NIMBUS POSTSOUNDING 01
0M+0.0 M/S
0S
100%
0%
CELLS16
DRIFT0.0 KM
RANGE—
CEILING—
LAUNCH READY
SOUNDING
NO READINGS YET
UPPER AIR · A SOUNDING IN THREE FLIGHTS
NIMBUSPOST
You hang a sonde under a thousand-gram envelope and let it go. It rises because the air is heavier than the helium, faster as the air thins, and it splits when the skin can take no more. You can bleed the valve to slow it or sink it. You decide when to stop and listen. Then you read what you caught and guess what you missed.
SPACE hold to bleed the valve
E take a reading
X cut the sonde down
ESC pause
M sound
No soundings logged.
FLIGHT HELD
Paused
The balloon is where you left it. Nothing rises while you think.
INSTRUMENT NOTES
The valve, the cells, the skin
- CHARGE
- The number of moles left in the envelope. Gross lift is fixed per mole, so charge is the only thing that changes how fast the balloon climbs and how high it can go. Bleed it and you slow down; bleed it too far and the payload outweighs the lift and it comes down.
- BURST MARGIN
- Skin radius over burst radius. The envelope is slack below its design volume and the drag coefficient of a wrinkled skin is nearly three times that of a smooth one. Watch the margin, not the clock.
- READING
- One cell, one place, one second of your life. The profile chart is only filled where you actually stopped. A reading cannot be taken with the valve open — the hiss drowns the radio.
- DRIFT
- The wind at your altitude carries you downwind, and the wind changes with height. Loitering high is how you get downwind; it is also how you run out of skin.
- CUT DOWN
- You may end the flight at any time and keep whatever you have read. A short sounding read well beats a long one read badly.
SOUNDING COMPLETE
READ THE SOUNDING
—
—YOUR CALL
Drag, or use the arrow keys. The chart fills in only where you stopped.
SONDE RECOVERED
The sounding
CSOUNDING 01
ENDEDBURST
PEAK0 M
READINGS0
COVERAGE0%
TARGETMISSED
YOUR CALL—
THE TRUTH—
ERROR—