Weather Balloons To Fly Higher

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 21

Weather Balloons To Fly Higher

In September the Project Ghost team working from Christchurch Airport plans to release six balloons which will reach 70,000 ft They will be used for similar research to that already undertaken at lower altitudes. The balloons, each 18in in diameter, will have a life expectancy of 10 years. ' According to Mr R. Frykman, an electronics engineer, the data obtained from balloons released from Christchurch in the last four months is providing a more comprehensive pattern of wind circulation in the Southern Hemisphere than has ever been obtained. Previously information was available only from certain areas, he said. Information from current research would be highly valuable in producing data for tbe numerical computer studies of global wind circulation.

At present the balloons used at 18,000 ft were being redesigned. The first had been found to collect water when travelling through cloud. When the water changed to ice, the weight forced the balloons down. The new balloons would be coated with a special silicone wax to help them shed water more readily.

Mr Frykman said the most unusual feature of the balloons at present aloft was that Christchurch had been able to monitor signals from two which were 9 degrees from the equator off the coast of Peru. Signals had not been

received from such a distance before. Balloon research at Christchurch was likely to expand. More scientists in the United States and throughout the Southern Hemisphere were interested in using balloons for private studies.

OPEN-DRAIN PIPING

When the Walmairi County Council, at its monthly meeting, made amendments to Its priorities for the piping of open drains, a subcommittee was set up to ask the Drainage Board for details of its allocation of funds to the priority list. The priorities fixed by the council, in order, were:—Waimadri road outfall, Breens road. Reece branch drain in Highstead road, and Highstead road, Avonhead road, Sturrocks road, Bigham’s drain, Barnes road, Claridges road, Donald’s drain and Gardiners road, Reece’s drain in Harewood road and Sawyers Arms road, Withells road and Crofton street. An amendment, moved by Cr. D. B. Rich, that Briggs and Philpotts roads drains be given top priority was defeated.