by Tom Hamilton
Two people's ideas and dreams have come together in one project. Bob Martin first considered a high altitude global flight 1989. Dave Liniger was approached with a similar idea in 1988. By 1992 Martin started working in earnest toward his goal. The idea proposed to Liniger ended on a back burner until earlier this year.
"We had a team of researchers investigating the idea of my attempting this trip solo," Liniger told Balloon Life in May. "During our research we became aware that the very technology we were looking at had already been developed by Bob and John, but they were in need of additional funding. It seemed logical for us to pool our resources and talents. And, because the RE/MAX organization has almost 90 hot air balloons, the largest corporate fleet in the world, this mission is a natural for us."
The envelope is being built by
Raven Industries, utilizing the same specifications as NASA scientific balloons
which fly in the stratosphere, the radiation controlled balloon (RACCOON).
The flight profile will have the balloon flying between 80,000 feet at its
low point to a maximum of 130,000 feet. Filled with 170,000 cubic feet of
helium for launch, the balloon envelope expands to nearly 40 million cubic
feet at full cruising altitude.
One of the main questions of concern for this flight is the team's ability to land the balloon from 100,000 feet. No one has ever tried to land a payload of this size from this altitude before. Balloon Life spoke with Martin about this in a recent phone conversation. In a slightly agitated voice, having to answer this question one more time, Martin said, "It will be more engaging then a regular [gas] balloon. We have studied the early high altitude balloon flights like Manhigh and how NASA has valved down some of their high altitude research balloons. We plan to bring the balloon down slowly, 400-500 feet per minute. Finally ballasting to slow the final descent rate to 200-400 feet per minute. It will be more tedious."
Balloon Life sought out another opinion on bringing the balloon down. "All they have to do is valve some of the helium, maybe 10,000 cubic feet to start the descent. Once the balloon is established in the descent it will continue," says Larry Newman. Newman has plenty of experience with his Earthwinds project. On the last flight he landed a 24,000 pound payload, far heavier than Team RE/MAX, without any problems. Balloon Life suggested that he did it from a lower altitude. "Doesn't matter, if you do the math the displacement of helium in the atmosphere will remain constant as the balloon comes down. All they will need to do is ballast near the end to slow the descent rate."
Another concern for safety has been the reliability of the envelope to stay together. Material high altitude balloons are made from looks and feels like plastic wrap. Because these high altitude balloons do occasionally fail there is a greater risk. "We feel very comfortable with these envelopes or we wouldn't be going up," says Martin.
What about loss of cabin pressure. "We have just returned from Cosmonaut training in Russia," Martin says. "We will be wearing Russian space suits for the launch and landing and wear our regular clothes during the mission, just as they do on the Space Shuttle."
What is Martin concerned about? "The weather 17 days after we takeoff. While we can wait for the perfect launch weather for liftoff, it is the weather for landing that is a bigger concern."
Landing is important, if the crew has to bailout any records they might have established will not be valid.
Two of the main concerns for the northern hemisphere teams will not be important to Team RE/MAX: Overflight permission, they will only be over a few countries; weather, at least during the flight. First the balloon will be above all the storms and second the winds at high altitude this time of the year are very predictable.
The challenges are formidable but Martin and Liniger can see a dream from long ago coming to reality.
Pilots: Dave Liniger, 52, married,
co-founder of RE/MAX, Castle Rock, Colorado;
Bob Martin, 44, reporter, pilot
KRQE-TV, Albuquerque, New Mexico;
John Wallington, 42, married,
professional balloonist, Canberra, Australia.
