Aero Dynamics is proud to be a part of the NASA Scientific Balloon team, providing  flight crews for their balloon chase planes.

 

The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, located in Palestine, Texas, is a NASA funded facility that launches large, unmanned, high altitude research balloons that can measure 400 feet in diameter, are up to 750 feet from the top of the balloon to the payload underneath, and fly at 120,000 feet.  Our chase plane pilots help recover the scientific experiments suspended beneath the balloon when it lands.

 

These flights give our pilots a chance to go places and do things most pilots usually only dream about doing, including operating in the Arctic, well north of the Arctic Circle. We have found this helps us attract and keep truly motivated and talented flight crews for our corporate jet operations. 

 

We are sending flight crew members to Alice Springs Australia again this year, in late spring, for a single balloon launch. The time spent in Australia is extremely popular with our pilots, and the area near Alice Springs and Ayers Rock provides for some amazing flying.

 

This will be followed by three balloon flights in Canada starting in May, 2011. The balloons will be launched from Kiruna, in the Swedish Arctic. Our flight crews will track the balloons as they enter Canadian airspace, and land in the central portion of Arctic Canada.

 

We also have a full series of domestic balloon flights and recovery operations scheduled for the fall of 2011, with two aircraft and flight crews based at the CSBF New Mexico remote launch site at the Fort Sumner Municipal Airport.

 

For complete details on all the planned launches for 2011 and more information in general on the NASA Scientific Balloon Program, visit www.csbf.nasa.gov