Blue Hill Observers Use Balloon For First Time Successfully For Air Data

Complaints from residents of Boston that the army plane which gave up nightly to secure weather data has been disturbing their sleeping hours are scheduled to be answered because of new apparatus developed at the Blue Hill Observatory.

Following a year and a half of experimentation, Harvard's weather scientists announced yesterday the first successful attempt in this country to secure upper air data from a free traveling radio weather balloon, at night.

Through an ingenious packing of balsa wood and "ice cream bags" the weathermen have been able to overcome the main obstacle to such night observations--the very low temperatures at heights of ten miles or more, which, in the absence of the sun, have hitherto frozen instruments hung from the balloon.

Now useful for night observations, as it has been for over a year in the day time, the radio balloon meteorograph becomes the best instrument for securing routine data of temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure in the upper air. With an upper ceiling of 15 to 20 miles, the free balloon reaches much greater heights than weather airplanes. Its readings are transmitted automatically by short wave radio to a receiver on the ground, where the conditions are recorded on a revolving drum.

At present the only drawback to the general use of the radio balloon in place of the airplane is the expense of the apparatus, which, when sent up from Blue Hill, is usually blown out to sea and lost. The average cost of the balloons, weather and radio equipment, and batteries, for one complete unit is about $40, while the average charge to charter a plane for one weather flight is $25.

The Harvard scientists believe that if the balloons come into general use, the mass production of parts would reduce the cost of one unit to about $25; and they point out that if fights were made further west, the balloons in many cases would fall on land and be recovered.

The first successful balloon demonstration at night took place at Blue Hill Observatory, in Milton, Mass., at 5 o'clock yesterday morning, under the direction of Dr. Karl O. H. Lange, research assistant; A. E. Bent, and R. D. Feiber, who designed and built the instrument; and C. B. Pear, Jr., who managed the radio reception.

The flight began immediately after the regular weather airplane run from the Boston airport, which reported a temperature of 9 below zero Fahrenheit at a height of 17,000 feet, as high as the plane went.

After a little more than an hour of signals, the recording ceased, and it is believed the balloon fell into the Atlantic Ocean, just inside Cape Cod.