Lou Billones is the chief meteorologist for Steve Fossett's Solo Spirit around-the-world balloon attempt. Balloon Life Contributing Editor George Denniston recently spoke with Mr. Billones about Steve's record flight and how he used the existing weather patterns to guide Solo Spirit halfway around-the-world. Following is part of that conversation.
Balloon Life: Good morning, Lou. We know that you put a good deal of
effort, and many years' experience into Steve Fossett's Solo Spirit
project. Thank you for speaking with us. Can you tell us what the
conditions were like for launch at Busch Stadium in St. Louis?
Lou Billones: There was a big difference between the forecasted
conditions for the surrounding area and the actual conditions inside the
Stadium. The forecasted conditions were good, and unique in that the high
pressure on the surface centered itself directly over St. Louis, and at the
same time the 500 millibars the winds were ridging over St. Louis and were
flowing in the right direction for crossing the Atlantic. For planning
purposes, the flight had been broken into several sectors. The first one
was designed to get the balloon safely across the Atlantic. While Lambert
Field, St. Louis' commercial airport, indicated 3 knots, and the nearby air
force base was calm, the stadium had a increased and turbulent flow due to
the surrounding buildings and huge passageways halfway up the side of the
stadium. Winds swirling through these passages delayed the launch one and a
half hours, until these unique winds also died down. The weather delay did
not cause any problem for the crossing of the Atlantic.
BL: How was the decision made to cross the Atlantic?
LB: We updated the weather constantly, drawing information from the
vast network of forecasting centers all over the world. There was a basic
update every six hours. Every one of these updates showed a successful
crossing of the Atlantic Ocean at the flight levels we had planned on. We
did identify some flight levels, notably above 23,500 feet early in the
flight that would have looped him over Iceland, so we advised him to stay
away from these levels. When Steve arrived over Kentucky, we again reviewed
the entire situation. The Atlantic was clearly doable. Steve made the
decision not to land, but to continue.
BL: Why did the Solo Spirit fly the southern route, rather than
cross the Atlantic in a more northerly direction?
LB: At the altitude he was flying he was doing well. Out he went
into the Atlantic. In the middle of the night he looked down and saw the
lights of a city. It was Hamilton, Bermuda, and he was flying directly over
it. After Bermuda, he was on track until about one-third of the way across.
Then the Icelandic low intensified just a little bit, moving a little more
south and east. This pushed his flight path about one half of one degree in
a more southerly direction. He got into a different wind pattern that
directed his course on the southern route, rather than the more northerly
route initially planned. By this time he was approaching the Azores, about
two-thirds of the way across. It might have been possible to route him more
northerly. But, there was now a cold front progressing faster eastward, due
to the slight movement of the Icelandic Low, in a line from Denmark down to
Northern Portugal. Thunderstorms were already forming along this front and
we forecasted them to continue. Had we been able to adjust his track back
to the north, he would have been flying parallel to this front and the
thunderstorms for over 24 hours. The southern track was faster, was weather
free ....but it was going over Libya.
BL: How did you detour Steve around Libya?
LB: Two days before he encountered Libya, we could tell that he was
headedin that direction. So the folks who had been working on getting
permissions for months got to work with even more intensity. The two days
we had to consider our weather steering options gave us time to make a
plan.
Our weather team, we had three other meteorologists on shift and "hot standby," developed a three phase plan that we simulated over and over again on the computer. For Phase 1, there was an upper air trough that did veer around Libya. To get into this, Steve would have to change altitude. Steve would be approaching Libya at 23,500 feet. To veer more to the southeast, he would have to drop to 18,200 feet at a precise moment in time. When he actually did that, he turned right, and skirted the southern tip of Libya.
BL: What was Phase 2?
LB: Phase 2 required a descent to 10,000 feet. To do this Steve
would have to vent helium. He would then have drifted for 24 hours slowly
over Chad and Niger, which are south of Libya. For a day and a night, he
would have been in range of hand-held ground to air missiles, if anyone had
wanted to fire one. One hour before we were going to execute phase 2, Steve
got permission to cross Libya! So phase 2 was never executed.
BL: How did you get to the jetstream?
LB: That was Phase 3. We knew that the subtropical jet stream was
directly above him. So let's get him into it, and rocket him over Libya and
on to India. Steve went back up to 24,000 feet, then continued to climb
higher. He reached 28,500 feet for a period of time and approached the core
of the Sub Tropical Jetstream, before returning to around 24,000 ft.. He
was going over 125 knots ground speed when he was over the SE corner of
Libya, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
As Steve was rocketing directly for Iraq, we passed him a new track that would turn him away and head for the Red Sea area just before entering Iraq border area. Steve answered back to us that .."this is a miracle route if it works-missing Iraq and Iran all at jet stream speeds".
As Steve's track turned away from Iraq on schedule, we faxed back, "Miracles R Us!"
BL: How was the decision made to land in India?
LB: We knew when Steve was out over the Atlantic that he would not
make it around the world. He did not have enough fuel to cross the
Pacific.
He was also experiencing extreme cold, because his heaters were not working. He had heat from the sun during the day, but none at night. He was also having to deal with the high altitudes, but he had been sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber for some time, in order to acclimatize to the low pressure. While crossing India, he had to decide what to do next. If he had continued on past India, his path would have crossed Bangladesh, south of the Himalayas, Burma (Myanmar), and then he would have headed into China. Since he could not continue across the Pacific, he would have to land in China.
However, China had not yet granted over flight permission and landing would really be pushing his luck! So he made the decision to land in India.
BL: What were the landing conditions like?
LB: As Solo Spirit approached the Himalayas, the weather did not
look good. The surface winds were moving towards the mountains. There was
orographic lifting, which created lines of thunderstorms. We identified
three pulses of energy over India, strong vortices of air moving upwards,
that were capable of creating thunderstorms. Steve descended into one of
these pulses of energy, and into thunderstorms. These were orographic
thunderstorms, and not super cell thunderstorms, like the ones in our
Midwest. He went into the first set of thunderstorms, and survived them. We
recommended that he get as low as possible and just drift. This would be
the best way to avoid moving north toward the Himalayas. Then we began to
see that more thunderstorms were coming, and we all recommended that he
land. But Steve was the pilot on the scene, and he could visually assess
the situation, and did not land. He was able to drift near the surface long
enough to break the world duration record, with a new record of six days,
two hours, and fifty minutes. He also broke his own world distance record
by 4975 miles. Then he landed in northeast India, and was looked upon as a
god, descending out of the heavens, by the local villagers.