Project HIBAL - John Sutcliffe Collection

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Learn more about Project HIBAL and the Australian Balloon Launch Station (ABLS), located in Mildura from 1960 to 1981.

Read the document online or borrow the book from our library by clicking on the book cover image below.

View photographs from the John Sutcliffe Collection, author of the Project Hibal book.

View photographs from the Ted Lawton Collection of Project HIBAL operations.

Read the recent news article How Australia helped the US keep tabs on its nuclear rivals through a secret balloon program.

Listen to the Frames of History radio show were Ian McWilliams chats with John Sutcliffe, the author of the Project Hibal book.

The last of the apple blossom  

Project Hibal by Steven Thorn

Available in print

Project Hibal, located in Mildura Victoria Australia was a secret shared American/Australian program to sample the upper atmosphere for atomic fallout. This book describes why the United States of America had a stratospheric sampling program for residue from nuclear weapons. The book also describes the problems and method of flying, recovering giant balloons many hundreds of feet in diameter with flown payloads greater than three hundred kilograms in weight, flying at heights above 100000 feet or 30 kilometres.
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