Out of This World Paper Airplanes Ebook by Takuo Toda & Andrew Dewar

Author:Takuo Toda & Andrew Dewar [Toda, Takuo & Dewar, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

The balloon and its cargo disappeared into the sky very quickly.

As soon as the balloon was released, it sprang into the air with the camera and paper airplane pod hanging beneath it. In no time it was out of sight.

The camera pod carried a GPS transponder and a small parachute so it could be recovered. But to avoid any danger to people in case the parachute didn’t open, most of the flight took place over the ocean.

The program staff thought there was only a 30 percent chance of recovering the camera—even with the GPS. They tracked it for 43 minutes until the signal suddenly went dead. The recovery team thought the camera was lost for good, but after five minutes of scanning the waves, one member shouted, “There it is!”

When the camera’s video was played, the staff found it had captured the moment of release perfectly. The balloon and the pod were being buffeted by powerful winds, but the hatch opened and ten airplanes spilled out into the thin air and headed for Earth. The sky was deep indigo, almost black, and the horizon was curved (see photo, page 4). The balloon had climbed to almost 90,000 feet (almost 30,000 m); three times the height of commercial flights.

None of the airplanes were found, however. The wind was blowing them out to sea, and at the height they began their flight, they could have traveled hundreds, even thousands of miles.

The Guinness World Record for the highest flight is perhaps not as glamorous as those for time aloft and distance flown, but it is just as difficult, and requires large teams of people to achieve.

The rules for the highest flight do not require the plane to be launched by hand, so remote controlled devices attached to weather balloons are now the preferred technique. The planes are released so high that the balloon is invisible from the ground, and the planes can fly surprising distances before landing, so cameras and computers are needed to verify the launch. And because the balloons fly well above the level of commercial flights, special permission is absolutely necessary.

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