THE STRATOSPHERE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 308, 30 December 1933, Page 7

THE STRATOSPHERE.

FROM THE INSIDE. BALLOONISTS SENSATIONS. A NERVE-TRYING DESCENT. (By MAJOR CHESTER FORDNEY, companion of Commander Settle in the 61,237 ft ascent from Akron in November.) BRIDGETON, N.J., November 23. Splashing through swampy turf and across bayous, sometimes neck deep in tide water, a crew of workmen is ferrying the great white envelope of the "Century of Progress" stratosphere balloon out of. its resting place in the bog. The mass of fabric, almost mountainous, even when deflated and folded, rests upon the sled-like structure of a stone-boat which bridges the rivulets and slithers through the mud beyond. Tomorrow the envelope, washed and dried and re-folded, will be in storage awaiting its next call for duty in an ascent to the stratosphere, and my own expedition with Lieutenant-Commander Settle will be officially finished. There remains little to be said about the stratosphere which so many people j talk about and so few have seen. From ! this point of view, as one looks toward I a sky covered with cirrus clouds and mist, it is hard to believe that such a region of luminous emptiness really exists, but the memory of it—by contrast —becomes more vivid. Probably the most striking thing to one who is making a trip aloft for the first time is the manner in which principles of elemental physics are brought home to one. We have been told since childhood about the heat absorbing qualities of black and the heat reflecting qualities of white. We know tue function of dust in our atmosphere. And long before anybody got up there to find out, we knew that the atmosphere become thinner and thinner in the upper altitudes until finally it ceased to exist. An Uncanny Spectacle. ' Every schoolboy knows that hydrogen gas is lighter than air and will rise through it like a cork through, water.

There is no person of average education who has not seen all of these things proved. And yet a practical demonstration of them seems weird and incredible. Despite the work we had to do in the two hours of our maximum elevation — and there was plenty of genuine manual labour —neither Commander Settle nor I will ever forget the uncanny epectacle of the stratosphere itself—a dome of colour without brilliance where the sun is a shining disc, at which one may look without hurting his eyes. Overhead a dome of blue as deep in shade as a Marine uniform, the edges resting upon a horizon of misty blue and white—below a stretch of very light blue, also domeshaped and flecked with scurrying white clouds. Looking down through the ports, the earth looked as the sky does when one sees it from the ground. The whole illusion was that of a world turned upside down. Immediately above us was an even stranger epectacle, the great envelope., fully inflated as it had never been seen by anyone on the ground, epherical in shape, and more dazzling in its white brilliance than the sun, whose heat had expanded it. The lack of brilliance in the sky of the stratosphere is due, of course, to the I lack of duet particles to reflect it, but j the fabric of the balloon was the same I eleven and a half miles up as it had beer [on the field at Akron, and its response to sunlight was the same. While we remained there at full height with the white bag absorbing heat and constantly expanding the gas, the appen!dix immediately above the gondola was open, and one could look up through i< into the inside of the bag—a startling thing to look at, giving as it did the feeling that one was being held aloft by emptiness. The opening in the bottom of the bag had been examined in advance and its size carefully calculated, inasmucl: as the balloon could not be stretched I beyond maximum inflation, and gas must I be allowed to flow out of it fast enough to compensate for expansion. Phenomena Demonstrated. One could be excused some misgiving* at the thought that presently, ae the sun ' j moved down, there would be a" cooling \ I effect, and that the envelope with much I of its gas dissipated, would fall rapidly ' unless lightened by further sacrifice of ballast. There was another elemental phenoi menon easily noticed as the balloon • Ihung at the peak. One- half of the

gondola had been painted white to reflect, what would seem to be the negligible lieat of the eun;'the other half was black to absorbj heat. And while physicists who never in their lives were off the ground could calculate • just how much temperature this ■ would give the gondola and how much circulation the combination of black and white would promote, the demonstration of the principle was odd enough to fix one's attention. Outside the sealed metal sphere the thermometer showed a temperature ol , 52 degrees below zero, but inside we , were warm. Moisture that collected on the white portion of the gondola was frozen. On the black portion it remained a dew-like precipitation. This, too, was in accordance with a ■ principle that man has known almost since the days when he took to wearing i clothes —'but a principle which most of • us have considered to be more of a superstition than a law of physics. We i have known that black absorbed heat, , but we have doubted that the absorption was enpugh to worry about and so i we have gone on wearing dark suits in i summer and light overcoats in winter, ' unaware that we were sacrificing comfort. i Dumped the Parachutes. ! . The fall of the balloon when the ex- ' pected cooling effect was first noticed 1 made no impression upon Commander 1 Settle, who was used to such things, but 1 to me it seemed almost uncontrollably rapid. As a matter of fact, the instru- ' ments showed that even when we were ' forced ±o open up the ports and. toss out everything we could move, we were ' falling only about eight miles an hour— 1 considerably lees than the speed of a ' fast elevator. M The work to decrease acceleration by lightening the load was rapid and ex--1 hausting. The hatch covers' of the gon- ' dola went down. We threw out our bat- [ teries and our food along with our reserve of lead dust. All fittings that could ' be pried loose went overboard. 1 Soon nearly everything that we had taken up was gone and I told the commander that I was ready to jump out i and give him buoyancy enough to land i the balloon. He shook hie head. ; "You won't have to," he said. "But i you might ae well take off your para- • chute harness." I.asked him why. "Because," he said, "I dumped the parachutes 15 minutes ago." A few minutes later we came down.— (NXN.A.).