Oh hey, flew gopro hero 3s on HABs back in the day. They didn't overheat, they "ran out of battery". They pull harder on cold batteries and thus the voltage was lower and it thought it was out of battery. It warms up and magically has battery again! Encasing them in the plastic waterporrf case helped, as did hand warmers.

Prediction on next video: "I just had to recover that second balloon. And that is why I got my helicopter license..."

Let's call it Foxlin's Law: no matter how much you plan and model the path of a weather balloon, in the end, it will probably find the hardest place to get to and just plop itself there just out of spite.

You should offer up the coordinates of your other balloon payload. There are treasure seekers who will go to great lengths for less, and the treasure you have left in the wild may be valuable to someone! Great video as always. Thanks for sharing.

As a survival instructor (and a CFI, for that matter), I'm glad that you (a) found your payload and (b) made it back out safely. That said: What. Were. You. Thinking? I imagine you had time pressure for return airline flights, etc., but you took big risks (that could easily have escalated into a SAR situation, thus risking others) when it would have made far more sense to start out on the retrieve expedition equipped to bivouac (or even camp in relative comfort) at nightfall, then complete the retrieve the next day. And I speculate it wouldn't have taken much longer, considering how much faster you'd have been able to route-find and move over the terrain in daylight. Also--since you always seem to have plenty of friends with vehicles to bring stuff out to the Playa, why don't you come up in your Cessna? That way you'd have it to scout the retrieve before heading out into the boonies. Stay safe and keep having fun and sharing it with us!

I've had cameras shutdown due to the cold at much more normal flight levels and temperatures (10,500ft and 15F), so cold shutdown is also a possibility.

I have one word for you on your next recovery mission Xyla. Paraglider. Slow launch & landing speeds, a fairly quick cruising speeds & with some planning a much better shot at ignoring most of that rough terrain you had to cross. Just something to look into as a collab with a friendly KZfaqr perhaps with the flight experience needed for something like this.

No bear, no mountain lion, no snake... A happy little night walk. Only messing. 😂😂😂

For Engineering geeks and Space nerds like me (yes I spanned two generation of name calling) You have an amazing channel and the story and images are amazing. Love that you added the ending with the pictures just showing the earth as it is today. Thank you for posting these.

Okay...that footage is stunning. It's easy for me to say this from the sidelines, but I think it was worth the effort to get to the balloon. Nicely done!

The cameras overheating makes sense. While the air at the altitudes the balloons are hitting is incredibly cold, it's also very, very thin. There's a lot less heat being carried away because there's a lot less air. Might want to build in a cooling solution that pumps a fluid over the camera's heatsink if it hits a temperature, and a reservoir with something like dry ice to provide plenty of cooling for the whole flight, without weighing much. As a bonus, you could probably do a whole video on it! Test on the ground in a vacuum chamber, see how long you can keep the cameras cool, and see where you can shave off weight.

Would it be worth the weight to add a LED flasher to the next balloon in case you need to recover it in the dark?

Thank you for including all your safety discussions and decisions when recovering the baloon. So many people just show the adventure, which leads to others not realizing the level of thought and intention behind decisions.

Does this mean that you can now justify your hike in Scotland as "training"? Huge recovery effort! Well done to everyone. And from that footage I still cannot fathom how you saw the balloon to recover it. Mind you, your track record of finding stuff that has fallen from the sky is really impressive

9:28 "it might get a little dark at the end" - poor sap, i think he's already at the end. i wish i could save him

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I'm SO glad y'all found the balloon after all that insanity! Y'all are forces of nature. Thank you for supporting the launch!! Couldn't have done it without y'all :) :)

Good video. Xyla has some of the most creative and offbeat projects that always has amazing results. The segments of that balloon in flight is awesome, as well as documenting the hike of Xyla & George in pursuit of the balloon. Great job.

Have you thought about using a drone to locate and retrieve the 2nd balloon?

You had me at “Ok” ~ Love your energy and how you live your style Xyla. Wishing you another Best Day Ever. ~Mark

This is why I watch your channel. I never know what to expect from one week to the next.

Yeah, so, friends of mine were firing rockets from black rock like 20 years ago. I'm glad it's still a thing. That late night hike to recover the balloon is definitely dedication.

I stopped watching this and watched all of Andrew's video and then came back to this. Y'all are amazing people and so are your friends. This gave me so much joy.

The recovery is always fun! But that was a real adventure... Glad 6ou found the ballon and equipment.

always good when the video starts with Xyla : "This is Bad" ;)

Love the rockets balloons and energetic Xyla engineer builder entertainer. What a crazy hike!

I appreciate the strobe warning. Not enough people realize how nice that is. Thank you 🙏

I wonder if painting electronics housings with NightHawkInLight's Infrared Cooling Paint could be used to help radiate heat away at high altitudes.

Weather balloon footage is always incredible to watch.

This is so cool! In the 70s, I used to tie notes to large helium balloons and set them free just to see if anyone responded. After about twenty balloons were sent, I got one response. It was a fun thing to do. It's something that I might do again, some day.

Glad the nomad internet helped when you were in need! Great luck for a sponsorship to line up like that. Glad you didn't get hurt on that hike!

Great video Xyla and friends. 7:52 Good to see a safe safe distance. Looking forward to your holiday special.

I would suspect that, if the cameras overheated it has to do with the very low pressures at that altitude. (At 100K ft, the pressure is only about 10mb, or 1/100th of standard sea level pressure.) Thus, there wasn't enough air available to dissipate the heat buildup, and the wood frame wouldn't provide a very good heat sink. Perhaps an aluminum frame would be a better choice for future endeavors?

That was f* awesome Xyla! You managed the "go fever" such that the hike was safely completed and made for the best adventure so kudos to you. My dad always reminded me, before some crazy adventure that I was about to start, that good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement. Nicely done :)

Cool trek and quite a marathon recovery. Great production Xyla. Thanks for Sharing!!

I'm really glad you both made it out safe and sound! I love the videos and positive energy even if that hike was absolutely brutal.

The footage you did get is wonderful! I bet you don't need to be told this, but you are living so many people's dreams. Thanks for sharing the adventure with us!

I would love to float up that high and see the earth from that view. Totally awesome what you do and the views you give us. Thank you

it's crazy that you can get so high that you see the gradient from the atmosphere and gravity still pulls it back in.

Funny how the color coding of gas cylinders seems to be different on different continents. Here in Europe a green cylinder with a grey shoulder would be argon-CO2 mix used for MAG-welding, helium would be brown.

Unbelievable, a whole Xyla Foxlin video without one drop of epoxy.... LOL

If you're going to keep doing the weather balloon thing, You need to team up with rctestflight or David Windestaal (who's done it) to make you a camera platform that can guide itself to a predetermined landing zone, rather than fall purely at the mercy of the wind.

Big fan. Your best video yet. Real adventure and great memories with your friends. Way to go!!! As an aside my first airplane was also a Cessna 140, then a 170 and I now fly a Cessna 180 on amphibs during the summer months. Looking forward to an airplane video from you as well.

I enjoy watching you work out problems.. Not so much the technical difficulties but the straightforward stuff. How to bend wood, your guitar and tensegrity, insegreity tengrity, floating table projects. Working out how to waterproof electrics, see through canoe. But the colab with Veritasium tickled all the boxes. And there was blood everywhere...a very fizzy noggin Xyla...

If you ever happen to do a launch in WA and you need someone willing to help track down a lost balloon, give a shout, i am ALWAYS happy to help! Or if ya just need an extra pair o hands on a build, or whatever else.

You are such a nerdy goober! Great video. Continue to follow your dreams and cross barriers. Great video from the weather balloon.

Pro Tip: Water-proof ANYTHING (including any SHOE, if you need to hike in a creek) with just 100% Silicone caulk, naphtha, and a trash bag. @NightHawkInLight has a GREAT vid on how to!

The earth from space is a beautiful thing to behold.

Thank you for bringing us along on this journey.

@1:42 - 😮 - I am honestly shocked that was your first time out to Black Rock. It's a lovely place!

Xyla, question i understand you need a license to luabch rockets, but is the same true for ballons going to high altitude. ? Do you need to call FAA so they know you have things on the air. By the way when you ste out in the field and need directions, there is a service that actually does offroad maps and gps ... ( Forgot the name). The guys on Fab Rats usevit to revover lost broken 4wd vehicles. Check them out😁

Love y our Content Xyla - your excuberance for Learning is unmatched! if I might be so bold as to offer a handy hint for next time, or for anyone else - with the Flickering LEDs, you can use a simple method to get rid of it in Post Production. Duplicate the clip in your timeline by adding it...let's say above the original clip. Then zoom right in and move the Duplicated clip just 1 Frame along, and change it's opacity to 50% - Typically speaking it shouldn't be enough "out of sync" to show ghosting, because having also changed the opacity prodominately the Illuminated sections of the frame will show more than anything without light, and this SHOULD then be in sync across each of the 2 frames where the LED cycles from ON to Off in time with the framerate of the camera.

You might not have got the shot, but it was an amazing story! I'm just glad you survived the trek and made it back without discovering the sharp parts of the local wildlife first hand (or face or any other body part). I'm also glad you had a hiking buddy and a friend at base camp who could call in the cavalry if you got lost or were out of contact for too long. These are sensible precautions for such a crazy undertaking.

I spend several weekends a year out in the middle of the Black Rock Desert. It is a special, magical place.

I wonder if it's feasible to build a small, very lightweight automatic glider that would serve as a platform for cameras and such. Have the standard parachute as a backup but have a flight computer onboard that would cut the link to the parachute (this way the platform acts as a normal parachute platform if the connection isn't cut properly) and begin to glide somewhere predetermined as safe and easy to get to using gps to figure out where it is and where it wants to be. You could have another parachute deploy at a much lower altitude, maybe a few hundred meters, so the glider would try to get to where it wanted to go and then deploy the parachute no matter what or it would get where it was trying to go and then circle its way down until it hit altitude. Even if it isn't feasible (which it probably isn't) it would be a really neat challenge for someone or someones much smarter than me.

Wear your hiking boots when you are hiking. It keps you dry. Enjoyed your adventure.

Absolutely beautiful! We loved seeing it all come together ❤

11:40 "There's no signal there" is the exact moment my wifi cut out.

Next time (we all know there will be a next time) you need to add a marker strobe light to the payload package.

Hey Xyla! Murphy's Law: Sitting at home wishing for a new Xyla vid...nada. Then, OMG!...I have such a busy day,...and a new Xyla vid pops up in my feed! To paraphrase John Goodman in Raising Arizona, "God knows I'm a sinner, and he totally effed me!" And it would seem he totally effed y'all too!😂 Historically (sure, what the hell), the reason the US military used weather balloons and the like, was that it gave them an excuse to mobilize massive searches for them (and Nasa capsules for the Navy) thus justifying their large presence in peacetime? (That was 50% a joke.) You're gonna need a bigger army next time!😁💕 Nicely done!😊

OMG the shots of the ring in the video!!!!! Amazing adventure you had. Hiking in the dark though???

Hardcore recovery adventure, you really know how to have a good time.

You should get 10 of those balloons have it take you up and sky dive down.😎

Do you plan on releasing any of the raw 360 footage for the balloon you did recover? Being able to watch that ascent and the balloon reaching its apex in a Visor would be amazing.

Your videos are the best! Thanks for sharing your adventures with us.

Fun project idea! This may challenge typical viewership since it doesn’t involve rockets, fire, powertools or the words “botaltoat,” but it’s still waay awesome! Keep pushing the comfort zone!

This is awesome! Keep doing crazy bad ideas - they all turn out great. Ok, great to watch from home. Maybe much more "why did I think this was a good idea?" for you in the moment. 🤣😁

Just know that you're not the only ones to get screwed by google maps and their "call this thing a road" ways in northern NV.

Clicked for the title, stayed for the adventure! Wow did that sponsor get much more than they probably thought they would going in. Life saver!

That’s an adventure you’ll always remember - and that footage was definitely worth the pain! Thanks for sharing it with us :)

I wonder: how much would it have cost you to rent a helicopter to retrieve the ballons? This makes for more exciting drama, but Xyla rapelling from a helicopter while yelling "Hut! Hut! Hut!" (like the swat teams in The Blues Brothers, not like a quarterback!) would make my day...

Not sure about everyone else, but you are the friend i always wish i had haha

WOW! Amazing adventure and the footage you got was pretty spectacular!

That triangular frame could be converted in to a Tri-Copter, use a Team Black Sheep long range R/C Tx and Rx, with telemetry and FPV, then once the rig falls back far enough you can fly it back to you. Cold and LiPo's in cameras don't mix - the batteries likely went below operational range, rather then the camera overheating. Which also means the TriCopter suggestion needs cold-proof batteries.

Regarding your camera overheating, do you think it could be the thinness of the atmosphere at that altitude? The closer you get to a vacuum, the less medium (such as gas or a liquid) there is for conduction or convection to occur.

This is such a great story, and it looks like an awesome adventure! Thanks so much for sharing this! 🧡

there is not much air to dissipate heat at that altitude albeit it is colder. attach heatsinks, if you don't want to deal with it, paint them white and remove battery from inside, power externally.

Having and chasing crazie improbable Ideas is what makes us human... Dont ever stop dreaming, don't ever stop chasing your dreams.

That tingly feeling is probably from the fact that it can be damn cold in the desert first thing in the morning.

Congrats on the recovery. Sorry for your friends rocket. I was kind of guessing that was what the group hug was about. 😞

I was on the playa bikepacking that day with a group of freinds. The next day we found a couple of rocket parachutes on the very northern end of the playa not to far from the hotsprings.

That’s some INSANE adventure to get the cameras!!! This is something one will remember for a lifetime!

My brother in law was a cowboy in that area. He rides those ranges all the time. He could probably find that balloon.

Someone with a helicopter could make a neat bit of content extracting that second payload!

Thank-you for your extreme efforts that day. Was worth it to be reminded that we live on a beautiful blue ball, that we should be thankful for that and do whatever we can to look after it!

I think it was about 9yrs ago we launched a balloon for my brothers grade 8 science fair project. We included an older I-phone in the little styrofoam box with an external battery and some glove warmers. Life saver cause we could tell it to ping when we were getting close. We had a GoPro aimed at “spaceman spiff” a little playmobil astronaut.

What a journey! Amazing

That hike was surprisingly kind of fun though

I busted out laughing at the idea of an F-22 Raptor showing up out of nowhere.

All hail xyla, the space queen.

I'm glad you didn't find a rattle snake on that hike. It looked like prime habitat and unless it was really cold they're out at night hunting. It would be easy to step on one in the dark stomping through all that bush.

Yes, Upload this 4K video over a 0.39 MiB connection.. I could hear the disappointment in your tone, nice save though. Seems like it would be pretty damn handy if they knew how to split the bandwidth.

This was such a fun video to watch! Thank you for all your hard work in putting it together for us.😊

I'd completely forgotten about the eclippse . That treck was a Straight line challenge . 116K ft, way over any plane. Nice work.

Xyla. From experience on a adventure up the coast of WA Australia for the eclipse here. Get yourself a small drone that has a good design like the mini pro 3. At night.. it would not have helped but for the day I used it a few times to do a reccy and scout ahead and over ridges to see where I was and get myself situated (and safe) when things were looking a little dire. Worth every cent

Truly EPIC!

Damn even with Nomad I would have GPS enabled Radios. I feel Like I would have been eaten by a Desert bear or something =P

You need like a giant recovery drone or something at this rate because the retrivals just seem to be getting more difficult!

I thought you meant flight on a plane and then got disappointed and then anxious and excited because the hike was insane. Great vid

I think with as many times as you've done this it still is always amazing to get that high and seeing the curvature.

The video was so fun, I was thinking that finding the balloon was the end. ........then you played the balloon footage. 😱 It was like two endings on one vidjeo. 👍 Wow, what dedication making the hike at night. I'm impressed 👍