Project T-B.A.C is a "aircraft" launched by using trash bags on August 24th 2011. The project was designed and created by Manuja Gunaratne - a high school senior. The aircraft was launched in the Las Vegas valley area and managed to capture stunning pictures of the Earth.
Various similar projects have been done previously using weather balloons; however, Project T.B.A.C varies since it utilized trash bags to capture images of the Earth. Even though it did not reach an altitude as much as a weather balloon, it managed to capture images of the Earth from a high altitude.
The project consisted of three major components: trash bags, payload, and a parachute. The payload consisted of a GPS tracking device and a digital camera to take images of the journey. After planning the project thoroughly, I chose August 24th because that day was very warm and clear with light winds. T.B.A.C managed to stay in flight for approximately 3 hours and captured roughly 2000 pictures using a 3 second interval.
Promptly, my father I drove to Alamo, Nevada where the aircraft landed. We drove for 2 hours that afternoon and arrived at the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge at around 4 p.m. We searched the area whole evening but failed to recover the aircraft. Disappointed, we returned to Las Vegas where we planned a search mission on the next morning.
Early morning, our neighbor allowed us to borrow his handheld GPS device to track the aircraft. Early that morning, we left for Alamo, Nevada. We arrived at the landing location transmitted by the GPS tracking device inside T.B.A.C, but could not find it. So we were amazed and wondered the cause for this mystery.
Disappointed, we left for the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge headquarters hoping to receive some assistance from the wild life rangers. Luckily, an officer examined the handheld GPS device and corrected the format of the coordinates entered. Excited, we rushed to the area that T.B.A.C landed.
We rushed in a mud road to a close proximity of the landing location and parked our car at the last place that the car could go. Then, we started a 3 miles long walk to the landing location. Passing through mountainous hills, we walked to the landing site and located the trash bag aircraft. We recovered the aircraft and soon returned to Las Vegas.
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