Credits: CIA Autumn Newsletter 2019

The Balloon Live project started in 2018 as a follow-up project to replace the FAI Balloon Competition Loggers introduced in 2009 by the New Technology Subcommittee. The new project has a larger scope. It replaces the existing loggers by a mobile app and an additional sensor box to guarantee a constant and equal quality of the position (GPS) and altitude (GPS and barometric) measurements. Additionally, the live transmission of the data becomes reality and opens a lot of new possibilities for live coverage and tracking of the competition. Watchmefly.net is an essential part of the project as platform for data recording, visualisation and scoring.

In August 2019, the New Technology Subcommittee and the Balloon Live Team proudly launched the mobile app on Android and iOS.

The app is used in hot air balloon competition and has the following features:

• 2 app modes: training and competition
• Flight recording with Start/Stop functionality
• up to 8 different electronic marker drops
• up to 8 goal declaration slots
• recording in IGC-file format
• export as IGC-file
• Automatic flight resume on app restart
• Background mode when flight is started
• Connection to external GPS box (available later)
• In competition mode:
  • Synchronisation of competition settings and flight data from watchmefly.net
  • Live tracks to watchmefly.net

Along the release of the app, watchmefly.net was updated with the new WatchMeFly Comp Center that allows event organisers and competition officials to manage all the flights, tasks and Balloon Live logger data in real time.

Login as a pilot to the Pilot dashboard and have an overview of your past and upcoming competitions. Find your personal token/code to register your Balloon Liveapp to a competition and download all your recorded tracks directly on your personal profile page.

Competition officials can manage competition details, pilot list, flight and task settings, official noticeboard, measuring reports and download all recorded tracks immediately after landing.

Discover more about the project, the app and how it works with watchmefly.net on http://www.balloonlive.org