Weather Key To Balloon Flight

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30901, 6 November 1965, Page 16

Weather Key To Balloon Flight

The whims of weather will decide the flight plans of the balloon, Bernina 111, from Riccarton racecourse on Sunday afternoon.

If conditions are suitable, the, balloon should take off any time between noon and 2.30 p.m., and careful preliminary study of the weather prospects will indicate whether Bernina 111 will make a free flight or not. Miss Elaine Beadle, project hostess for the flights Bernina 111 is making in New Zealand, said yesterday that the pilots, Messrs H. J. Scheer and A. Schultz, would discuss the weather prospects with Meteorological Office men tonight, and have a final meeting on the weather at 8 a.m. on Sunday. “That meeting will decide whether the balloon will make a free flight or not,” said Miss Beadle. “Regulations prohibit flying in a wind exceeding 25 knots, and balloons must keep at least 1000 ft away from cloud.” The pilots, knowing what weather to expect, could plan

their flight accordingly and would allow for an early descent to avoid running into inaccessible country, she said. If a descent in rough country was unavoidable, the balloon was mobile enough if gas was in it to be man-handled to a suitable recovery point, or collapsed and left for packing and transport later. Radio amateurs were helping by manning communications to and from the balloon, said Miss Beadle. Bernina carried a radio-telephone which would work with a base set at Riccarton, and each of the two recovery vehicles was fitted with a twoway set. It would cost £450 to fill the balloon’s 24,750 cubic feet capacity for hydrogen gas, she said. The gas cylinders, filled by a Wellington firm, were due to arrive from Wellington with the balloon and other gear this morning. Asked how it was that mail to be carried by Bernina 111 had to be addressed to Ashburton, in view of the unpredictable flight path, Miss Beadle said that one post office had to be nominated so that staff could be provided there to handle the mail.

Up to yesterday, she said, more than 11,000 souvenir covers had been lodged for the flight. Bernina 111 will be at Riccarton racecourse as one of the attractions at a Plunket Society fete, at which the Jaycees are helping. All proceeds will go to the society.