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 con-
trol 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]
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 geo-
strophic flow, members of a graduate class in meteorology at New York
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