Once you passed 18,000' MSL you were in violation.
Once you passed 18,000' MSL you were in violation.
Reminds me of the first beer in space video from a month or so ago. 
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that is too cool
Since the payload is under 4 pounds, we were not required to have an FAA waiver or even needed to submit a NOTAM as long as everything else was in "spec." FAA just prefers that you notify them 48 hours prior to launch, but a NOTAM is not required for small balloons. We actually have a contact with the local FAA/ATC officer who handles balloon launches for future projects. All he asked was that we call him 48 hours prior to launch. No NOTAM required.
We have the domain and my friend is in the process of learning wordpress to post properly. Right now it's just the default template until I have enough time to donate a design for him.
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Seems to me a NOTAM would be fairly worthless as the thing is moving. I've seen NOTAMS for FIXED balloons but I can't imagine how someone would write a NOTAM for a moving target like that. You could file it as a center NOTAM (Fort Worth Center, Kansas City Center, etc.) but there's still no way to give pilots an informed answer of exactly where the thing is going to be at what time.
VERY cool project though.
There's online tools that allows you to predict where and how the balloon will travel based on atmospheric conditions. If the balloon was over 4 pounds, we would require to have a NOTAM, give it's predicted trajectory and estimated times of when the balloon reaches 60,000 feet going up and coming back down and when it finally reaches the earth. They would probably want us to call them the moment it reached those altitudes on the way up and way down, as well. They could request to even have access to the gps tracker and altimeter so they can track the balloon in flight. Staying under 4 pounds in payload really simplifies things and prevents having to go through all this hassle.
Exactly...PREDICTED and ESTIMATED are the key words there. If I had a dollar for every time actual meteorological conditions weren't the same as the predicted ones, well...I wouldn't be a rich man but I could buy a nice little stash of ammunition. Now...access to the GPS tracker/altimeter would provide pretty good real time info (even if GPS altimeters aren't quite as good as computer corrected barometric pressure altimeters) and I have to wonder why 4 lbs was selected as the number where they magically start to care. Heck a stray bolt can foul up an aircraft engine pretty well but there's got to be some method behind the madness. I can see the bureaucratic rationale for wanting to know about 60k, as that's where class A airspace (and presumably their responsibility) ends.
I never knew there was a weight class that could still enter class A airspace. Sounds like you've done your homework. Cool project!
