NSL-93

Matthew, Sarah, and Paul L. met up with the groups at Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve along the Neuse River north of Raleigh. This was the site of some of the very first NCNS launches. Jim C. attended for the launch and chase. Chris G. was our Public Affairs Officer, keeping everyone updated on social media.
After some introductions to High Altitude Ballooning and the safe use of hydrogen gas, the 700g payload was activated and a 600g cell was filled with 1750g of lift from H2. Liftoff was at 0908EDT with a meandering flight track to the south.

Ascent was uneventful but slightly slower than planned (was this wing drag?). This would put the landing site several km further south. The 'wing' produced some relatively stable video -- we will be using this more often. The experimental LoRa antenna appeared to work exceptionally well. Its tracker was able to consistently be received by Paul's chase car receiver as well as a stationary receiver near NCSU. No antenna shadow was seen when the receiver drove directly beneath the flight.

31km up. Images captured from the videos of the southern NC coast from the Mobius Mini and 808 #16 cameras. Both were programmed for 'fluorescent' white balance, but show their chip's typically affinity for blue or green.

Meanwhile the various chase cars converged on Lillington, NC. After burst, the on-board landing prediction software repeatedly indicated that the payload was to land dangerously close to the Cape Fear river (It did so by placing a large red X on the live Habhub tracking map).
Driving over the bridge in Lillington, the river seemed to be crowded with sunburnt folks in all manner of floating craft -- This was going to be interesting.
For over 30 minutes, the chase teams texted, chatted between cars, and wondered who would be the one to go swimming today...

Eventually the chase cars converged alongside a pond just south of the river. The chase crews were there watching as the parachuting payload splashed down in a pond.

Wonderful... the electronics must be destroyed and how are we going to recover this?

And then things took a turn for the better... Fantastic even...
The nearest home to the pond had signs for the Coble Water Ski and Wakeboard Camp with a phone number to call. Paul reached April Coble Eller, a world champion water ski athlete, who was away at a competition. But she contacted her ski instructors that were on site at the pond. Her mother, also a skiing record holder, came out to see why so many cars were showing up.
What followed was delightful as the family welcomed in this strange group of balloon chasers and listened to their story of a weather balloon from North Raleigh. The ski instructors chose to simply wade out to the payload and bring it back for us. It was a beautiful day and the water was reportedly very warm.

The payload was brought back to the interested crowd of chasers and ski school staff. Upon inspection, the payload was found to be DRY! The lower 5cm of the payload box was sealed and full of foam -- And attached to it was the styrofoam wing which had stabilized it and helped it float upright. THE ELECTRONICS AND EXPERIMENTS WERE ALL SAFE AND DRY! (Obvious from the images above, the cameras were still happily running.)

The gang quickly relocated to a shaded picnic table and replayed the recorded flight videos on a laptop.

A memorable day for everyone. Thank you again Coble Team!