road several locals had gathered at the pub for a mission control party. It was fancy dress with a flying theme. Breakfast was cooked on a shovel in the fire of a traction engine. The party had started at 0600 and I understand that everybody was getting fully into the spirit of things by launch time!

We quickly made contact with Joburg East on VHF and had our pre allocated squawk already dialled up on the transponder. Passing 8000’ Joburg said they couldn’t see the transponder so Lev opened the box containing it and I hauled the antenna in. All was on and connected, I gave the antenna a gentle tap and sat it upright on the side of the basket and we appeared on radar.

The tracking system was working perfectly; Henry had re-housed the device in a manner that allowed us to see the power and modem lights without opening the box. Before we took off the unit was sealed and a couple of heat sticks broken and placed inside to keep the batteries working.

The climb happened as advertised. My biggest regret is that the last time I looked at the view was between 18 and 20k I could clearly see back to PMB and Nottingham Road with Midmar and Albert Falls Dam showing up very clearly. After this I caught quick glimpses of the view but concentrated on my GPS and the instruments.

Lev kept an open line into the station where an engineer sat in a separate studio crossed to the other presenters when he heard something interesting.

At 22,000’ the laptop Lev was using to track us on 1:50000 maps packed up. We had put it in a case and if you have ever put a laptop on your lap, thought the heat would be enough to keep the battery working. Evidently, it is not.

Passing 25,000’ I thought about continuous burning but the burners and pilot lights had not flinched so I kept burning normally. Mistake.

Around 28,000’ the instruments stopped working, another mistake; I had not even considered the batteries in them.

Earlier on I had taken my glasses off as they kept icing over. I was clamping the oxygen mask to my face with my free hand and watching the little green light that tells you that the breath was correct like a hawk.

I also told ATC that I wouldn’t speak to them again until I had dropped below 20k again. They knew where we were, we had the block of airspace.

Lev on the other hand was talking away. As we passed 25,000’ David Mortimer called on the radio and advised that he talk a little less. I also started telling him to quiet down.

I kept watch on the altitude on my GPS and the crew on the ground called on the radio with the readings from the tracking system.

At 29,500’ as I burnt the flame just blew out. I thought there could not be a hope that we would pass 30k now. Little did I know and only the trace afterwards would reveal it. When the instruments failed I became a little over zealous and burnt at a higher rate. That last burn and high rate of climb took us just over 30k.

Rather amazingly the crowd in the pub that had been following our progress on the internet rushed outside and were able to see us some 50km away. The radio signal from the tracking device was picked up across the country the furthest that I know of being Rustenberg.

As mentioned before Simon at the factory had already told me it would be unlikely that we would get the pilot lights lit until below 25,000’.

Now that I did not have to burn and with little chance of lighting the pilot lights I thought I would turn my attention to navigation. I also noticed that Lev was making slightly less sense than normal. I took the radio from his hand and sat him down. His oxygen mask was being made to stand proud from his face with a gap at the top made by the bridge of his glasses. I pushed it flat onto his face and told him to hold onto it. Within a few seconds I could see he was feeling better. His next problem that his hands were frozen and very painful.

I called Des, who was airborne sweeping beneath us in his micro light ready to provide communications with the crew should we drop behind a mountain. He would also be useful if we were miles from a decent track. Remember that we took enough fuel for the climb and a safe stop and no more. It would be a waste. The bush country to the East of Estcourt is pretty dense so a long wait for help to in a clearing just big enough was anticipated. Once again the radio tracking would be useful but an aircraft route finding for the guys was perfect.

I thought for a moment that we might need a doctor for Lev as he was in great pain. Best to start the wheels rolling as at that time we were heading across a big open area with few tracks and no major roads. We had a plan for the crew to instigate if help was required so I mentioned to Des that we might need to run it, but left it at might.

The descent was not too wild, well not as bad as I had frightened myself believing it would be. Perhaps the large basket with all the weight in the centre helped.

Physics tells you that the pilot lights will relight but what a wait. Yet another mistake was the length and position of the hoses for the oxygen. It actually made it very restricting. Not until we were below 20k did I remove my mask and then Lev his. It was then that he sat on the centre partition and poured sparks down into the burner can from a welding sparker whilst I cracked the main blast valve partially open. Almost as soon as he did this it worked. Above 20k we were trying from the side and it had no effect.

With the pilots lit the trip turned into a normal day at the office. I now took proper stock of our position and the dense bush beneath us. We were to the South East of Wheenen and heading towards Greytown.

Levs hands were coming back to life.

I decided to continue the descent to ground level to see what the wind was doing and then make a plan from there.

Mother Nature played ball with a 90 degree left turn towards Wheenen and the open farmland that surrounds it. We might even have made the airfield but with a big mountain behind it covered in dense bush I considered that a dumb thing to try and do. Instead we landed in a fallow field with small thorn bushes in it right next to a farmhouse.

Lev had resumed communications with the station, hindered by the fact that when I took the radio from him earlier I had just thrown it into one of the compartments. It then hid in a corner talking to us but with us unable to find it. The time without voice contact made for interesting radio as our descent was still being shown on the tracking screen.

The good people of Wheenen were asked to come out and wave and they did, in numbers. A farmer approached annoyed, oh no situation normal. I sort of recognised him, turned out that I had flown him and his family earlier in the year and he was sorry that I had not flown on another kilometre and landed on his farm.

After packing up it was back to the pub and a welcome I shall never forget. The phone started ringing, radio stations from across the country were calling and the following day we made every major paper in the land.

Getting to the height of Everest was achieved; watch this space for the next instalment! We do have something else planned.

Gary 9th June 2005

http://www.airborneadventuresafrica.com

Hypobaric chamber visit

2005-04-29T10:21:00.000+02:00

Lev and I enjoyed a hectic day yesterday that seems from 12 hours later almost to have not happened.

I was very pleased that, the Levster had managed to blag business class seats on BA/Commair and sitting at 31,000’ on the way up eating breakfast it seemed that the trip would be very straightforward. Until Lev asked what the outside temperature was and we were told a chilly -42. We also had a tailwind that got us to our destination 10 minutes early, ah um. But, the houses didn’t look too far away!!

The flight also gave me a chance to look at the Greytown / Tugela area in great detail.

A slight technical crisis had arisen at East Coast that was unwinding as we flew; the result was that rather than staying over in Pretoria and meeting David Mortimer, what would be right now, Lev had to quickly arrange to get us back the same day.

I went to the hire car office; we then proceeded to wait almost as long as it had taken to fly up from Durban for the car. You know the story, space for five people to help with only two working.

That made us fairly late onto the R21, we had been told it would take an hour to get to the Institute for Aviation medicine in Pretoria and of course there were traffic snarl ups being reported on the radio.

Stress is one of the factors that affect the early onset of Hypoxia, with a problem at East Coast, complete change of arrangements, delayed hire car and journey we thought impossible to do in the available time we managed to arrive on time and feeling not in any way flustered!

I was fairly amazed that Lev just uttering the words, ”We are here to see Sgt Major Ross”, made the gates open, it was effortless. I expected at least 20 minutes of being asked questions about my great grandparents.

As it should be, in the building in which big machines are held there were plenty of echoing corridors and steps. The chambers of which there were two had the appropriate number of levers and dials. Sgt Major Ross was the man operating the controls and unfortunately I cannot remember the names of the two doctors. One a physiologist and the other a straight forward medical man. Both of them seemed just older than my eldest son who is in grade 0.

We were to be taken fairly rapidly up to 12,000’ sit there a while making sure all was ok and then at 2000 fpm up to 20,000’ where we sat for several minutes without oxygen steadily loosing functions! Yet again sponsors HP came to the fore as the machine monitoring our health was made by them. The doc measured our blood saturation level dropping and would not let it drop below 60%.

Just for Lev here’s a chart explaining what range it should be in. I think, although my mind may not have got this right at 20,000’, I will have to review the video carefully. Lev’s saturation which was 100% at base point dropped to 65 and mine 79 although my saturation at the start was 95 I think. By the following chart that makes me indifferent normally. That can’t be right ;-)

Stage
Altitude in Feet
Saturation (%)

Indifferent 0 to 10000 95 to 90
Compensatory 10000 to 15000 90 to 80
Disturbance 15000 to 20000 80 to 90
Critical 20000 to 23000 70 to 60

My slightly better performance at altitude may be the km’s I have done in the gym. Or it could be that Lev had been up until two that morning preparing today’s show which then all fell apart and he’s sitting at the station making another plan right now! Or could also be the fact that Lev lives at sea level and I live at 4000’.

I was very nervous about the chamber, Lev on the other hand took the view that there were grown ups, sort of, with us and they wouldn’t let anything happen. I took no solace earlier when one of the Generals in a brief brief suggested that, “30,000’ is too high and we might be best to pray!” Hum sound medical advice, I’m not sure.

The chamber itself was noisy, brightly lit and with a bearded man outside at the big picture window operating levers.

If you suffered from claustrophobia the closing of the door would instantly bring on panic I should think. At one point Lev asked if Sgt Major Ross could hear us and then made some off colour remarks to which the psychologist replied that, “He couldn’t hear us which was just as well because he is the chap that lets us out”.

I personally felt the tingling at my extremities and anxiety. More than likely euphoria but its hard to tell. Lev seemed to get quieter. We obviously both survived but the stupidity of attempting anything at high altitude without the right equipment was underlined.

When they bought us down at 4000’ fpm my right ear very quickly became blocked and very painful. I asked them to slow the rate of descent, which Sgt Ross did and then we actually climbed back up to 18,000’ again which helped. We then descended at a much slower rate with me clearing my ears best I could.

Anyhow enough for now, I just wanted to get something down whilst it’s fresh in my mind. If you listen to ECR (don’t forget you can listen online) http://www.ecr.co.za on Monday Lev should broadcast a piece although I’m not sure if he will have time as they are doing an OB from PMB (more capital letters please)

Monday will be one week to the day until we have the first big attempt.

I will pull pictures from my camcorder and place them with this in the blog later. It will be interesting to see what Lev has to write about this.

Cheers all

2005-04-19T11:47:00.000+02:00

No entrys for ages then two come along at once, rough idea of where we would go based on observations on the 18th of April

Lazy I know

2005-04-13T16:18:00.000+02:00

Things get ever more exciting as the big week approaches.

We have decided to have another technical run through on the Monday the 9th, if its going well and the weather is right we might just keep on going.

The training at the Insititute for Aviation Medicine is booked along with the ride ot 30,000' in the hypobaric chamber for the 28th of April, gulp.

More later

Cheers

G

Hot Air Balloon

2005-04-04T12:03:00.000+02:00

Tell me Lev which way to the pub

2005-04-03T16:11:00.000+02:00

Its really heavy

Press release

2005-04-03T16:10:00.000+02:00

Heres what Lev had to say about it all

Gary Mortimer and Lev David are proud to announce that the first official test of in-flight systems for their forthcoming attempt at the South African high flight balloon record was enormously successful.

Gary and Lev launched from Rosetta in the KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday morning (April 2, 2005) to test tracking and communications systems developed by H Communications in Johannesburg especially for the flight, and running on laptops sponsored by HP.

The ingenious systems will not only be essential for the team to break the high altitude record, but will enable anyone to track the much-anticipated flight in real-time on the internet at www.ecr.co.za and www.airborneadventuresafrica.com.

The team also got to test their extreme weather clothing for the first time. The gear from The North Face is widely considered to be the best extreme weather clothing in the world and has only recently been made available in South Africa through an exclusive agreement with Duesouth. The team expects temperatures to be as low as –50 degrees Celsius at the peak of their flight, so the gear will definitely be pushed to its limits when the team flies in May.

Gary Mortimer is a professional balloonist operating from Nottingham Road. Lev David is producer and co-presenter KwaZulu-Natal’s biggest breakfast show, The Bokomo East Coast Breakfast Serial on East Coast Radio. In the past few months, the show has grown in popularity to become the most listened-to breakfast show in the history of East Coast Radio, a feat virtually unheard of in the radio industry for a show less than a year old.

Gary and Lev’s record attempt will be extensively covered on the show, providing a uniquely thrilling story for the listeners. Given the extraordinary risks involved, nobody can say for sure how the story will turn out, although the team remains confident.

Saturday’s test flight was not without its problems, though—a temporary tracking failure meant that Lev had to perform emergency repairs while in the air, being talked through the repair by the technical team on the ground, having to scramble over the balloon basket at 10000 to get to the tracking box.

The landing in Estcourt was also particularly hair-raising, with the team having to contend with frighteningly strong winds. It was only an ant heap that stopped the team from crashing into a barbed wire fence.

The pilots would like to extend its condolences to the no doubt very large extended family of the ants who died valiantly stopping the balloon just in time.

Issued by

The Pilots

April 3, 2005

2005-04-03T16:07:00.000+02:00

Don't call your mum now Lev

Lev to the Rescue

2005-04-03T16:06:00.000+02:00

Lev climbed over the compartments to open up the small poly coolbox in which ZS0 HOT lives in order to make sure it was connected correctly.

Maybe next time we will put it in the same compartment as Lev!!

Images from the practice flight 2nd April 2005

Great test

2005-04-02T12:33:00.000+02:00

Just back from a test flight,

The APRS tracking worked great, managed to talk to Joburg air traffic, the modified burners were fine.

All in all a great time.

The weather did'nt really play ball though, cold front passing through with strong winds at the surface and at high levels with a funny sorted middle bit of slow winds.

We therefore did'nt go too high but got all the communication issues sorted and Lev worked out how to find and follow the data on the laptop.

Very pleased.

G

Bother

2005-03-22T14:38:00.000+02:00

Even though I have started at the Gym my weight refuses to drop further. I wonder if its because I've not really made too many changes to the old diet.

Guess its time to knuckle down and get on with it.

Things are beginning to come together for the practice on the first weekend of April. I have dropped a laptop off at Antbear to be connected to Andrews always on Sat connection that will be the relay point for the APRS data.

Most other ducks seem to be in a row, lets see what the weather does ;-)

Lev has been very quiet about his exercise and diet!

G

Training, mind the gap

2005-03-18T09:04:00.000+02:00

Well I've gone and done it. First go at the gym!! Very dull staying in the same place and adding metres of distance so I thought I'd imagine heading towards the studio in Durban, not sure how far that is From Nottingham Road, I'll find out but I'm 9km closer now anyway. Like to see if Lev can beat me coming the other way. Guess it will be harder as its uphill.

The main thing that has frightened me into training is that we will taking a ride in the hyperbaric chamber in Pretoria, early April and they will take us to 27,000' the highest it can go and then exercise us up to 30k!!

I know that being unfit does not help in those things along with any alcohol that might be hanging around your system and tension or fear of being there.

its something i've always wanted to do, being taken to great altitude and made to do embarassing things before you faint, but it is worrying.

G

CQ DX CQ DX

2005-03-08T15:32:00.000+02:00

Great news yet more nerd stuff Stuart Baynes the man behind data tracking for the flight is going for the callsign ZS0 HOT which listners and radio hams will be able to track.

Its nerd nirvana

G

Nerd

2005-03-08T08:14:00.000+02:00

Picking up the 1:50000 map images, all 20 of them for the flight area today, I'll have to then reference them for Ozi Explorer, the moving map program we will use and then the crew and us should'nt get lost!!!

As we will be travelling across areas without roads it will be important for the crew to be able to plan ahead and take the appropriate routes.

I will also populate the maps with hundreds of waypoints on the end of roads and try and get the balloon to one of them.

The simplest thing to do will be call the guys on a cell phone once we have landed and say we are at or near point x or y

All my nerdy computer powers will come to the fore today hooray. At last a use for a dull interest.

G

Lev seems to have gone very quiet, frightened I reckon

Out of Breath

2005-03-04T07:49:00.000+02:00

Oxygen is becoming an issue on two fronts

1. Its all very very scary

2. Flying to 30k takes us into the barrier between relatively simple systems and complex learn how to use systems.

The simple method involves a regulator and mask as you climb you adjust the regulator for the flow of oxygen required, at 30k it’s about 2 lt a minute.

Now 30k is the very limit of this sort of system so it would be much safer to have a pulsed system which actually when you breath in forces more oxygen in then you would normally take.

These systems are used by the military for high altitude parachute jumps and other stuff.

Lev and I will have to go and learn how to breathe again!! It is a deliberate act with these systems apparently for some you have to suck first!!!

I keeping remembering the 45 seconds time of useful consciousness if it all goes Pete Tong.

For the test flights to 20k we will use the simple system with masks and Lev will be in charge of keeping us alive!!

Blimey

2005-02-28T17:41:00.000+02:00

Here we are 7500' over head Nottingham Road with GPS and laptop chatting. Just have to build the cables to connect the radios and try that next.

laptops working

2005-02-26T14:34:00.000+02:00

Hooray the laptops and GPS like to talk, lets hope they don't argue with the radios.

I'm going to try an experiment shortly and see if technology can help me find the Bier Fassel in Nottingham Road.

G
Still not seeing posts update so I type in hope.

This thing is really not smooth

2005-02-26T09:58:00.000+02:00

Not sure if I'm driving this incorrectly but the blogger system really seems to have a mind of its own, updating a random adding pictures via hello when it likes I'm really not that impressed.

But as I said could be me.

I wonder if they will kick us out now I've said nasty things

G

Nice story I just found from a famous person

2005-02-25T22:00:00.000+02:00

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Horror of the Heights

The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragic facts which reinforce the statement. Though the assertions contained in it are amazing and even monstrous, it is none the less forcing itself upon the general intelligence that they are true, and that we must readjust our ideas to the new situation. This world of ours appears to be separated by a slight and precarious margin of safety from a most singular and unexpected danger. I will endeavour in this narrative, which reproduces the original document in its necessarily somewhat fragmentary form, to lay before the reader the whole of the facts up to date, prefacing my statement by saying that, if there be any who doubt the narrative of Joyce-Armstrong, there can be no question at all as to the facts concerning Lieutenant Myrtle, R. N., and Mr. Hay Connor, who undoubtedly met their end in the manner described.
The Joyce-Armstrong Fragment was found in the field which is called Lower Haycock, lying one mile to the westward of the village of Withyham, upon the Kent and Sussex border. It was on the 15th September last that an agricultural labourer, James Flynn, in the employment of Mathew Dodd, farmer, of the Chauntry Farm, Withyham, perceived a briar pipe lying near the footpath which skirts the hedge in Lower Haycock. A few paces farther on he picked up a pair of broken binocular glasses. Finally, among some nettles in the ditch, he caught sight of a flat, canvas-backed book, which proved to be a note-book with detachable leaves, some of which had come loose and were fluttering along the base of the hedge. These he collected, but some, including the first, were never recovered, and leave a deplorable hiatus in this all-important statement. The note-book was taken by the labourer to his master, who in turn showed it to Dr. J. H. Atherton, of Hartfield. This gentleman at once recognized the need for an expert examination, and the manuscript was forwarded to the Aero Club in London, where it now lies.

< 2 >

The first two pages of the manuscript are missing. There is also one torn away at the end of the narrative, though none of these affect the general coherence of the story. It is conjectured that the missing opening is concerned with the record of Mr. Joyce-Armstrong's qualifications as an aeronaut, which can be gathered from other sources and are admitted to be unsurpassed among the air-pilots of England. For many years he has been looked upon as among the most daring and the most intellectual of flying men, a combination which has enabled him to both invent and test several new devices, including the common gyroscopic attachment which is known by his name. The main body of the manuscript is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are in pencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible - exactly, in fact, as they might be expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly from the seat of a moving aeroplane. There are, it may be added, several stains, both on the last page and on the outside cover which have been pronounced by the Home Office experts to be blood - probably human and certainly mammalian. The fact that something closely resembling the organism of malaria was discovered in this blood, and that Joyce-Armstrong is known to have suffered from intermittent fever, is a remarkable example of the new weapons which modern science has placed in the hands of our detectives.
And now a word as to the personality of the author of this epoch-making statement. Joyce-Armstrong, according to the few friends who really knew something of the man, was a poet and a dreamer, as well as a mechanic and an inventor. He was a man of considerable wealth, much of which he had spent in the pursuit of his aeronautical hobby. He had four private aeroplanes in his hangars near Devizes, and is said to have made no fewer than one hundred and seventy ascents in the course of last year. He was a retiring man with dark moods, in which he would avoid the society of his fellows. Captain Dangerfield, who knew him better than anyone, says that there were times when his eccentricity threatened to develop into something more serious. His habit of carrying a shot-gun with him in his aeroplane was one manifestation of it.

< 3 >

Another was the morbid effect which the fall of Lieutenant Myrtle had upon his mind. Myrtle, who was attempting the height record, fell from an altitude of something over thirty thousand feet. Horrible to narrate, his head was entirely obliterated, though his body and limbs preserved their configuration. At every gathering of airmen, Joyce-Armstrong, according to Dangerfield, would ask, with an enigmatic smile: "And where, pray, is Myrtle's head?"
On another occasion after dinner, at the mess of the Flying School on Salisbury Plain, he started a debate as to what will be the most permanent danger which airmen will have to encounter. Having listened to successive opinions as to air-pockets, faulty construction, and over-banking, he ended by shrugging his shoulders and refusing to put forward his own views, though he gave the impression that they differed from any advanced by his companions.
It is worth remarking that after his own complete disappearance it was found that his private affairs were arranged with a precision which may show that he had a strong premonition of disaster. With these essential explanations I will now give the narrative exactly as it stands, beginning at page three of the blood-soaked note-book:
"Nevertheless, when I dined at Rheims with Coselli and Gustav Raymond I found that neither of them was aware of any particular danger in the higher layers of the atmosphere. I did not actually say what was in my thoughts, but I got so near to it that if they had any corresponding idea they could not have failed to express it. But then they are two empty, vainglorious fellows with no thought beyond seeing their silly names in the newspaper. It is interesting to note that neither of them had ever been much beyond the twenty-thousand-foot level. Of course, men have been higher than this both in balloons and in the ascent of mountains. It must be well above that point that the aeroplane enters the danger zone - always presuming that my premonitions are correct.
"Aeroplaning has been with us now for more than twenty years, and one might well ask: Why should this peril be only revealing itself in our day? The answer is obvious. In the old days of weak engines, when a hundred horse-power Gnome or Green was considered ample for every need, the flights were very restricted. Now that three hundred horse-power is the rule rather than the exception, visits to the upper layers have become easier and more common. Some of us can remember how, in our youth, Garros made a world-wide reputation by attaining nineteen thousand feet, and it was considered a remarkable achievement to fly over the Alps. Our standard now has been immeasurably raised, and there are twenty high flights for one in former years. Many of them have been undertaken with impunity. The thirty-thousand-foot level has been reached time after time with no discomfort beyond cold and asthma. What does this prove? A visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. Yet tigers exist, and if he chanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. There are jungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers which inhabit them. I believe in time they will map these jungles accurately out. Even at the present moment I could name two of them. One of them lies over the Pau-Biarritz district of France. Another is just over my head as I write here in my house in Wiltshire. I rather think there is a third in the Homburg-Wiesbaden district.

< 4 >

"It was the disappearance of the airmen that first set me thinking. Of course, everyone said that they had fallen into the sea, but that did not satisfy me at all. First, there was Verrier in France; his machine was found near Bayonne, but they never got his body. There was the case of Baxter also, who vanished, though his engine and some of the iron fixings were found in a wood in Leicestershire. In that case, Dr. Middleton, of Amesbury, who was watching the flight with a telescope, declares that just before the clouds obscured the view he saw the machine, which was at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularly upwards in a succession of jerks in a manner that he would have thought to be impossible. That was the last seen of Baxter. There was a correspondence in the papers, but it never led to anything. There were several other similar cases, and then there was the death of Hay Connor. What a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air, and what columns in the halfpenny papers, and yet how little was ever done to get to the bottom of the business! He came down in a tremendous vol-plane from an unknown height. He never got off his machine and died in his pilot's seat. Died of what? 'Heart disease,' said the doctors. Rubbish! Hay Connor's heart was as sound as mine is. What did Venables say? Venables was the only man who was at his side when he died. He said that he was shivering and looked like a man who had been badly scared. 'Died of fright,' said Venables, but could not imagine what he was frightened about. Only said one word to Venables, which sounded like 'Monstrous.' They could make nothing of that at the inquest. But I could make something of it. Monsters! That was the last word of poor Harry Hay Connor. And he did die of fright, just as Venables thought.
"And then there was Myrtle's head. Do you really believe - does anybody really believe - that a man's head could be driven clean into his body by the force of a fall? Well, perhaps it may be possible, but I, for one, have never believed that it was so with Myrtle. And the grease upon his clothes - 'all slimy with grease,' said somebody at the inquest. Queer that nobody got thinking after that! I did - but, then, I had been thinking for a good long time. I've made three ascents - how Dangerfield used to chaff me about my shot-gun - but I've never been high enough. Now, with this new, light Paul Veroner machine and its one hundred and seventy-five Robur, I should easily touch the thirty thousand tomorrow. I'll have a shot at the record. Maybe I shall have a shot at something else as well. Of course, it's dangerous. If a fellow wants to avoid danger he had best keep out of flying altogether and subside finally into flannel slippers and a dressing-gown. But I'll visit the air-jungle tomorrow - and if there's anything there I shall know it. If I return, I'll find myself a bit of a celebrity. If I don't this note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how I lost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please.

< 5 >

"I chose my Paul Veroner monoplane for the job. There's nothing like a monoplane when real work is to be done. Beaumont found that out in very early days. For one thing it doesn't mind damp, and the weather looks as if we should be in the clouds all the time. It's a bonny little model and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse. The engine is a ten-cylinder rotary Robur working up to one hundred and seventy-five. It has all the modern improvements - enclosed fuselage, high-curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, worked by an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the Venetian-blind principle. I took a shot-gun with me and a dozen cartridges filled with buck-shot. You should have seen the face of Perkins, my old mechanic, when I directed him to put them in. I was dressed like an Arctic explorer, with two jerseys under my overalls, thick socks inside my padded boots, a storm-cap with flaps, and my talc goggles. It was stifling outside the hangars, but I was going for the summit of the Himalayas, and had to dress for the part. Perkins knew there was something on and implored me to take him with me. Perhaps I should if I were using the biplane, but a monoplane is a one-man show - if you want to get the last foot of life out of it. Of course, I took an oxygen bag; the man who goes for the altitude record without one will either be frozen or smothered - or both.
"I had a good look at the planes, the rudder-bar, and the elevating lever before I got in. Everything was in order so far as I could see. Then I switched on my engine and found that she was running sweetly. When they let her go she rose almost at once upon the lowest speed. I circled my home field once or twice just to warm her up, and then with a wave to Perkins and the others, I flattened out my planes and put her on her highest. She skimmed like a swallow down wind for eight or ten miles until I turned her nose up a little and she began to climb in a great spiral for the cloud-bank above me. It's all-important to rise slowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go.

< 6 >

"It was a close, warm day for an English September, and there was the hush and heaviness of impending rain. Now and then there came sudden puffs of wind from the south-west - one of them so gusty and unexpected that it caught me napping and turned me half-round for an instant. I remember the time when gusts and whirls and air-pockets used to be things of danger - before we learned to put an overmastering power into our engines. Just as I reached the cloud-banks, with the altimeter marking three thousand, down came the rain. My word, how it poured! It drummed upon my wings and lashed against my face, blurring my glasses so that I could hardly see. I got down on to a low speed, for it was painful to travel against it. As I got higher it became hail, and I had to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action - a dirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, deep-throated purr - the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted in the old days, when every sound was swallowed up by the monstrous racket of the machine. If only the early aviators could come back to see the beauty and perfection of the mechanism which have been bought at the cost of their lives!
"About nine-thirty I was nearing the clouds. Down below me, all blurred and shadowed with rain, lay the vast expanse of Salisbury Plain. Half a dozen flying machines were doing hackwork at the thousand-foot level, looking like little black swallows against the green background. I dare say they were wondering what I was doing up in cloud-land. Suddenly a grey curtain drew across beneath me and the wet folds of vapours were swirling round my face. It was clammily cold and miserable. But I was above the hail-storm, and that was something gained. The cloud was as dark and thick as a London fog. In my anxiety to get clear, I cocked her nose up until the automatic alarm-bell rang, and I actually began to slide backwards. My sopped and dripping wings had made me heavier than I thought, but presently I was in lighter cloud, and soon had cleared the first layer. There was a second - opal-coloured and fleecy - at a great height above my head, a white, unbroken ceiling above, and a dark, unbroken floor below, with the monoplane labouring upwards upon a vast spiral between them. It is deadly lonely in these cloud-spaces. Once a great flight of some small water-birds went past me, flying very fast to the westwards. The quick whir of their wings and their musical cry were cheery to my ear. I fancy that they were teal, but I am a wretched zoologist. Now that we humans have become birds we must really learn to know our brethren by sight.

< 7 >

"The wind down beneath me whirled and swayed the broad cloud-pain. Once a great eddy formed in it, a whirlpool of vapour, and through it, as down a funnel, I caught sight of the distant world. A large white biplane was passing at a vast depth beneath me. I fancy it was the morning mail service betwixt Bristol and London. Then the drift swirled inwards again and the great solitude was unbroken.
"Just after ten I touched the lower edge of the upper cloud-stratum. It consisted of fine diaphanous vapour drifting swiftly from the westwards. The wind had been steadily rising all this time and it was now blowing a sharp breeze - twenty-eight an hour by my gauge. Already it was very cold, though my altimeter only marked nine thousand. The engines were working beautifully, and we went droning steadily upwards. The cloud-bank was thicker than I had expected, but at last it thinned out into a golden mist before me, and then in an instant I had shot out from it, and there was an unclouded sky and a brilliant sun above my head - all blue and gold above, all shining silver below, one vast, glimmering plain as far as my eyes could reach. It was a quarter past ten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand eight hundred. Up I went and up, my ears concentrated upon the deep purring of my motor, my eyes busy always with the watch, the revolution indicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump. No wonder aviators are said to be a fearless race. With so many things to think of there is no time to trouble about oneself. About this time I noted how unreliable is the compass when above a certain height from earth. At fifteen thousand feet mine was pointing east and a point south. The sun and the wind gave me my true bearings.
"I had hoped to reach an eternal stillness in these high altitudes, but with every thousand feet of ascent the gale grew stronger. My machine groaned and trembled in every joint and rivet as she faced it, and swept away like a sheet of paper when I banked her on the turn, skimming down wind at a greater pace, perhaps, than ever mortal man has moved. Yet I had always to turn again and tack up in the wind's eye, for it was not merely a height record that I was after. By all my calculations it was above little Wiltshire that my air-jungle lay, and all my labour might be lost if I struck the outer layers at some farther point.

< 8 >

"When I reached the nineteen-thousand-foot level, which was about midday, the wind was so severe that I looked with some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting momentarily to see them snap or slacken. I even cast loose the parachute behind me, and fastened its hook into the ring of my leathern belt, so as to be ready for the worst. Now was the time when a bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid for by the life of the aeronaut. But she held together bravely. Every cord and strut was humming and vibrating like so many harp-strings, but it was glorious to see how, for all the beating and the buffeting, she was still the conqueror of Nature and the mistress of the sky. There is surely something divine in man himself that he should rise so superior to the limitations which Creation seemed to impose - rise, too, by such unselfish, heroic devotion as this air-conquest has shown. Talk of human degeneration! When has such a story as this been written in the annals of our race?
"These were the thoughts in my head as I climbed that monstrous, inclined plane with the wind sometimes beating in my face and sometimes whistling behind my ears, while the cloud-land beneath me fell away to such a distance that the folds and hummocks of silver had all smoothed out into one flat, shining plain. But suddenly I had a horrible and unprecedented experience. I have known before what it is to be in what our neighbours have called a tourbillon, but never on such a scale as this. That huge, sweeping river of wind of which I have spoken had, as it appears, whirlpools within it which were as monstrous as itself. Without a moment's warning I was dragged suddenly into the heart of one. I spun round for a minute or two with such velocity that I almost lost my senses, and then fell suddenly, left wing foremost, down the vacuum funnel in the centre. I dropped like a stone, and lost nearly a thousand feet. It was only my belt that kept me in my seat, and the shock and breathlessness left me hanging half-insensible over the side of the fuselage. But I am always capable of a supreme effort - it is my one great merit as an aviator. I was conscious that the descent was slower. The whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and I had come to the apex. With a terrific wrench, throwing my weight all to one side, I levelled my planes and brought her head away from the wind. In an instant I had shot out of the eddies and was skimming down the sky. Then, shaken but victorious, I turned her nose up and began once more my steady grind on the upward spiral. I took a large sweep to avoid the danger-spot of the whirlpool, and soon I was safely above it. Just after one o'clock I was twenty-one thousand feet above the sea-level. To my great joy I had topped the gale, and with every hundred feet of ascent the air grew stiller. On the other hand, it was very cold, and I was conscious of that peculiar nausea which goes with rarefaction of the air. For the first time I unscrewed the mouth of my oxygen bag and took an occasional whiff of the glorious gas. I could feel it running like a cordial through my veins, and I was exhilarated almost to the point of drunkenness. I shouted and sang as I soared upwards into the cold, still outer world.

< 9 >

"It is very clear to me that the insensibility which came upon Glaisher, and in a lesser degree upon Coxwell, when, in 1862, they ascended in a balloon to the height of thirty thousand feet, was due to the extreme speed with which a perpendicular ascent is made. Doing it at an easy gradient and accustoming oneself to the lessened barometric pressure by slow degrees, there are no such dreadful symptoms. At the same great height I found that even without my oxygen inhaler I could breathe without undue distress. It was bitterly cold, however, and my thermometer was at zero, Fahrenheit. At one-thirty I was nearly seven miles above the surface of the earth, and still ascending steadily. I found, however, that the rarefied air was giving markedly less support to my planes, and that my angle of ascent had to be considerably lowered in consequence. It was already clear that even with my light weight and strong engine-power there was a point in front of me where I should be held. To make matters worse, one of my sparking-plugs was in trouble again and there was intermittent misfiring in the engine. My heart was heavy with the fear of failure.
"It was about that time that I had a most extraordinary experience. Something whizzed past me in a trail of smoke and exploded with a loud, hissing sound, sending forth a cloud of steam. For the instant I could not imagine what had happened. Then I remembered that the earth is for ever being bombarded by meteor stones, and would be hardly inhabitable were they not in nearly every case turned to vapour in the outer layers of the atmosphere. Here is a new danger for the high-altitude man, for two others passed me when I was nearing the forty-thousand-foot mark. I cannot doubt that at the edge of the earth's envelope the risk would be a very real one.
"My barograph needle marked forty-one thousand three hundred when I became aware that I could go no farther. Physically, the strain was not as yet greater than I could bear but my machine had reached its limit. The attenuated air gave no firm support to the wings, and the least tilt developed into side-slip, while she seemed sluggish on her controls. Possibly, had the engine been at its best, another thousand feet might have been within our capacity, but it was still misfiring, and two out of the ten cylinders appeared to be out of action. If I had not already reached the zone for which I was searching then I should never see it upon this journey. But was it not possible that I had attained it? Soaring in circles like a monstrous hawk upon the forty-thousand-foot level I let the monoplane guide herself, and with my Mannheim glass I made a careful observation of my surroundings. The heavens were perfectly clear; there was no indication of those dangers which I had imagined.

< 10 >

"I have said that I was soaring in circles. It struck me suddenly that I would do well to take a wider sweep and open up a new airtract. If the hunter entered an earth-jungle he would drive through it if he wished to find his game. My reasoning had led me to believe that the air-jungle which I had imagined lay somewhere over Wiltshire. This should be to the south and west of me. I took my bearings from the sun, for the compass was hopeless and no trace of earth was to be seen - nothing but the distant, silver cloud-plain. However, I got my direction as best I might and kept her head straight to the mark. I reckoned that my petrol supply would not last for more than another hour or so, but I could afford to use it to the last drop, since a single magnificent vol-plane could at any time take me to the earth.
"Suddenly I was aware of something new. The air in front of me had lost its crystal clearness. It was full of long, ragged wisps of something which I can only compare to very fine cigarette smoke. It hung about in wreaths and coils, turning and twisting slowly in the sunlight. As the monoplane shot through it, I was aware of a faint taste of oil upon my lips, and there was a greasy scum upon the woodwork of the machine. Some infinitely fine organic matter appeared to be suspended in the atmosphere. There was no life there. It was inchoate and diffuse, extending for many square acres and then fringing off into the void. No, it was not life. But might it not be the remains of life? Above all, might it not be the food of life, of monstrous life, even as the humble grease of the ocean is the food for the mighty whale? The thought was in my mind when my eyes looked upwards and I saw the most wonderful vision that ever man has seen. Can I hope to convey it to you even as I saw it myself last Thursday?
"Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size - far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long, drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way.

< 11 >

"I had half-turned my monoplane, that I might look after this beautiful creature, when, in a moment, I found myself amidst a perfect fleet of them, of all sizes, but none so large as the first. Some were quite small, but the majority about as big as an average balloon, and with much the same curvature at the top. There was in them a delicacy of texture and colouring which reminded me of the finest Venetian glass. Pale shades of pink and green were the prevailing tints, but all had a lovely iridescence where the sun shimmered through their dainty forms. Some hundreds of them drifted past me, a wonderful fairy squadron of strange unknown argosies of the sky - creatures whose forms and substance were so attuned to these pure heights that one could not conceive anything so delicate within actual sight or sound of earth.
"But soon my attention was drawn to a new phenomenon - the serpents of the outer air. These were long, thin, fantastic coils of vapour-like material, which turned and twisted with great speed, flying round and round at such a pace that the eyes could hardly follow them. Some of these ghost-like creatures were twenty or thirty feet long, but it was difficult to tell their girth, for their outline was so hazy that it seemed to fade away into the air around them. These air-snakes were of a very light grey or smoke colour, with some darker lines within, which gave the impression of a definite organism. One of them whisked past my very face, and I was conscious of a cold, clammy contact, but their composition was so unsubstantial that I could not connect them with any thought of physical danger, any more than the beautiful bell-like creatures which had preceded them. There was no more solidity in their frames than in the floating spume from a broken wave.
"But a more terrible experience was in store for me. Floating downwards from a great height there came a purplish patch of vapour, small as I saw it first, but rapidly enlarging as it approached me, until it appeared to be hundreds of square feet in size. Though fashioned of some transparent, jelly-like substance, it was none the less of much more definite outline and solid consistence than anything which I had seen before. There were more traces, too, of a physical organization, especially two vast, shadowy, circular plates upon either side, which may have been eyes, and a perfectly solid white projection between them which was as curved and cruel as the beak of a vulture.

< 12 >

"The whole aspect of this monster was formidable and threatening, and it kept changing its colour from a very light mauve to a dark, angry purple so thick that it cast a shadow as it drifted between my monoplane and the sun. On the upper curve of its huge body there were three great projections which I can only describe as enormous bubbles, and I was convinced as I looked at them that they were charged with some extremely light gas which served to buoy up the misshapen and semi-solid mass in the rarefied air. The creature moved swiftly along, keeping pace easily with the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey which is waiting to pounce. Its method of progression - done so swiftly that it was not easy to follow - was to throw out a long, glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of the writhing body. So elastic and gelatinous was it that never for two successive minutes was it the same shape, and yet each change made it more threatening and loathsome than the last.
"I knew that it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its hideous body told me so. The vague, goggling eyes which were turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid hatred. I dipped the nose of my monoplane downwards to escape it. As I did so, as quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle from this mass of floating blubber, and it fell as light and sinuous as a whip-lash across the front of my machine. There was a loud hiss as it lay for a moment across the hot engine, and it whisked itself into the air again, while the huge, flat body drew itself together as if in sudden pain. I dipped to a vol-pique, but again a tentacle fell over the monoplane and was shorn off by the propeller as easily as it might have cut through a smoke wreath. A long, gliding, sticky, serpent-like coil came from behind and caught me round the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. I tore at it, my fingers sinking into the smooth, glue-like surface, and for an instant I disengaged myself, but only to be caught round the boot by another coil, which gave me a jerk that tilted me almost on to my back.

< 13 >

"As I fell over I blazed off both barrels of my gun, though, indeed, it was like attacking an elephant with a pea-shooter to imagine that any human weapon could cripple that mighty bulk. And yet I aimed better than I knew, for, with a loud report, one of the great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the puncture of the buck-shot. It was very clear that my conjecture was right, and that these vast, clear bladders were distended with some lifting gas, for in an instant the huge, cloud-like body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find its balance, while the white beak snapped and gaped in horrible fury. But already I had shot away on the steepest glide that I dared to attempt, my engine still full on, the flying propeller and the force of gravity shooting me downwards like an aerolite. Far behind me I saw a dull, purplish smudge growing swiftly smaller and merging into the blue sky behind it. I was safe out of the deadly jungle of the outer air.
"Once out of danger I throttled my engine, for nothing tears a machine to pieces quicker than running on full power from a height. It was a glorious, spiral vol-plane from nearly eight miles of altitude - first, to the level of the silver cloud-bank, then to that of the storm-cloud beneath it, and finally, in beating rain, to the surface of the earth. I saw the Bristol Channel beneath me as I broke from the clouds, but, having still some petrol in my tank, I got twenty miles inland before I found myself stranded in a field half a mile from the village of Ashcombe. There I got three tins of petrol from a passing motor-car, and at ten minutes past six that evening I alighted gently in my own home meadow at Devizes, after such a journey as no mortal upon earth has ever yet taken and lived to tell the tale. I have seen the beauty and I have seen the horror of the heights - and greater beauty or greater horror than that is not within the ken of man.
"And now it is my plan to go once again before I give my results to the world. My reason for this is that I must surely have something to show by way of proof before I lay such a tale before my fellow-men. It is true that others will soon follow and will confirm what I have said, and yet I should wish to carry conviction from the first. Those lovely iridescent bubbles of the air should not be hard to capture. They drift slowly upon their way, and the swift monoplane could intercept their leisurely course. It is likely enough that they would dissolve in the heavier layers of the atmosphere, and that some small heap of amorphous jelly might be all that I should bring to earth with me. And yet something there would surely be by which I could substantiate my story. Yes, I will go, even if I run a risk by doing so. These purple horrors would not seem to be numerous. It is probable that I shall not see one. If I do I shall dive at once. At the worst there is always the shot-gun and my knowledge of . . ."

< 14 >

Here a page of the manuscript is unfortunately missing. On the next page is written, in large, straggling writing:
"Forty-three thousand feet. I shall never see earth again. They are beneath me, three of them. God help me; it is a dreadful death to die!"
Such in its entirety is the Joyce-Armstrong Statement. Of the man nothing has since been seen. Pieces of his shattered monoplane have been picked up in the preserves of Mr. Budd-Lushington upon the borders of Kent and Sussex, within a few miles of the spot where the note-book was discovered. If the unfortunate aviator's theory is correct that this air-jungle, as he called it, existed only over the south-west of England, then it would seem that he had fled from it at the full speed of his monoplane, but had been overtaken and devoured by these horrible creatures at some spot in the outer atmosphere above the place where the grim relics were found. The picture of that monoplane skimming down the sky, with the nameless terrors flying as swiftly beneath it and cutting it off always from the earth while they gradually closed in upon their victim, is one upon which a man who valued his sanity would prefer not to dwell. There are many, as I am aware, who still jeer at the facts which I have here set down, but even they must admit that Joyce-Armstrong has disappeared, and I would commend to them his own words: "This note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how I lost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if YOU please."

Time moves on

2005-02-25T21:13:00.000+02:00

A couple of frightening realisations this week. First that we really will have to get the oxygen equipment from the military as civil stuff is not made for the job. More experts reminded me of just how long we will last should it all go wrong.

The second is just how little time I have to sort everything.

On the positive side we have decided to have a childrens competition. Two in fact.

One a science project, we could take the most interesting experiment weighing no more than 2kg to height and see what happens. The second a writting and drawing sort of thing. Childrens idea of flight. Prizes a flight in the balloon some time. Early days, we will work on it. We would compile a book with the poems, stories and pics afterwards.

Spoke to my friend Brian about it, he flew around the world and he sent the following words of encouragement for contestants......

Flying is a dream for some and too scary to even think about for others. However you feel about it, one thing is for sure - it is a magical experience that I hope you will all enjoy one day. Good luck with your competition and maybe you will allow me to write something in your book when it is put together?

With very best wishes to you all,

Brian Jones

Pilot, Breitling Orbiter 3.

How cool is that!!

Oh the other good news today, laptops arrived from HP for us to fill with the software for flight tracking.

G

Seriously annoyed.

2005-02-25T17:15:00.000+02:00

Gary has developed the nasty habit of text-messaging me everytime he's going up in his blasted balloon, painting each experience as near-spiritual, while I'm stuck in an office in Umhlanga. I love my job. But I'm still jealous. Anyway, next weekend Gary's giving me a crack at piloting the one-man balloon, which is terribly exciting. He's given me a 3000 page manual to get through first. ...I won't be going out this weekend.

Congrats on the weightloss, Gary!

LEV.