Bannister... interesting hypothosis by mistress r.e. relocation to avoid red tape. I know it's just a notion (doesn't even qualify as a rumor), but some thoughts:
Hadn't thought about England, but based on other posts recently it sounds like it would be relatively welcoming (from a UAS perspective)... The problem, IMO, is the latitude.
I think something in the tropics might make more sense for testing. Solar exposure is greater (without playing games with the roll and yaw of the airship) and the stratosperic winds are slower and more stable. Granted, we'd probably eventually need to be able to fly further north, but best to stay as close to the equator as possible until all systems are shaken out.
I read something interesting about statopheric winds recently. Don't beat me up for lack of reference link, I don't remember where I read this and I'm still researching it... just treat this as conjecture or food for thought (or stop reading now)...
The greatest winds in the stratosphere occur somewhere near the 60th parallels in the winter months (where the temperature gradient between partial daylight and months-of-darkness can create steady winds exceeding 100mph. Those winds tend to be spiral *towards* the darkness for days or weeks on end...
I haven't been able to find data yet on what these max winds are at 65,000 ft, but I assume (hope) that 100mph figure was for a much higher altitude...
What's most scary, though, is that as the winds cool (in the darkness) they slow down... What if a Strat got caught in that wind and tugged into the darkness. It could be basically stuck there, powerless, without sunlight, it's helium slowing seeping out, it's heat dissipating, until it finally, slowly drifted down into the artic somewhere like the mylar balloon my daughter lost at the county fair last week.
Of course, the engineers have access to the best available data on wind and solar exposure profiles, so they aren't going to let that happen! Plus, we've seen speculation that the "proprietary lifting gas technology" might include H2 for emergency fuel cell consumption, which could save us from such a nightmare scenario.
Personally, though, I'd just prefer to see the initial test flights as close to the equator as reasonably possible.
~rdw~
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