Note: For historical purposes this flight announcement has been retained even though the event was cancelled.
Cancelled
Due to weather concerns involving the FAA and the launch site's surface conditions, this flight has been cancelled.
The JOTA flight was set up as an exempt with no waivers. Therefore we had to abide by the standard restrictions. One of those restrictions is to launch into a sky that is at maximum 50% overcast. All forecasts for Saturday placed the overcast much higher.
Secondarily, it has been a wet week with more moisture expected Friday night. The launch site would have been extremely messy to deal with.
Normally a 1 day delay is instituted when weather becomes an issue, however, Sunday is camp site tear down and clean up day for the Scouts keeping them busy with no time in their schedule for a 3 hour balloon flight and recovery.
So, the EOSS participation in JOTA 2006 has been cancelled.
This flightannouncement page will be updated Sunday to show the new scheduled launch. It is EOSS's policy to reuse flight numbers when a mission is scrubbed. So, our next flight will still be EOSS-113. We'll be flying for CU's Gateway program on November 11th.
LAUNCH DATE: 10/21/06 Cancelled
LAUNCH TIME: 9:00 am MDT (15:00 UTC)
LAUNCH SITE: Peaceful Valley Ranch, CO (driving directions)
On Air Nets
Check into the weekly EOSS net every Tuesday evening, except the 2nd Tuesday of the month when we hold our face to face meetings.
Pre-Flight Coordination Net
The evening prior to flight we hold a coordination net to assign the grid information and tactical callsigns. Any last minute information, launch time changes, launch location changes, maybe even a cancellation will be announced on this net.
A net will be held Friday night to spread the word of a 1 day delay, the regular net will happen on Saturday night at 8:00 PM MDT.
Global Frequencies
Balloon Frequencies
Preliminary
Balloon Manufacturer | Kaysam |
Balloon Type | latex |
Balloon Size | 1200 gram |
Payload | 11.1 lbs |
Free Lift % | calculated at fill |
Ascent Rate | 1100 fpm estimated |
Descent Rate | 910 fpm estimated |
Parachute | 5 ft |
Peak Altitude | determined after flight |
Launch Conditions | determined at launch |
Future I-Gaters:
Check out the EOSS I-Gate page for information on how to participate and why we need you.
Current I-Gate Station:
If you are present at your iGate during the flight try and monitor the tracking and recovery frequency. The ground station likes to check the frequency prior to launch to find out if any stations are out there ready to igate the traffic onto the net for the FAA to monitor.
The prediction program used to determine the track of the balloon prior to flight can now output a prediction for the Rise, Closest Approach, and Set of the balloon for each of your stations. I have posted a prediction page for stations that I have been able to discover geographic coordinates. See the I-Gate prediction page for an example. The page will not be updated daily, however, it will be updated the evening prior to flight for I-gate planning purposes.
I have often been asked by iGaters when they should expect to either start receiving signals (AOS) or expect to see those signals disappear (LOS). This prediction page should answer all those questions for you.
Your Log Files
Our technical committee members would also request you open a log file and record all the packets you hear and forward onto APRS-IS. Whenever there is a technical failure of a package it is always helpful to have the most complete dataset possible to attempt to determine the cause of failure and possible fixes. After a flight send your data files to me (webmaster) and I will distribute them to the appropriate payload builders. They appreciate these logs even if all goes fine during a flight.
This flight is being made to support the Boy Scouts of America Jamboree on the Air event.
EOSS has flown 4 times in support of JOTA.
There are some very nice airborne photos taken of the Peaceful Valley site back in 2003 by Scott Trumpeter, N0LNE aboard Mark Young's, KC0RIA, Air One helicopter.
Links:
note: customers are welcome to submit detailed synopses of their flights or web links to their own web sites.