ABQ Journal Link with links worldwide coverage.
A hydrogen balloon and thunderstorms -- not good. Prayers up.
Posted on 09/30/2010 7:45:00 AM PDT by CedarDave
An air search for two missing balloonists taking part in the Gordon Bennett Cup race resumed at first light on Thursday.
The Italian coastguard said aircraft would have to stop searching at 1900 BST on Wednesday when it got dark.
But boats had been due to continue to search for them through the night.
The hydrogen balloon, piloted by Americans Richard Abruzzo and Carol Rymer Davis, went missing in thunderstorms over the Adriatic.
Don Cameron, the race's flight director, said nothing had been found so far.
He said the event's control centre was providing technical details to the Italian coastguard to aid the search.
Twenty balloons took off from a launch site to the north of Bristol on Saturday night - the first time the race has started in England since it began in 1906.
Massimo Maccheroni, of the Italian coastguard, said they last had contact with the pair, who won the race in 2004, at 0800 local time (0700 BST) on Wednesday.
The missing team were one of three US entries.
Mr Maccheroni said the pilots reported bad weather conditions.
He said on Wednesday: "We are searching the sea 13 miles off Cap Gargano in the Puglia area.
"The balloon could also have landed on the ground near Foggia and we have also been advised that it could have possibly landed in Croatia."
The 19 other balloons taking part in the race had landed safely by Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
ABQ Journal Link with links worldwide coverage.
A hydrogen balloon and thunderstorms -- not good. Prayers up.
NM list PING!
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That interesting: when the Gordon Bennett race is launched from Albuquerque, they use helium instead of hydrogen.
Hydrogen?.............is this true?............
There is always a helium balloon race from ABQ in association with the October balloon fiesta. It’s not the same as the Gordon Bennett race.
http://www.gordonbennett2010.com/
Prayers going up from the Westside.
Some years, the helium balloon race from ABQ is the Gordon Bennett race.
Race Rules:
3.8 LIFTING GAS Hydrogen gas will be provided by the organisers.
Justlurking: A closer look at the race rules (bottom of the pdf) says that since 2005 both hydrogen AND helium are approved race gases. So indeed they could have used helium when they started the race from ABQ a few years ago.
hydrogen . . . thunderstorm . . .
uhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .
I thought we’d gotten smarter than that.
Maybe it’s living too close to the idiocies in Santa Fe.
Why Great Britain?
The inaugural race took place in Paris in 1906. Since then no Briton had won, until, in 2008, David Hempleman-Adams and Jon Mason flew 1,767kms in just over 74 hours, flying from Albuquerque in New Mexico to the shores of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. They won the 52nd Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett and with it the honour of hosting the race in their home nation. http://www.gordonbennett2010.com/about
A hydrogen balloon?! So why should I go looking for a suicide?
If you’re dumb enough to ride one, you get what you get... What a bunch of trolls...
It’s called HELIUM idiots! Use it! Love it and live!
They have had race participants killed by lightning as far back as 1923 - race started in 1906.
Some were even shot down (Crossed into Soviet airspace - attack helos and balloons don’t mix well)
So long as there are people with money to burn (no pun in the case) these kind of ‘races’ will continue.
The question is - who pay for the search? The race organizers?
And the “winner” ends up in Moldova? Took me an hour just to clear customs and I was a VIP - that was only the first of many attempted shakedowns. Anyway, almost a year ago to the day I was in Kotor, Montenegro and got stuck in a hellacious T-storm - really spectacular Arizona stuff - I cannot imagine how you would manage anything like that in a freakin’ hydrogen ballon...
seems like a bad sign to be missing this long
With all the financial backing these people get, you’d think the balloons would be equipped with a GPS tracking device and maybe even a small radio transmitter.
Finding a lost balloon shouldn’t be difficult.
4.1 FLIGHT INSTRUMENTS Each balloon must carry at least;Additionally, each balloon will carry a GPS logger/tracking device provided by the organiser. Organisers will publish information regarding balloon altitudes during the flight. There is no restriction in the use of navigation aids and flight control instruments. Every balloon should be equipped with sufficient oxygen and appropriate distribution system to be used at altitudes greater then 12,500 feet MSL. Faulty barographs or altitude recording device may be penalised under rule 6.4. In case of suspected altitude violations, barographs or backup altitude recording device (GPS) may be checked. Each balloon should carry a backup GPS that would constitute a back-up tracking log in case of tracker failure.
- Altimeter
- Variometer
- Barograph or other altitude recording device
- 720 channel VHF radio, minimum 5 watt radio plus back up radio
- Strobe light with minimum brightness required for aircraft
- Beam light for night landing
- Electronic Navigational Aid or GPS
- Transponder Mode S
- Emergency Locator Transmitter: EPERB
So, there should have been a backup GPS aboard. For it not to suffer the same fate as the original GPS, you would presume it would not be connected to the same power source.
I guess my point is that, with today's technology, there's no excuse for it to be missing for more than a few hours, provided it landed on ground, not sea. Even if the balloon crashed and the crew is dead, there ought to be something sending a signal to help people locate it. Or else, why have it?
Italian Coast Guard Warrant Office Massimo Maccheroni listed three hypotheses on what happened: Lightning struck the balloon and it exploded; the balloon suffered a failure and went down quickly into the ocean; or it dropped slowly, making survivability more likely.
CNN: Debris may not be of missing balloon
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