Being bored of the restaurant options nearby, Gisela and myself decided to have lunch at a country side restaurant and then go for a walk. To give this walk a direction, we planned to look for D17052308 that had landed 3 days earlier apparently unnoticed near Wendlingen.
Using a window between 2 passing showers, we made our way towards the last received position of the probe. The probe flew in a direction of 20-40° with 7 – 9 km/h, sank with 5m/s during its final plunge, and was approximately 200 m above the ground when it sent its last recorded fix. Doing the math, it remained flying for another 40 seconds and had not moved more than 100m. From this data, a search sector can be derived.
The probe had to be located in the forest adjacent to the field above which its last telemetry was received.. Except for a patch of nettles at the edge of the forest, the terrain was easily accessible. We first checked out a clearing and then searched within the sector more or less systematically. When I was about to give up, I found the probe dangling from a tree (Latitude = 48.66710°, Longitude = 9.337112°). Using a telescopic rod, we attached a hook—tied to a rope—to the probe. Then Gisela and I carefully pulled the probe down until it came free from the tree. We were able to fully recover the probe as well as the unwinder, the parachute, and the rest of the balloon. Happily, we went back to the car and drove back to Stuttgart.
