2024 Recovery

     The balloon went more vertical than in the past.  After five minutes, it was only a few miles from the school.  Once everything was put away, Lynnette (my wife) and I left on the recovery mission.  I periodically checked the location of the balloon, and it was following the prediction.  At one point, the balloon went more to the south than anticipated.  The new prediction was near the airport in Hagerstown, MD.  The FAA asked me to call this airport before launching the balloon.  The call was made so they were aware of the unmanned balloon.  We drove towards the airport and stopped at a nearby truck stop.  We ate lunch at Wendy's and watched the balloon descending on our phones.  The balloon landed north of Leitersburg, MD.  The SPOT GPS gave us the coordinates of the landing site.  I used Google Maps to plot a course.  The payload landed in a field on a farm.  I stopped and talked with the owner.  He was very interested in our project.  Lynnette drove us near the predicted landing site. 

 The first obstacle was an electric fence.  A brief touch indicated that there was a low current in the top wire.  I lifted the wire and stepped through.  Using my phone, I walked around trying to find the location.  I did not see any of our materials.  Lynnette saw the parachute in an upper field.  Sure enough, everything was at the GPS coordinates.  The owner met me in the field and took pictures.  He brought a metal pipe to ground the electric fence.  I safely crawled through and returned to my car.  

       Next, all the electronics needed to be turned off.  Everything was fine in the box.  All materials were in the same location as they were when the box was closed.  The GoPro and the battery charger were off.  I do not know why they shut down.  The battery charger was at 83% when I turned it on.  The GoPro's memory card was not full, and the internal battery was at around 25%.  Before the mission, the GoPro was able to record for 9.5 hours before filling the memory card was full. (128 GB) My only hypothesis is that the temperature in the box was too high.  The camera and the charger turned off as a safety feature. Nevertheless, the entire flight was successfully recorded.