The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

the balloon is not visible due to haze, cloud cover, etc. Ground radar has been used, when available, with fair results, particularly when radar targets are added to the flight train.

## E. Flight Termination Control

Due to the size and weight of the balloons and the flight gear, the Civil Aeronautics Authority was advised of the testing program. At a meeting in New York on 20 March 1947, the New York Air Space Sub-Committee prescribed a procedure which was designed to minimize the hazard to air traffic. Similarly, the Fort Worth Sub-Committee established a procedure for flights made within the Fort Worth region of the CAA. Pertinent correspondence with the CAA is included in the Appendix, Part 2. Owing to the size of these cells, a very slow rate of descent should be expected after all ballast has been expended and the flight control devices have ceased to operate. Thus a large balloon and several heavy pieces of equipment might take an hour or more to descend through the levels of air travel. Despite the extreme improbability of midair collision, it is obviously desirable to take all possible precautions against such mishap and current flights have the following safeguards: (1) Flights are released on days when cloud cover is forecast to be light, thus permitting visual contact. (2) Notices to airmen are to be issued if the balloon is descending within designated regions of dense air traffic. (3) To reduce the time involved in a final descent, a special device called the "blowout patch" has been developed. This is an igniting squib which is fastened to the side of the cell, on the equator. Sealed in with the squib, which is fired electrically when the cell descends below 20,000 feet, is a quantity of gunpowder and magnesium. When the squib is fired, the incendiary patch blows out, allowing a rapid escape of gas through the opening. Since the