Super2 Balloon

BalloonLife,March2000

Ihavejustreturnedfromfourhoursof
instructioninriggingandinflatingthe
veryfirsttypecertifiedmannedsuper-
pressure gas balloon in the world. It is my
pleasure to announce that Dr. CoyFoster
isbackandheiswellonhiswayto
es tablis hin gm orewo rldb alloo nin g
records.
In the 1980s Coy set 49 world records
in balloons and airships and was awarded
the FAI’s Montgolfier Diploma in 1989.
(SeeBalloon Life September 1986.)His
bal lo ono fch o iceth isti meisa
superpressuregasballoonbuiltbyPer
Lindstrand at Lindstrand Balloons Ltd. in
the UnitedKingdom.
As I pulled into the parking lot next to
alarge park in East Plano, Texas, the crew
wasgatheringonthefieldtoworkon
riggingthenew balloon.Manywere in-
volvedinCoy’smanypreviousworld
recordflightsandwespentmanyearly
minutesreunitingandrenewingfriend-
ships.
Unloading the envelopebag from the
backofavehicleIwasamazedatthe
weight. It is heavy.Taking it out of the bag
andunrolling itonto the groundtarpwe
founditto be totallywhite andabout30
feet indiameter. It has a load ring at the
topwhere the gas valve is attached. Itis
activated electronicallyby an instrument
located in the basket. The envelope mate-
rial is thick and heavy. Made of Kevlar it
iscoveredonbothsidesbyalayerof
white polyurethane. There isalso a PRV
(PressureRelief Valve) atthe bottom of
theballoon.Thisvalveissettoopenat
350 mm water pressure or canbe manu-
ally openedbythe pilot.Thereisnoap-
pendix for inflation. Thereis a small valve
on thesideof the balloonwhere the gas
inflationhoseisattached.Whenfully
inflated, this valve is closed, and the hose
isdetached.
Per Lindstrandgave us a short brief-
ing on superpressure technology and then
proceeded withdetails onthe valves, in-
flation,andriggingofthebasket.After

four hours, we struggled to roll the enve-
lope into a small enough package to put it
backintothebag.Wehadjustseenthe
veryfirstTypeCertifiedSuperpressure
Gasballooninthe worldandone of the
fewsuperpressuremannedballoonever
built.(SeeFlying Under Pressure)
Dr.FosterandItalkedforseveral
hoursabouttheballoon,it’sequipment
and his plans for world record attempts in
theSuper 2.Followingispartofour
conversation.

BalloonLife:Tellmeaboutthisnew
balloon andyour plansfor future record
attempts.
Coy Foster:I like the record stuff a great
deal.Tometheflightitselfisthevery
smallest part. Being able to gathera group
ofpeopletogether that arespecialized and
have the skills and expertise that this team
has is the thrill. I really wanted to get these
people together and gofor it again.
Iwentbacktotherecordbooksto
lookandsee what was there. I had flown
hot air and gas airships, and hot air and gas
balloons. Whenyou look backinhistory
youfindalmostnorecordo fASor
superpressureflights.Icouldfindonly
four people who had done it before. Julian

Nott, who flew across Australia in1984;
TomHeinsheimerwhodidairquality
exp erim ent si nth e19 7 0si nt he
ATMOSAT (Atmospheric Satellite) and
Roger Barker whoflew the ATMOSAT
in the Palm Springs area in 1984 where he
setdistanceanddurationforAS-4&5;
andFumioNiwafromJapanwhowas
flying a superpressure ballooninattempt
tocrossthe Pacific Oceansoloin1991.
The balloon failedandhe died before he
could be rescued.
I had asked bothPer Lindstrand and
JimThieleaboutAS balloons,andthey
said there wasnot much toit. I couldn’t
findanythingmoreabouttheASbal-
loons.Dr.JanetFolkes,a researchengi-
neer for Lindstrand Balloons, and I talked
about thesuperpressure balloons forabout
three years. She and I both went to Per to
ask himtobuild a superpressure balloon
for me.Finally,I foundthattherewasa
majo rp rob lem.Thepro blemwit h
superpressure is that there is zero margin
forerror.Thereasonnoonehasbuilt
superpressureor flownmanyof themis
thatwhenitfailsitiscatastrophic.Itis
similar toa small child’s balloon.When
thepressurebuildsupitdoesnot tear.It
“pops.”
With new technologieswecannow
buildsomethingthat can be flownsafely
and we will be able to prove it with these
upcomingflights.Asanaside,Raven
Industries in SulfurSprings, Texas is now
workingwithNASA ona projectcalled
ULDB, Ultra LongDistance Ballooning.
Ithastodowithflyingaquitelarge
superpressureballoonandparkingitat
about80,000feetfor a minimumof 100
days witha payload of a ton. It couldbe
usedasa communicationsplatformand
forsurveillance.The funding is also driven
by our planetary expedition programs. If
they can succeed in setting up these plat-
formstheywillbe usedfor the explora-
tionof Mars.
Th eon en eatth in gab o uta
superpressure balloon is that you can tune

The Super2Balloon

by Mike Rose

Super2 being p res sure tested at the
Lindstrand Balloon factory in England.

BalloonLife,March2000

ittoacertainaltitudeanditwillstayatthat
altitude until it fails or you run out of
candy bars.The Frenchhave flowna large
number of unmanned superpressure bal-
loons for months at a time. Some have
traveled around the world many times.

BL:What sizeis this new balloon and
what is it made of?
CF:It is an AS 2 which is why we call it
Super 2. Itisabout30 feetin diameter and
holds 14,000 cubic feet of helium. It is
made out of Kevlar with a polyurethane
coating. It has thestrengthtotake tremen-
dous loads and not fail. Kevlar will not
hold helium so it is coated on both sides.
It is laminated together and coated over
each seam. It has an electric helium valve
at the top. There is another valve at the
bottom of the balloon which opens auto-
matically at a preset pressure. It can be
manually activated. An electronic instru-
mentin the basket willmeasure the ambi-
ent temperature, the helium temperature
and the helium pressure inside the enve-
lope. This balloon was pressure tested at
the Lindstrand factory to 500 millimeters
of water for safety. My maximum flying
pressure willbe less than 350 millimeters
of water. If the pressure goes above 350,
the PRV will open.

BL:What record flights are you looking
at?
CF:We are planning on staying below
10,000 feet. We want to stay out of con-
trolled airspace,andnot haveto carry
oxygen. The four records we are looking
at arethose set by RogerBarker.The
recordsare 35kilometersin7hours,which
is about 22 miles at 3 miles per hour.

BL:How didyour interestinaviationand
record setting begin?
CF:My flying background goes back to
NASA inthe 60s. I was inmedical school
andlookingforanopportunitytodosome-
thing in aerospace. Several years earlier
in college, I had the opportunity to work
for a year with General Dynamics/Astro-
nautics. At thattime the USwasinstalling
ICBMs to protect us from the Commies
andso Igot upclose withmissiles.During
the sametime,wewerelaunching the
MercuryBoysfrom the Cape. WhenI was
accepted at medical school at Galveston
in 1964, NASA was being builtin Hous-
ton. I went there and talked to the people

in Flight MedicinewhereIwantedto
work. I told them that I wantedthe NASA
experience and that I was really excited.
They saidthatwasnice, butwe don’thave
a slotfor you. If youwere a flightsurgeon
youcouldapply through theregular cycle
and we would see what we could do.
Iwentaway disappointedand backto
medical school.About six weeks later,
they called and asked if I still wanted to
work there. You bet!!! They had created
an extern position for me. It was a paid
positionsoI worked withthem off and on
from 1965 through1969. Duringthattime
itwas the Gemini missions, the two-man
capsule, and Apollo, the three-man cap-
sule. I left after Apollo 10. I was in Cali-
fornia forApollo11whichwas about two
months later.
Ihadtheopportunity todosome
things that were fairly unique. I got the
entire trainingof the astronauts. Myboss,
Dr. Howard Minners, knew what I was
trying to accomplish. My long-term goal
was to go into the astronaut program. Dr.
Minnerswasin charge ofFlightMedicine
andhelet meexperiencepretty much
everything that the astronauts did. That
included the flight training, simulation,
centrifuges, zero g weightless flights like
you saw in Apollo 13, the movie.

BL:How did your work with NASA tie
into ballooning?.
CF:Atthattime I wasnot a pilot.Toward
the end ofmyexperience with NASA
Houston,I hadthe opportunitytositdown
and talk with two of the people in charge
of the astronaut program,Colonel Tom
Stafford, who later became a general and
Deke Slayton who was in charge of the
astronautoffice.Iaskedthem,what I
would need to do to apply for the astro-
nautprogram. Theypointed outthedown-
side that I might sit around for 10 years
and get only one space flight out of the
deal. They preferred that I stay in medi-
cine. Sadly, I left and stayed inmedicine.
When I went to California, I prac-
ticed familymedicine for a while and got
my fixed wing license in 1970. When I
finished mostof my plastic surgery train-
ing, Imovedbackto Dallas.Oneday
while driving to a dentist appointment, I
passed by a little buildingin Grand Prai-
rie. A sign out front declared, “Balloon
PortoftheSouthwest.”Italsosaid,“Honda
Parts,”on top and I thoughtthat was cool.

I was riding a Honda motorcycle at that
time and needed a tire. I walked in. I told
the guy sitting behind that desk, Ronnie
Long, that I needed a tire for my Honda
750 and asked what was the deal withthe
balloon. He showed me a Barnesballoon.
I had seen balloons fly while training in
PhoenixbutI had never seenone upclose.
It looked like I had found a better way to
fly. I talked to Ronny and told him that I
was a fixed wing pilot, butwas interested
inseeinghow balloonsworked. He asked
me to come out and crew withhim, and if
I enjoyed it hewould teachme tofly
balloons. Six months later I had my pri-
vate certificate and a year later my com-
mercial.
In 1978, I had the opportunity totake
aworldtour toworkwith thetop35
plasticsurgeons. Here was a great chance
to tie my two passions together. I looked
at the world ballooning directories, and
identified balloonists in the places that I
would be doing Plastic Surgery. I visited
balloonists in Canada and England and
while there visited the Thunder factory
andDickWirth.I wenttoSwedenand met
Per Olow Anderson,his son Peter and
HokanColting.Hokan andPer Lindstrand
were originally partners and that is the
origin of the Colt balloon. Later, I was
going from Sweden to Switzerland and
Hokan said he was going to Switzerland
also. He invited me to join him. There I
enjoyed some beautiful summertime bal-
looning in the Swiss Alps.

BL:When did the interest in record set-
ting come up?
CF:In 1980 Dick Wirth brought the first
ColtCloudHopper to Albuquerque. This
was a one-man solo, backpack type bal-
loon. Theoriginal ideaforthese came
fromBrian Boland’s ballooning in the
early 70s. Per had built 5 CloudHoppers
forthe movieGreen IcewithRyanO’Neil.
He also built one for Smirnoff V odka,
which was a very distinct balloon project
flown by Robin Bachelor for a magazine
ad. The flightwas on theThames River in
downtown London and was so exciting
that BBCTV gave itone hour of live TV
time. It was seen by an estimated 250,000
people.
InAlbuquerque,Dickflewthe
CloudHopper Saturday and Sunday daz-
zling thecrowds.Icrewedforhim.I
begged him to let me fly the balloon and

BalloonLife,March2000

kept asking him for the flightmanual. He
put me off saying that the manual was in
hishotelroom. OnTuesday, I finallyflew
the balloon. I flew it everyday after that.
When Dick was ready to leave he toldme
thathereallydidn’twanttotakethe
balloon back with him. He asked me if I
wouldconsiderbuyingit.Isaid,“Ofcourse
I’ll buy it!”Then I discovered the hook. I
thought he had hundreds of hours in this
balloon. He gave me a copy of his new
book,Ballooning, and autographed the
bookwriting,“ToCoy, theonlyone inthe
world that has more CloudHopper time
than I do.”
I brought the Hopper back to Dallas.
I became comfortable flyingit, and really
wanted some questions answered. How
long would the balloon fly? What tem-
peratures would it fly at? And how high
would it go? Dr. Ralph Holmes, a com-
puter expert, agreed to work with me on
the thermodynamics information, which
we found was very complex. Over a pe-
riod of a year Ralph wrote a very good
computer program to allow me to model
the balloon and be able to make educated
guesses.Throughcarefuldocumentedfly-
ing wewereableto tune theprogram
within about five percent of what I was
actually flying.
One cool calm day I flew the Hopper
untilit was out of fuel. I wanted to know
three things;how long, how far and what
happened when you ranout of fuel. I flew
for 55 minutes on one ten-gallon tank of
fuel. It taught me the difference in sound
of theburner, whichweallknow now, but
which very few knew at that time.

BL:When was the first record attempt?
CF:The computer program taughtus that
temperature was critical. I went back to
the people Iknew and people that had
experience flying in cold weather. It was
Sweden.Perbuiltmeabrandnew
CloudHopper. Icarriediton anairplane to
Sweden. There withfriends, we traveleda
littlesouthoftheArcticcirclenear
Uppsala, Sweden. The weather wasmi-
nus 20 degrees, snow on the ground and
very lightwinds. Thiswas inJanuary and
the days were only about 6 hours long.
The Swedish people jokingly wanted to
train me to buildan igloo in case I had to
spendsometimeoutin theelements,
which was highly possible.
This new balloon was highly modi-

fied. I had a 15 and 20-gallon stainless
steel tanks that I could configure to my
needs. On the first flight I was flying for
distance. I tookoff intoa perfectlyserene
and gorgeous pristine snow. I was flying
southbound andstartedhearingnoises
likeI was running out of fuel. I could butt
kick the tank and know that I was not out
of fuelbut the burner was soundinglike it
was out of fuel. I wasover a lake and had
beencautioned about landing on lakes
becauseifit might notbecompletely
frozen. I landed and found I stillhad half
a tank of fuel left. I had covered 21 miles
in 55 minutes. The previous record had
been about 11 miles. I had broken two
records—distance for AX-2 and 3.
After some modifications I took off
on a second flight. It ended a short time
later in powerlines and two broken legs.
I had broken two records and two
legs while in Sweden, but had learned a
great deal about the balloon. It was much
to heavy for what we wanted to achieve.
We were also able to refine our computer
program with the gathered data.
Eventually I set a total of 49 records
which included all of the hot air 2, 3 and
4 distance, duration and altitude, a num-
ber of gas 1, 2 and 3 records plus some
records I flew with Paul Woessner in a
Thunder & Colt GA-42 Airship.

BL:What happened after the record set-
ting in small balloons.
CF:Per Lindstrand had built me a AX-5
made out of mylar using the experience
gained onthe AtlanticandPacific balloon
crossing. At that time, wewere testing
newtechnologiesthatwerestronger,
lighterand hadbetterheatcontrol.I wasin
the process of testing the mylar balloon
and had completed two test flightsbefore
my accident in Longview.

BL:Tellme more about thisnew balloon
andthe new technologyyouwillbe using.
CF:To begin with, it is heavy. It is very
heavy.The AS-2 envelope weighs 110
kilos or almost 245 pounds.My AX-2
balloons weighed about 70 pounds. So
you are talking about 3 times as heavy.
The weight is not a major problembe-
causetheballoon will lift almost950
pounds. The envelope is 30 feet in diam-
eter and looks like a white beach ball.
We havea basket that I have used
previously, but is being modified. It will

carry anencoding altimeter, flight instru-
ments, transponder, tracking equipment,
radio and video equipment. We are build-
inga panelthatwillhold all of the instru-
mentation. For communication we will
use an aircraft radio, a Kenwood TH-7A
dual band radio with APRSfor tracking
and two Giraffe video cameras.

BL:Whatkindof helium pressure willbe
put into the balloon.
CF:Thisishard toexplain because I have
not done it before. I can tell you how it is
theoretically done. First, it is critical to
know exactly, to the ounce, what every-
thingweighs. At thispoint time it is very
similar toa zeropressure balloon. We will
fill the balloon to equilibrium and then
add the amountof “free lift”that I want to
useto get tomy“float altitude.”The more
practicalway istoinflate the balloonuntil
it reaches equilibrium. The helium fill is
calculated to get the balloon to the float
altitude that I chose. Once at that altitude
the balloon will float without ascending
or descending and without dumping he-
lium or ballasting. There may be minimal
ballasting at sunset as the helium cools.
The first flight is planned for day-
time.This will allow us looking at the
critical times of local noon and sunset. If
I have problems, I will have to land.
Local time around noon is when the
sun is providing the maximumheating.
This is when the balloon will have the
highestpressure. The other critical time is
at sunset. It is going through cooling and
the pressure will decrease.
I have some experience in landing at
night, but I don’t want to do that. If there
are no problems making a landing neces-
sary I willfly through the night and then
land sometime aftersunrise the second
day.
I am planning a 24-hour flight and
will not sanction any records during the
testflight. I don’tparticularly care where
I go, but there are some geographic limi-
tations.The importantthingisflightsafety.
We are looking at this Spring for the
test flight. After that we will look at the
second flighttosetthe distance anddura-
tion records. I have no clue on what the
records will be but I think I can go more
than 22 miles in 24 hours.

BL:What about the altitude records?
CF:Thereisnoadvantageto

BalloonLife,March2000

superpressure toaltitude. The FAI Sport-
ing Code Regulations state that for the
record to be certified in superpressure
flightit must be able to fly superpressure.
Inanaltitudeattemptwe willusea smaller
basket that weighs about 20 pounds. We
are looking at a littleover 20,000 feet for
the altitude attempt.

BL:Tell us about someof thespecial
equipment you will be using.
CF:I would have given anything during
the80s tohavetheequipment thatis
available now. We have always used 2-
meter radio because it is clear FM. The
new radios aresmaller,more versatile,
lighter, and are less expensive. The cur-
rentequipmentwe are usingisa Kenwood
TH-7A. It has a 2 M and a 70 cm radio
bands.This gives us thousands offre-
quenciesto use. The neatthing about this
unit is that it has a built in modem. The
modem can be used to transmit tracking
data.Theradio allows transmission of
voice and data at the same time.
APRSor automatic packet reporting
system was developed by BobBruniga at
the Naval Academy. He wanted a hand
held,lightweight trackingsystemthat
would track the boats that the midship-
men were sailing nearby. He wanted to
look at his computer and tell who was
sailingwhere. Itworked and we’re thank-
ful that hedeveloped and continues to
improve it. It’s also free.
We’re plugging APRS into a map-
pingsystem, StreetAtlas,andusea Garmin
GPS. The crew and those that follow the
flightonthe Internet at www.Super2.com
willbe able topinpointthe locationof the
balloon at any time. I don’t have to do

Above: ATMOSAT Americainitial flight in a former blimp hangar in southern
California. Occupants in the gondola are Tom Heinsheimer (left) and Pete Neushul
(with microphone).
Below: Barograph tract from scientific flight made from the Four Corners Power
Station between Farmington and Shiprock, New Mexico. Flight landed northeast of
Monticello, Utah when the rising terrain could not be overcome.

Ballast dropped