Great video. Read your website. Pity about the cost of helium. I'm interested in tethered flights to photograph towns, landscapes, forests. A tethered balloon might be better than a kite. But helium seems to be the problem.
Yes we did some tethered balloon photography of our houses and the local neighbourhood with excellent results. We used a smaller weather balloon filled with helium and a tied it with a 150m of string. The drawbacks are the price of helium and the fact that you need a calm day. If you could get access to Hydrogen you'd be sorted, very cheap and more effective than Helium, but it's explosive and therefore dangerous. Kites are very difficult to work with, to get in the air and position.
No problems guys, thought you had an auto release system, looks like it burst in time before it ditched in the sea. If your ever going long distance I can pick it up for you if it gets to Scotland.
Great video. Read your website. Pity about the cost of helium. I'm interested in tethered flights to photograph towns, landscapes, forests. A tethered balloon might be better than a kite. But helium seems to be the problem.
odard 3 months ago
@odard
Yes we did some tethered balloon photography of our houses and the local neighbourhood with excellent results. We used a smaller weather balloon filled with helium and a tied it with a 150m of string. The drawbacks are the price of helium and the fact that you need a calm day. If you could get access to Hydrogen you'd be sorted, very cheap and more effective than Helium, but it's explosive and therefore dangerous. Kites are very difficult to work with, to get in the air and position.
GothmogLord 3 months ago
Comment removed
odard 3 months ago
Good stuff, did it come down on its own or did you have comms to it. Homemade gyro might steady it up a bit.
joefaetheblock 10 months ago
@joefaetheblock
Thanks,
As the balloon goes higher the air pressure drops. This causes the helium gas inside the balloon to expand.
So the balloon gets bigger and bigger and eventually bursts. And the payload plummets back to earth. We used a small parachute to slow the descent.
See the website in the description for more info on what we did.
Gyro may have helped though it was so turbulent up there I'm not sure how effective it would have been.
GothmogLord 10 months ago
@GothmogLord
No problems guys, thought you had an auto release system, looks like it burst in time before it ditched in the sea. If your ever going long distance I can pick it up for you if it gets to Scotland.
joefaetheblock 10 months ago
The on-board video was just too shaky to put up, winds were quite violent.
It's mostly a slide show after the first minute.
I thought it would be a bit boring if I didn't give it some motion
Overkill maybe, I see your point.
GothmogLord 1 year ago
Fascinating but all the zooming out of each frame makes it quite sickening to watch.
Wickl0wGuy 1 year ago