On Saturday, April 21, 2007, The University of Tennessee Amateur Radio Club (UTARC) flew an experimental weather balloon to test an APRS transmitter and on-board video. The following is a 10 minute highlight video of the flight from pre-launch, to launch, ascent, cutdown, descent, landing, and recovery. Prelaunch shows the club making contact with Knoxville\\\'s McGhee-Tyson Airport to inform them of the launch. Followed by "rollout" from the hanger to the open area just outside.

Launch from T-minus four seconds to about two minutes up.

Next is a view from around 10,000 feet, still almost directly overhead of Island Home Airport where we launched the balloon.

Cutdown occurs around 19,000 feet. Just briefly as the payload begins descent, you'll see a contrail from an aircraft. It's pretty fast so look close!

Descent is from a couple of different altitudes before the payload finally comes down about 8 miles south-southeast of where we launched. It was on some private property and the land owner (uncredited in video, but her name is Theresa Stubbs) actually stumbled across it first. You may need to turn up the volume to hear her say "Here it is".

Our thanks to all the members of UTARC who participated, as well as the APRS users who helped track the payload during it's brief flight.

For more information on future missions, please visit http://balloon.utarc.org