For EXCELSIOR III

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Launch site:Holloman Air Force Base, Alamogordo, New Mexico, US  
Launch team: Holloman
Balloon: Open balloon (zero pressure)
Volume:  
Serial number: -
Flight identification number: -
Campaign: - 
Payload weight: -
Gondola weight: -
Overall weight: -

The balloon was launched from an abandoned airstrip near Tularosa, northeast of Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, at 5:29 am

The gondola rested in a flatbed truck acting as launch vehicle. The balloon was hold in vertical position launch by a crane.

At launch time a first squib was fired to separate balloon from the crane and a second one to cut the truck straps.

The balloon raised at 1200 feet / minute and initially heading to east.

After reaching near float altitude the balloon started to travel west to the target area.

Captain Kittinger jumped from a height of 102,800 feet, at 7:12 am.

With only the small stabilizing chute deployed, him fell for 4 minutes, 36 seconds.

He experienced temperatures as low as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit and a maximum speed of 714 miles per hour, exceeding the speed of sound.

The 28-foot main parachute did not open until Kittinger reached the much thicker atmosphere at 17,500 feet.

He finally safely landed in the New Mexico desert after a 13 minute 45 second descent.  

EXCELSIOR III

Responsable institution:  U.S. Air Force Aero Medical Laboratory
Principal Investigator:  Dr. John Paul Stapp

This was an U.S. Air Force program, which was designed to test whether pilots could survive high-altitude
bailouts.

Tests conducted by the Aeronautical Research Laboratory at Wright Air Development Center demonstrated that a falling body could reach the rate of 465 revolutions per minute about the vertical axis of the body while it was in the prone position. If a pilot bailed out at high altitude, he had little choice other than to fall. Therefore, equipment was needed to stabilize the jumper during the fall. In addition, this equipment needed to be tested to ensure that practicality agreed with theory.

Initially anthropomorphic dummies falling from planes and balloons were drafted as test subjects obtaining important data under the HIGH DIVE program.

Early psychological evaluations showed that pilots who bailed out had a tendency to try to remain with the last link of their aircraft: the seat. Thus man-seat separation devices were developed which 'threw' the pilot out of the ejection seat. Therefore, the next step was to stabilize the pilot with a drogue parachute.

Francis F. Beaupre developed a stabilization parachute which, in theory, would work . After bailout, the pilot would pull the 'orange apple,' which started the parachute deployment sequence. The first to deploy, after a few seconds delay, was an 18 inch pilot parachute. This, in turn, pulled out a 6 foot stabilization parachute, followed by three-quarters of the main parachute. When the person passed through a predetermined altitude, which in the early 1960s was determined to be 14,000 feet, the aneroid barometer would start the release sequence allowing the 28 foot diameter main parachute to fully deploy.

The Beaupre stabilization parachute worked at altitudes where jet aircraft were normally flying.

It then became necessary to see if the system would work at higher altitudes where the newly introduced X-15 and other research aircraft and space capsules would fly. Accordingly, the Aeromedical Research Laboratory at Holloman AFB began a series of parachute test using balloons, under the project's name EXCELSIOR.

The three jumps were made by then Captain Joseph W. Kittinger Jr., from an open gondola hanging from a stratospheric balloon so he wore a full pressure suit.