Flight 106: Released from Alamogordo, New Mexico, 0657 MST, February 8, 1949 Recovered at Ellsmore, Kansas
This was the first flight to clearly demonstrate the efficient action of a combination ballast control-displacement switch and rate-of-ascent switch-on a 20-foot, .001" polyethylene balloon. From the height-time curve and ballast-flow record (Figure 54), it will be seen that the ballast control was operating at 41,000 feet MSL during the period of radio reception from Alamogordo, New Mexico. By the time the second receiving station picked up the signal, all of the ballast had been exhausted and the balloon was falling. On this flight a high loss of lifting gas caused the total ballast load of 600 grams to be exhausted in less than five hours. (Average used in first two hours was 1700 grams per hour.)
Figure 54
The descent point of this balloon was compared with that predicted from a study of the atmospheric pressure patterns at floating level. Assuming geostrophic flow, members of a graduate class in meteorology at New York