
Visiting Swindon
Dave noted: "If you have to go to Swindon it's best to do it from 39km whilst looking somewhere else."
Never were truer words spoken.
High Altitude Ballooning (HAB) head honcho and Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team member Dave Akerman has grabbed some spectacular images of Blighty from the stratosphere, using a Raspberry Pi eye in the sky. Devon and Cornwall from an altitude of 38.9km. Pic: Dave Akerman Devon and Cornwall from an altitude of …
" still the route prediction for a balloon can't be much to rely on."
Consider how long that the balloon would be in range of an aircraft though. It'll pass through the altitude ranges within minutes if not seconds. Even if it were left in the corridor for a prolonged period of time, the chances of hitting it would still be neglible.
Combine those two probabilities, and you're pretty safe. 3-dimensional space is a lot bigger than you imagine.
"the chances of hitting it would still be negligible". As far as air traffic safety is concerned, If you have had a look at was has happened, there is absolutely nothing that can be negligible. But I had a good answer to my question, no additional questions, and I still feel happier without a lot of birds flying around at take off.
A jet engine would spit it out without noticing. The payload is smaller, much lighter, and much much more fragile than the (Harrods) frozen chickens that Rolls Royce fire into their engines for tests.
All aircraft are warned in advance by NOTAM, as part of the process we go through to obtain permission for the flight.
"I know the associated story has been debunked by Snopes but, still, I have to add:
"Thaw the chickens first"."
Because the MythBusters showed that hardened, frozen chickens DO tend to wreak more havoc than the soft, fleshy thawed birds. The story itself may have been debunked, but the idea turned out to be plausible.
Now I have Alan Parsons "Eye In The Sky" stuck in my head.
"I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
And I don't need to see any more
To know that
I can read your mind, I can read your mind"
Might be the Google company song.
I remember Tom Jones, but if you want to make a pun based on his songs you should at least take the elementary step of making your version scan to the meter of the tune if you want the reader to have any chance of appreciating how clever you've been.
Or not, as in this case. My entire post is, of course, a parody of the hit "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood" which you spotted unless you actually expected the rhythm and subject matter of it to match that of the song, in which case you are SOL.
I have a more down to earth use for one of my RPi - It is currently hooked up to a webcam and WiPi adapter to broadcast live Duckling Cam. If you fancy your daily dose of cute check out http://bambuser.com/channel/duckcamuk
It was fairly simple to set up for live streaming and gives me 15fps of 320x240 in a couple of hundred kbits/s
Penguin because it's running on linux and it's a bird.