It's not everyday that some one  bends the rules, go where no man or MeshAP has gone before. Yes this is a historic moment that the open source MeshAP has taken flight on January 21, 2005 in a little know place in England called Lincolnshire.

The team at South Witham Broadband project launch in a mini ultralite airplane, the first MeshAP named "condor" that went mobile via wings.

As you can see a black MeshAP is strapped to the back seat of the ultralite with a portable battery unit. The setup consisted of an 8db patch antenna mounted inside the microlite. 

Prior to take off a symbolic picture was taken of the Pilot Brian and MeshAP

It has been reported that the Pilot Brian wouldn't answer his VOIP phone. I guess he was too busy to talk with ground control. 

The Airborne MeshAP linked with three other nodes on its maiden flight.

Roy Eddleston has the putty outputs, showing in maxispy and reporter, and the Wiana screenshots showing the "condor" and another with the link strengths.   It linked with 2x15db Omnis and a 7db Yagi, 

The purpose of have mobile mesh is extremely important.  Having a MeshAP airborne opens up a whole new way of linking Mesh.  But it is the extension of the Mesh Cloud that makes this such a unique achievement.

Most MeshAP are fixed and that the actual coverage area does not grow.  With a "winged"  MeshAP the coverage grows geometrically and extends the mesh beyond its limits.  With multi winged MeshAP the mesh can cover areas where existing infrastructure is limited to time and space.  More importantly the Winged Mesh is only one hop from the closes MeshAP. When an application is required to further the Mesh and linked to a ground stations a Winged MeshAP is the ideal solution.

Every time I activate a new MeshAP I get this feeling of success and can just imagine how the team at South Witham Broadband project are feeling about this achievement.  Innovation like this may seem novel in today's fast past world.  Some times we just have to step back and admire the innovators! 

I understand that there was a team made up of Tom, Roy, Brian and Alan. I would like to thank Tom for sending the information and pictures.  Further information can be seen at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/south_witham_bb/