On 4/14/12 we flew an APM2 ardupilot in a balloon to over 100000 feet for 7 1/2 hour 300 mile + flight !
The flight originated near Albuquerque NM and landed near Trinchera ,CO. The flight was over 300 miles and lasted far longer than we planned. The flight was so long the 5 on board cameras ran out of memory and battery before the flight ended.
The chase crew went 225 miles before giving up because there was no data from the Digi M10 Satellite modem. The crew was almost back into Albuquerque when all of the sudden three phones got e-mails from the Digie modem at the same time.
ET CALLED HOME !!!
It gave us the Lat, long, and altitude of where it was. Several emails later we realized the package landed. We quickly put the coordinates into google maps and could not believe where it was ! It was in Colorado! And it landed 7 1/2 hours after launch !
I will download the data from the APM2 SD card and see the flight.
Here are some pictures.
Could have landed here in Colorado
But it landed 10 miles further 50 feet from the edge of a farm road !
Some of the equipment flown...
I will post more pics and some videos later when I get back to Albuquerque. My car motor seized up out in the boonies right after retrieving the package. Got to get rental car and find way to get new motor in 2006 Saturn Vue.
Earl
Comments
The fins were to stabilize the packages on absent and decent. It didn't work.
More later
Earl
congrats on your mission. love to hear about things here at home in NM.
Mike
I will try to d/l some videos. Launch and vid from unknown altitude until I get APM2 data decoded.
Earl
Shoot. The USB connector is not a standard camera USB cable on the APM2. Darn, have to wait till I get back to ABQ to get the data.
Earl
Can't wait to download the APM data card to see info. It should have lasted the whole flight. 7 1/2 hours and 300 miles. Should make for some interesting reading !
Earl
The 06 Saturn Vue has been a very good car. 200k miles. The oil light came on 1 min before engine seized up.
Checked oil and the was not a drop on dip stick. I have not checked under car oil pan to see if there is any damage.
Oh well such is life. Recovered the balloon package tho!
Earl
Equipment :
Pkg 1
3 - HD video recording cameras with 4 Gb SD memory cards.
1 - Digi m10 Satellite Data Modem on 148 mhz.
1 - GPS Rcirocomm Like the APM2 GPS
1 - Sparkfun Mega Pro to drive the modem
1 - 2000 ma lipo for digi modem
1 - 2200 lipo for Mega Pro
1 - Dimond X-50NA VHF antenna for Digi modem
Pkg 2
1 - APM2 (purple board)
1 - 2.4 Ghz Xbee pro 50 MW
1- 2200 ma lipo for APM and Xbee
1 - 5 vdc BEC
1 - rubber duck antenna on Xbee
1 - 120 db sonalert Sounder
1 - 2200 ma lipo for sonalert (always on, still beeping when retrieved)
1 - cheep pocket cam with 4 Gb SD card
1 - self contained RedLeaf RD32 HD camera with 16 GB SD card. (not found yet)
1 - Big tank of helium
1 - Weather balloon
20 people at launch , 5 people on first recovery team, 2 people on next day successful recovery team.
A lot of blood sweat and tears !!!
Earl
I figured it was. Would have been very impressive if it was a plane! Still impressive for a balloon! I'm interested on the drift of this thing. Crazy how it ended up 300 miles away.
Love to see the GPS log from the APM.
Too bad about the car. I thought Saturns were supposed to be well built.
Balloon...sorry I guess I should have posted that !
Still very excited over recovering packages 24 hours after landing.
Earl
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