Perlan Weather Balloon First Launch
On July 14, 2017 the Perlan Weather Balloon crew got up very early. They took breakfast with them to the hangar. Sandra, Elizabeth, Loris, Stewart and Martin got the helium into balloon and were ready to launch.
Maximum Team Preparation Effort
July 14, 2017 Everyone on the Perlan Team put max effort into today. Tim and Alec prepared the rebreathers and performed the systems checks. Stewart and Morgan put together telemetry antenna and early set-up. Stewart and Jim trouble shot the tow plane radio.
Prep Work Continues
July 12, 2017 While our friends in Minden are cooking with temperatures near 100 F, we are wearing snow boots and fur hats inside the hangar in El Calafate. Today started -3 C and finally warmed to 5 C. That's a relative heat wave as the high will only be 2 or 3 C for the next two days.
Wings On!
July 11, 2017- A lot was accomplished today! The 12 people from Perlan all worked another full day. Elizabeth, Loris, Alec and Sandra made great progress on getting the weather balloon software to read the GPS data. Our checklists were updated with new procedures. We had another productive meeting about operational procedures with EANA tower folks.
Preparation Work in El Calafate
July 10, 2017- There's a lot of preparation work that is crtical for Airbus Perlan Mission II success. A new oil pre-heater was installed on the Boreo tow plane. We knew from Minden that one of the accelerometers had stopped sending data. So Morgan and Stewart found the broken wire problem and repaired. There was a meeting with local officials about launching weather balloons.
Unloading the Container
July 9, 2017 was Unloading Day for Perlan and Independence Day for Argentina. The truck arrived last night and the crane arrived this morning. The Perlan team was in place to download and unload the container. First we needed to sweep and clean the hangar. The hangar aircraft needed to be shuffled to create room for an 85 foot wing span.
Arrival in El Calafate - July 8 '17
July 8, 2017 Today was the big arrival day at El Calafate for Airbus Perlan Mission II. Tim and Alec were the early scouting party. They started getting the rental cars ready and met two groups at the airport.
Cholo and Raul departed the Atlantic coast in the CNVVM tow plane at sunrise. Is that a beautiful golden view?
Argentina Events - July 6-7 '17
The events of July 6-7, 2017 in Argentina were extremely worthwhile for the Perlan Project. The logistics of a Campaign in Patagonia are incredibly complicated. In the past 2 days it is coming together. Tim and Alec arrived in El Calafate after driving hard for three days on the scenic Ruta 40 parallel to the Andes Mountains in Patagonia. Santa Monica Cabins are ready to become team headquarters for 10 weeks.