Wow. Just wow. Rian is really amazing! The meeting went really well and he is looking forward to becoming my mentor! We started the meeting with me introducing myself and the current situation and then moved on to some of the questions.
What I found out in the meeting was that I can get balloons from a company called Intermet Africa. He told me that the meteorology department at the airport (which is where he works), launches a weather balloon every 12 hours. For a minute I thought this was really great until I found out that they never recover a single balloon…
Rian told me that the hardest part of the project is not getting the camera up there, it’s getting it back. He said one of the options I should look at is transmitting that data as it’s recorded, that way the equipment is expendable However a R7000 GoPro in my mind is not all that expendable…
Rian said that I could launch from Cape Town Airport and they would be able to track it for me but I would most probably lose the equipment. When asking about stability and rigs, he said I should speak to a guy called Michael who works at Intermet Africa. Apparently, Intermet Africa does all their electronics and stuff, and he said that he could help me set up a meeting with them so that we can discuss things such as how to get it back, GPS tracking, stability, etc. It is possible I will take up Michael as a second mentor, for all the tech things.
When I asked him about how to attach the payload to the balloon, he told me that there is a single string that comes down from the neck of the balloon to the payload, which then gets attached or tied on there. There is no possibility of using triangulated holding lines, as the balloon’s size is variable and there is no place to attach it to. (Well there goes that theory).
Rian said that I could go to his department at the airport sometime and see how they do things there. Every launch takes about 50-70 minutes before their balloons burst, but that is only for 350g. I am planning to go for an 800/1000g.
The other nice thing about Rian is that he is a forecaster, which means that he is able to predict upper jet streams and high altitude weather, which will help me design a system to bring the camera back if I know more or less which direction and how far it will be going.
All in all a good meeting. I understand a lot more than I did, and I know what I need to do from here. I will contact Michael from Intermet Africa and see if I can set up a meeting with him, as it looks like he has more knowledge on the technical side of things.
