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

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

A third method of holding the equipment at a nominal constant altitude is to fly a cluster of standard meteorological balloons equipped with ballast dropping devices and a device for releasing lifting balloons should the cluster depart from the altitude limits desired. This method is inherently unstable, as there are no proportional restoring forces which will act on the flabby, freely extensible meteorological balloons. The success of this procedure depends on very careful balancing of the load against the variable lift of the balloons.

This cluster method is of use and interest only as a stop-gap method of lifting the Army equipment to altitude now, and has been the method used while awaiting delivery of the non-extensible plastic balloons.

III d) e. A flight was made on 3 April 1947 using this method. A cluster of 12 balloons meteorological carrying a radiosonde, a 15 lb. dummy load and a series of ballast dropping devices was released from the football field at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa. The train was to be towed to 30,000 ft. by 2 lifting balloons which would then be cut loose. The weight of the equipment was adjusted to equal the lift of the balloons and presumably the train should have floated after the towing balloons were cut off. Actually, due to lack of experience in the difficulty of handling long balloon trains, auxiliary rigging lines were needed to take up launching stresses. These lines fouled the main flying line and the ballast which was to be dropped on parachutes. As a result, the balloon train went to 50,000 ft. where the tow balloons worked themselves free. The remaining train thereupon descended as fast as it had climbed (1,000 ft. per minute), landing in the ocean near Sandy Hook,