Project Excelsior

[Eclipse]

So here's the power and the trap of the internet, somehow, from http://usafflagranks.com I wind up with about 12 different articles and Wikipedia topics open and stumble upon the story of Projects Excelsior and Manhigh (among others).

I'm sure these USAF experiments have a warm place in NIN's heart as they resulted in the highest parachute jump, the longest parachute freefall and the fastest freefall, records which still stand today.



Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excelsior


Video of the jumps
http://sonicbomb.com/xv2.php?vid=excelsior&w=400&h=300&id=335&ttitle=Project%20Excelsior

Considering many of us get the willies at Great America, imagine jumping off of the edge of space.
Granted, its not orbital skydiving...



...but it looks like that will be possible soon as well...



http://www.orbitaloutfitters.com/SpaceDiver.html

So if any of those viewers at home want to know why those CAPF 2's never seem to get processed...

[hatentx]

ahhh the thought of this made some blood rush to places.  Where do I sign up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mikeylikey]

ahhh the thought of this made some blood rush to places.  Where do I sign up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ya.....I got a headache too! 

[♠SARKID♠]

One of my favorite bands "Board of Canada" took footage from project excelsior and turned it into the first half of a music video.  Cool stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zKARkpDW4

[NIN]

I've actually met Joe Kittinger. He's a barnstormer still today, flying a Stearman out of Florida.  Heck of a guy.

Unfortunately, his record of freefall doesn't "count" as an official freefall record because he had a drogue parachute (technically it was a "ballute," if memory serves) to stabilize him.   I keep joking that it was either that or an ablative heatshield spacesuit....

There are at least two people attempting to break this freefall record.. one suffered a setback last month when the balloon he was to jump from separated from the capsule/gondola prematurely and floated off to la-la land. (Imagine a kid at a county fair watching his new helium balloon fly away.. "wwwaaaaaaaahhh!")

I've got 23,000 ft in my log book.  I'll go higher some day. Just not anytime soon.

[mikeylikey]

I've got 23,000 ft in my log book.  I'll go higher some day. Just not anytime soon.

That has to be an Awesome feeling! 

[NIN]

I've got 23,000 ft in my log book.  I'll go higher some day. Just not anytime soon.

That has to be an Awesome feeling! 

Yeah, it was pretty neat, actually.  The aircraft is equipped with O2 and we wear what amounts to those disposable medical O2 masks (its strictly supplemental to us, not pressure demand or anything). When its time to exit the plane, you basically just undo the elastic over your head, hold the mask on with one hand, put your helmet and goggles on (yeah, that's easy, right? One handed!), and continue to breathe O2 until the door is opened and the exit order is given.   Drop the mask (behind you and to the side, don't get tangled!) and exit the plane. By the time hypoxia is a potential factor, you're in thick air below 12,000 ft.

The air at 23,000 ft is noticeably thin.  The plane has to fly faster to stay in the air at that height, so the relative wind on exit is about the same as it is at 13,000 ft, but the forward throw and acceleration/deceleration is different and weird.  Someone once likened it to "having about as much air to work with as falling down an elevator shaft.."   If you get unstable during exit, you flail like crazy because none of the usual tricks have the usual effect like they do in thicker air.

We had a guy get dumped out on exit once at 23,000 ft during the World Freefall Convention, and he reported that opening shock was BAD due to the altitude. Never mind that he had to make his way from 23,000 down under canopy, hypoxic, and then when he got down around 13,000 ft, had to deal with the other aircraft on jump run over the field. (the WFFC is a constant rain of skydivers... They fly parallel jump runs, etc, and there are 8-12 aircraft constantly turning and loading and flying.  Directly over the field is no place to be under canopy, and at any one time you might have 2-3 airplanes making a pass within minutes of each other..)

I'd love to do a HALO from 40,000, but sadly with the advent of RVSM above FL 290 most jump aircraft are unable to operate in that environment.  It would take a ton of special clearances, etc.



http://www.halojumper.com (they've changed their website, unfortunately, so most of the cool stuff is not there yet)

[Eclipse]

How do you insure you come down where you're supposed to?  Doesn't that altitude introduce a lot of horizontal accuracy issues?

[Major Lord]

A retired French Army colonel tried to set a 130K foot record last month. His rig consisted of a pressurized capsule, a space suit, and a very cool balloon lifter. (The project was called "the Big Jump") The mission was aborted when the wind took the balloon envelope away while they were trying to hook it up (whoops....) The Colonel is millions of dollars in debt, but the old guy is going to try it again as soon as he can get a new balloon. If it works, he will break just about every record at once, height, speed ( he will be supersonic...Jeezus!) longest free fall, etc. The project is using the APRS tracking transmitters that I manufacture, and has many volunteer support staff. They will try again in Canada, and I hope to go up and volunteer my time when they do! This should be an American Project!

Major Lord

[Eclipse]

http://www.legrandsaut.org/index.php?lang=eng

http://www.space.com/news/060713_big_jump.html

Fournier was scheduled to carry out the Grand Saut (Big Jump) project in May 2008, which would have seen him ascend to 130,000 feet in a balloon and freefall 34km to earth before opening his parachute at 6km to go.[2] In the process he was expected to break the sound barrier[3], and reach speeds upward of 1,000 miles per hour. His freefall was expected to last 15 minutes.[4] If successful, this would have records previously held by Joseph Kittinger, who set the previous parachute record by jumping from 31,333 metres (102,799 ft) in 1960 (with a small parachute for guidance) under Project Excelsior; and Roger Eugene Andreyev from the Soviet Union, who jumped from 24,483 metres (80,325 ft) in 1962, setting the longest free fall record.

The jump was expected to take place over the plains of Saskatchewan, Canada. After several delays due to weather, the attempt was made on 27 May 2008, but the balloon detached from its capsule as it was being inflated and floated away.[5] Another attempt at the record may come as early as August 2008.[6]

Fournier has attempted to break the record on three occasions. In 1998, the French space agency chose Fournier, a French Army paratrooper to conduct a record jump to test the ability of astronauts to survive reentry without a space craft. This project was quickly canceled. In 2003, Fournier attempted his first privately-financed jump but the balloon ripped while being filled. The New York Times reports that Fournier has spent "nearly $20 million" on his two private attempts.

[NIN]

How do you insure you come down where you're supposed to?  Doesn't that altitude introduce a lot of horizontal accuracy issues?

Well, that depends.

First, the winds aloft chart is your friend. 

From 23000 ft, horizontal accuracy is not that bad. 

Normally, you average the winds from exit altitude to opening (3,000, 6,000, 9,000 & 12,000 ft)  average the direction of those winds, and then the calculation is based on the fact that from 13000 ft, you get about 1 minute of freefall (and thus are exposed to about 1 minute of winds aloft..), and if the wind is 60mph, you'll drift about a mile in that 60 seconds. (usually the wind is 20mph at altitude, so you drift 1/3 of a mile.. easy calculations, and displace your "spot" 1/3 of a mile upwind of the target).

If you're jumping from 23, 000 ft, figure that you're in freefall for closer to 2 minutes, you'll want to add the winds aloft from 18000 ft and 24,000 ft, too, and adjust accordingly. 

From WAY high up there, well, you're gonna land someplace, but who the hell knows where the balloon will take you and how fast, so you're gonna land in a field someplace.   You'll be downwind.  10 miles or 100 miles. Who knows.

Then, once you've calculated how far you'll drift, you get out in an area that is sort of oval shaped upwind of your intended opening point to allow multiple groups to get to the DZ.  The first group will get out short of the intended spot, the rest at or beyond it.

A lot of it is a gigantic WAG, too.  Once the first load goes, you can recalculate. And you usually do.