The engineering design and analysis class at the University of Southern Indiana will be conducting its ninth high altitude balloon flight from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, October 27, during which the class will attempt to set a world record for the highest altitude release of a paper airplane.
The previous record is held by The Register’s Special Projects Bureau in the United Kingdom. The record was set in October 2010 with the launch of their PARIS Vulture 1 spaceplane. The Register recently learned about USI’s attempt to the break the record and will be following and reporting on the project from the UK. You can see the full story in the The Register at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/26/paper_aircraft_attempt/.
The USI class plans to launch the balloon from a site near Rend Lake in Southern Illinois. The landing and retrieval is expected to take place somewhere in Southern Gibson County in Indiana.
Mission Control for the event will be located in USI’s Business and Engineering Center Room 1005. Interested parties will be able to view the launch and the flight trajectory of both the balloon and the paper airplane.
The trajectory of the balloon can be viewed online at http://aprs.fi using the call sign W9MOK.
The trajectory of the paper airplane can also be followed using the call sign W9MOK-2.
Source: USI.edu
