Pressure Tests on Fabric Conducted

November 6, 1996

The Virgin Global Challenger Test Flight Program began today with the inflation of an AM7 De Rozier test balloon, a 77,000 cubic foot system, and the team hopes to conduct their first test flight tomorrow night. The balloon was inflated with air to test the fabric under pressure. "We pressurized the balloon to 3/4 of an inch of water gauge using a manometer, a tube with water that responds to air pressure. This translates into 0.027 psi (pounds per square inch). When this balloon flies for the test flight, it will be flown at a maximum of 0.024 psi," said Leon Eversfield, Special Projects Engineer for the around the world flight. "We've been able to calculate that there's 3.5 pounds of force on every inch of fabric." And, from the looks of it, the fabric seems to be holding up well.

Launch Master Bruce Erickson was on hand for the inflation, and was staying in touch with local meteorologists to determine the best time to actually launch the test balloon. "It looks like our best opportunity to launch this test balloon will be tomorrow evening. We want to gauge the system's propane consumption at night, so we plan to fly through the night and hopefully for a total of 24 hours." Marcia Neil, who will be piloting the balloon commented, "It's going to be cold up there. We're going to be flying in an open air basket, and we'll try to maintain a constant altitude between 10,000 and 12,000 feet. It's going to be a long night."

Plans are to launch the balloon tomorrow evening and fly though the night which should put the balloon on a southeast trajectory some 150 miles from Reno Stead Airfield, the launch site. Upon landing, the team will pack up and return to Stead Airfield, where they will launch the system again with Per Lindstrand as pilot. Per hopes to break Steve Fossett's existing altitude record for a De Rozier system, which is 26,900 feet.

Come back to our site for live coverage of the test flights as we chase the balloons across Nevada!

(previous newsflash)
(table of contents)