The background

Weather conditions in mountains have always been unpredictable. Every year, scores of walkers and climbers are caught unawares, caught in weather they didn’t expect, caught out without a coat and wearing the wrong kind of footwear. This can and, unhappily, more often than it
should, does end in tragedy.
In some ways, the smaller mountains are the more dangerous and unpredictable as they attract the most casual of walkers from the car park, thinking "Oh its only 3000 feet. I’m sure I can do that in an hour and look how good the weather is today". And there you are near some summit and suddenly the cloud comes down, the wind picks up, you’re drenched to the skin and you can no longer see the route ahead let alone the route back. On every side appears a gaping chasm or an infinite plateau and there seems no hope of escape except teleportation. If you don’t
know what you’re doing. Yet, armed with a few simple tools, a watch a compass and a map, and the know how to use them, one can be freed from this near death experience and find themselves back in the wind sheltered valleys, with the clouds rolling above. Amazingly, from the wind
battered tempest above, you descend into a breathlessly quiet world, and wonder why it was for that time you felt so in peril for your life.
Perhaps it crosses you mind how it would be just to transport yourself back to that hell for a few brief seconds to relive the feeling of being abandoned to the elements.

The research project

Its with the above in mind that this project attempts to explore sudden escape, instantaneous arrival, photographic recollection and distant memory. The process will involve the serial launch of rockets from the summits and valleys of the surrounding mountains, the collection of the photographic and inertial data they collect and the compounding of this information into an exhibitive essay on this theme.

The project would be keenly interested in creating opportunities for local schools to become involved with the process. Initially there would be research for the project, schools providing local stories and folklore of loss, disappearance, and miraculous escape. Then there would be
workshops in the construction of the rockets and their parts then the testing phase and first open ground trials.

It would not be the aim of the project to take any other participants into hazardous mountain terrain, however.

Method

Small sounding rockets will carry two data collecting devices. One is a wireless video camera and the other is an accelerometer device. The accelerometer will be inertial, a simple spring and weight mechanism, and the recording device will be based on a pen and drum recording
system. When launched the rockets will record their flight looking back down towards the ground with the line of site looking through the tail fins. The rockets will fly to their apogee (highest point), between 100-500m from the launch height, and then begin their ascent to earth. At this point the rocket recovery system releases a parachute and the rocket returns safely to earth. During its flight the drum/pen recorder will record the journey as a series of peaks and troughs on a piece of graph paper as the rocket is buffeted by air pressure at various points during its rise and fall. The hypothesis is that the more unstable the weather, the higher the frequency of peaks and troughs seen in the pen recording.

The program

The project can be broken down into 7 stages, and will take seven weeks to complete:

1.Finding suitable launch sites from local knowledge and stories.
2.Building the launch vehicles and recording equipment.
3.Testing the flight and recording systems.
4.Determining the appropriate launch windows.
5.Launch and data collection
6.Analysis of results and publication of results
7.Debrief

1.Finding suitable launch sites from local knowledge and stories

Schools will have been approached about a month long workshop to take place involving rockets and mountain survival. The importance of locating ‘sites’ in the Cairngorm area of particular gravity will be stressed – those being places which have a bad reputation for treacherous
weather and a high frequency of lost or stranded climbers. It could be the sight, for instance, where a young woman once spent a couple of freezing nights out on her own in a snow cave, causing national concern, until a break in the weather brought her freedom. Workshop participants will be invited to collect and share such stories.

During this stage I will make site visits based on these stories, and collect records in the form of digital photographs and video. A selection of seven key sites will be made.

2. Building the launch vehicles and recording equipment

This stage will involve the design and building of all the launch vehicles believed necessary to complete the project, and the equipment modules the rockets will contain. Again the building of the airframes of the rockets will something that the schools workshop can be involved in, overseen by myself. The children, arranged in small teams will be able to give an ‘identity’ to a particular rocket that makes them feel really part of the whole process i.e. a colour scheme, a name, a particular shape of fin etc. The rockets will be between 1 and 2m long and weigh about 500gms (without fuel).

I will personally take charge of constructing the camera and pen/drum modules for the rockets back at the Makrolab. The camera used will be a standard miniature 1/3 inch CMOS or CCD camera powered by a 9V battery fitted with either a 2.4GHz transmitter or trailing 100m of fine microphone cable. The pen/drum recorder will use a pcb mounted micro motor, as found in the vibration unit of a cell phone, geared down to rotate a small paper drum onto which presses a piece of soft blue pencil.

3.Testing the flight and recording systems

This phase will involve a week of trials with the rockets and the data recording equipment. It will be an exciting opportunity for the schools to
watch the flying results of what they have contributed in building. Trial flying sites can be locally available open parks or football pitches. It will
also introduce the procedure of encoding captured video for publication on the website.

4. Determining appropriate launch windows

Research into the most appropriate times for the rocket launches. I will be choosing days that are likely to yield a variety of results for the video footage and the pen/drum data. Additionally, it has to be possible to actually launch rockets at all. Very continuous wet weather is problematic, but changeable weather is OK as long as the rocket is protected up until launch.

5. Launch and data collection

Seven launches will take place. The sites will be usually be deep in country, with a certain amount of trekking being necessary to reach them. It will be probable that I will be alone when these happen. The video footage will be recorded on miniDV tape through a ground based digital video camera into which has been plugged the receiver or video line of the rocket camera. The rocket will be launched from a sturdy camera tripod by electrical ignition. A lightweight mountain tent will provide temporary shelter for all components in inclement weather prior to launch. On return to Makrolab, the launch video will be encoded and published on the Makrolab website.

6. Analysis of results and publication of results

What we actually get from this simple data is a unique record of the rocket’s flight at that time from that place. We see the place and see the journey abstracted into a series of blue lines on paper.

The recorded pen/drum results, video footage from the rockets, the stories that brought them there and documentation of the event will be published on a purpose built website in the form of an explorative essay. It will attempt to convey the reason for the title "How do I get out of
here alive?" with text, video, pictures and an analysis of what is going on when one wants to return to somewhere that you only just narrowly escaped from.

7.Debrief

What happens with the project when one leaves the Makrolab.

The project is not intended create hard data that can be extrapolated into something meaningful about the ecology of the area, its rather intended to create ‘soft’ data that can be extrapolated into something meaningful about loss and recovery, disappearance and discovery. The
rockets and the drum recorder are gestures and have a resonance as with the weather when I think of life-line throwing rockets out at sea and weather stations battling it out at the tops of mountains in storms. These things are fragile life-lines themselves, like a map and compass are.
Knowing what the weather will be like has saved lives. The bright star of a flare, also.

PROJECT LISTING BY RESEARCHER/AUTHOR

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