"Three countries—North Korea, Yemen and the UK—restrict transmissions from balloons in their airspace, so the community has integrated geofencing software into the tracking devices. The balloons still overfly the countries, but do not transmit their positions over their airspace."
That's an interesting collection of countries. Why I wonder the UK and not other Western countries?
It's not that you cannot transmit from a high altitude balloon over the UK, but you are very restricted in transmit power and frequencies. My son and a friend of his built a Muon detector and sent it up under a high altitude balloon as a school science project. We tracked and chased it for 200 miles across England and recovered it eventually, a little the worse for wear. His was set up to transmit location, altitude, and muon flux in case we didn't recover it. It had three radios - two low bitrate RTTY transmitters at very low power (10mW?) and GPRS which was set up to only switch on after landing to help recovery (it's not legal to transmit GPRS while airborne). The RTTY turned out to be very reliable, even at 50 mile range, and especially with other HAB hobbists kindly relaying data back via the Internet. This was especially useful to locate the landing site when the balloon outran us and dropped below our radio horizon. The GPRS never worked, but that may have been because it landed in a pigsty and was attacked by the pig. Anyway, there's quite an active UK high altitude balloon community.
The school was one of the better state schools in West London - the kids were 17 at the time. At the end of the school year they give them a couple of weeks to do a project of their own making. This particular project was the kids initiative. They got their first Muon detector working in these two week, and flew it to Germany and back on a cheap flight. The ballon was then an extra addition a few months later. The Muon detector design was based on one from MIT http://cosmicwatch.lns.mit.edu/detector but they redesigned the circuit boards themselves because they weren't confident about making surface mount boards, and they wanted to separate the scintillator board from the rest, to give them a chance to change things later. The kids did all the circuit board design themselves, and assembled everything themselves. I put them in touch with the right people to get circuit boards etched. They built two Muon detectors - one nicely cased with a display, and one lightweight one for the balloon flight. The head of physics at the school lent them a beta source to test with (his main instructions were "don't lick it!").
I helped with some of the comms software, but they did most of the other software themselves too. As for the balloon, again, they did that themselves - they rented the helium cylinder, researched the regulations, how to get a NOTAM issued, arranged the use of a disused airfied as a launch site, phoned air traffic control to get final permission to launch, etc. Beforehand, they did all the testing they could manage without being airborne, and got the hang of driving the sdr dongles they used to receive the two RTTY streams. They also discovered GPRS transmissions really interfered with the Muon amplifier, but that wasn't a big issue if it was only turned on for landing.
On the day, the main thing the two parents did was drive the two chase cars, as the kids hadn't got a driving license. Most things went right first time. They had two redundant GPS receivers and two RTTY transmitters, running completely separate software, one on a raspberry pi zero, and one on a teensy. The GPS chipsets need configuring into high altitude mode, or they stop working above 10,000 meters. But this is impossible to test in advance. The RTTY transmitter that was relaying the Muon results gave a much higher bit error rate than the second one, but the second one's GPS chipset turned out to not be in high altitude mode. The balloon sprang a leak at 16,000 m, and descended gently afterwards. We had been aiming for the expected landing site, and as it dropped back into the jetstream, it started to get away from us, despite us driving as fast as we dared with a large antenna on the car roof. Fortunately two other HAB guys were receiving too, and relaying position information back as we started to hit the limits of what we could receive from the working GPS. As the balloon descended the second GPS came back to life, and we were able to track again until it dropped too low. In the end we got to within a kilometer of where it landed, but the reason we recovered it quickly in the end was because the lovely lady whose pigsty it landed in phoned the number on the payload.
My children went to a high school in France which is ranked in the national top 3 (the ranking fluctuates between these schools depending on the year and the detailed calculation).
There have never even been a project that was in any way close to the one your children did. Was that a "normal" project, ore one you work on by choice over a few years? Or one you do as part of a club (but holy shit - what club that must be!)
For one our education is way, way too theoretical (and basically useless once you learn ans pass the test) and then when I look at the "projects" they did, they look like kindergarten 2nd year marvels.
Hats off to your children!
EDIT: you should publish this in some competition for children
This project was definitely at the ambitious end of the spectrum for an end-of-year project, but some of the other kids did cool things too. One group built a railgun! The short timescale made everything harder - I ended up paying for rushed delivery of components from the US for example. But they did get the first Muon detector working in two weeks.
It wasn't the only project he did at school. When he was 14 or 15, they competed to build a solar still for water desalination - his included a solar panel driving a small pump to recirculate water to increase evaporation, an ultrasonic humidifier and a peltier cooler to improve condensation. It actually worked pretty well, but they didn't win. I think the judges thought they had too much parental involvement, but they didn't really.
Then when he was 16, with a different group, they entered a BP-sponsored competition with the brief "imagine the petrol station of the future". They didn't like the brief, and built a "self driving car" (basically a robot car that could follow a wall, based on a Bigtrak toy), and designed, built and tested an inductive charging system for it that could detect the car driving over coils embedded in the road, and turn on the coils in sequence as the robot drove past. I advised them on the robot software, but they did the rest. The analog electronics of coupled coils turned out to be hard, but they got it tuned in the end. It couldn't quite supply enough power to keep the car driving indefinitely, but did extend the range somewhat. That took them a bit more time, but they did win the national competition with that and got to present the project to the CEO of BP. A few weeks later BP announced a project on wireless charging for vehicles - maybe coincidence, but who knows?
It's easy to underestimate what young people are capable of, given all the information available online today.
The UK has some strange leftover laws about radio communication. Recently there was a post here about their system of TV detector vans to collect license fees for public television (something most sensible countries have put into their normal taxes a long time ago). And the UK for example is also missing from Live ATC because listening to (open, unencrypted) ATC communications is illegal there.
Fyi TV detector vans are essentially fearmongering by the government. A freedom of information request recently revealed not a single prosecution has been generated from the use of those vans since the project's alleged start in the early 50s.
> "Technically possible" doesn't always mean "legally permissible."
In the UK if a radio device is 'inherently incapable of transmission', you do not
need a licence to install or use it. A scanner is very much that.
It is legal to use a scanner in the UK as long as it is clear from the context that the message being listened to was intended for general reception. There are many circumstances in aviation where this could be the case.
ATC is not meant for general reception. radio stations, weather/navigation broadcasts, amateur radio bands, etc. are intended for general reception. ATC is intended for airport staff and aircraft, so it is technically illegal to listen to it in the UK.
One easy example I can think of in the UK is uncontrolled/semi-controlled airspace (class E/G) and uncontrolled airfields. Parties transmitting on those frequencies are basically sending broadcast messages for the benefit of anyone listening in order to inform those unknown parties of their location and intentions.
See also, for example, this reply to an FOI request[1], I quote:
Whether or not an aeronautical transmission was intended for
general reception would depend on all of the circumstances of the
transmission. We cannot therefore say, generally, whether or not
listening to these transmissions would be an offence.
I love this "meant for". It seems very in line with British politeness to treat certain broadcasts you receive as things that just weren't meant for you, so let's all pretend that you didn't get them.
> It seems very in line with British politeness to treat certain broadcasts you receive as things that just weren't meant for you, so let's all pretend that you didn't get them.
That's basically how the actual law on this matter is worded, i.e. "don't listen, but if you did listen, don't tell anyone".
Section 48, Wireless Telegraphy Act[1], notice the clever little "or" at the end of (1)(a).
So 48(1) is telling you: "don't use it with intent"(1)(a), but if you do don't be that person who "discloses information"(1)(b).
We used to have a plane with a radio in designed to listen to ATC for the usual reasons. I see no great difference to listening to it for flying the plane of listening to it for no particular reason when sitting around, legally speaking.
Transmitting to ATC is of course quite a different thing.
Don’t need a license to have a TV, or a license to use it to receive many signals.
You need a license to receive a television programme service, which I believe is defined as a service being transmitted by an ofcom registered television station.
As I understand it, pager messages are the same way. At least in the US, they’re transmitted unencrypted, and anyone with a $25 SDR dongle and some free software can receive them. But it’s illegal to, say, put them up on a website.
This is *exactly* what someone in Yorkshire found out a few years ago when he wrote a bot to post Fire and Rescue pager messages to Twitter.
It's worth pointing out that it's almost impossible to get Ofcom to prosecute you for anything to do with receiving and recording radio traffic, or even transmitting illegally, as long as you're not making a nuisance of yourself.
This is generally how laws work in the UK. You can do it right up to the point at which it pisses people off enough that the legal system has to act.
Note that there is also an encrypted version of this system that's not publicly accessible. I'm not sure about the quality of the encryption used, but I do know that police traffic and ambulance traffic often goes via encrypted channels.
I'm also not sure if this is a system that's legally protected or that the government simply hasn't bothered trying to take these sites down.
That's called C2000 yes but it's mainly for voice. It can handle text messages too. It's based on Tetra. And it's two-way. Indeed very well encrypted.
P2000 is one way and based on FLEX, a paging protocol. It's indeed only used for fire and ambulance. The police data is too sensitive so they use C2000. Though you will see police traffic related to accidents etc.
But no P2000 isn't protected and the government even used that website themselves :) Not officially though, I guess.
I think this is also because most fire departments use a lot of volunteers which makes their activities a lot more public.
I set up the SDR dongle and app on my laptop and played around with it for a few hours. It was pretty interesting to see just how many pagers still seem to be in use. A lot of it seemed to be alerts from sensors of various types - refrigeration and things like that. But the majority looked to be from hospitals. Including what seemed to be patient data.
All the retained and volunteer fire stations around the UK use pagers, because they're simple, reliable, and moderately firefighter-resistant - and about 70 quid to replace when they get smashed, deep-sixed, melted, driven over by the pump, or chewed by a dog. Yes, this week alone.
They're used for alerting rather than paging, in that the message is four flashing LEDs and a lot of beeping rather than a description of the incident, and as such the paging transmitters just transmit a unique number rather than a message. The message is always "get to the fire station right now".
I listen to a a few ATC YouTube channels like VASAviation[1], Mentour Pilot[2], 74 Gear[3]. Are you say that if VAS, etc. put up a video of UK ATC traffic, while in the UK, they could be punished for that? Are we talking some 5 pound fine, or is that something closer to an arrestable offense? My assumption is it falls under some vague "safety and security" measure in response to 9/11, but that would raise questions about just having it encrypted, instead.
Honestly, the concept of this being illegal is shocking to me. I had assumed recording/playback of ATC comms was essentially a universal standard practice (minus Military, police ops, etc.) to help with education and training. It seems like a terrible shame that the UK would have such a strange rule barring it.
> put up a video of UK ATC traffic, while in the UK, they could be punished for that?
Yes
> are we talking some 5 pound fine, or is that something closer to an arrestable offense?
In the UK criminal offences are generally dealt with reasonably softly, i.e. within the context of the criminal and the severity of the crime.
With something like this, which would be a criminal offence similar to re-distributing paid TV services you would normally just go through various levels of fine depending on severity/scale.
So a website explicitly setup to distribute recordings could expect quite a heavy fine because (a) they were knowingly doing it, and (b) they were distributing to a large global audience.
Chances of being arrested on this sort of offence in the UK is highly unlikely. Maybe if you were a repeat offender you might leave them with little choice, but that's probably the only scenario.
They certainly built some, but it does seem more like a publicity stunt or occasionally touring enforcement option, than any kind of seriously pursued plan.
It's funny because we have labelled "TV Inspektion" vans all over the place -- but those are for robotic camera examination of a stuck sewer line!
(After many years of public broadcasting being charged if you have a TV -- or even a PC or mobile phone with TV capability -- the charges now go through the normal tax system, so you no longer have to worry about the real TV inspection people asking to come in to see if you have a TV!).
Actually in the 80s this was not technically impossible.
Superheterodyne receivers including the ones in TVs have a local oscillator that's mixed with the received signal. This oscillator leaks out a bit and can be detected at short ranges.
These days there's much more interference and TV is not distributed over the air anymore usually. So it is no longer a thing.
The thing is though, it's usually not needed. All they have to do is go to the houses without a license and either look through the window or listen for the sounds of a TV show.
I wish they'd just abandon the concept of a TV License though. Everyone has a media capable device these days and the administrative load of all this license crap is not worth the savings for the 5 people that really don't have a TV. In other words, just take it out of the taxes.
In the Netherlands they have done this for decades but when I lived in Ireland there was still a really expensive license. For which you get 2 really mediocre channels (IMHO)
The funny thing was the ads on TV. They focused not so much on the huge fine of more than a thousand euros but on the shame of being seen in court without a license. As if anyone gives a F... Lol. Piracy was really rampant when I was there and people even networked their wifis together over long distances to share movies.
You could just about make a speculative case for IF and flyback transmission in the old analogue days, although triangulation would have been a serious problem.
Today's digital systems are much quieter.
But the best argument is that even if they worked it wouldn't make a difference. A large team of inspectors has a list of properties without a license and they're checked in person. A complex detector van does nothing to make this easier - as proven by the complete lack of detector evidence in court cases.
“ Modern efforts to detect licence evasion are shrouded in mystery. Modern flatscreen displays receiving digital television signals do not emit as much radio frequency interference as older designs, and any such signals detected are less easily correlated with broadcast television. An LCD television in the home can just as easily be displaying output from a video game console or an online streaming service, with both being usage cases that do not require the owner to pay a licence fee. Based on an alleged BBC submission for a search warrant in recent years, there may be optical methods used in which reflected light from a television in a viewer’s home is compared to a live broadcast signal. The BBC declined to answer the Freedom of Information request with any details of their methods, other than to say they have employed vehicles and handheld devices in enforcement efforts.”
There's no mystery. They have a list of every address without a TV license so simply go and ring the doorbell and ask you. You don't have to let them in.
An ex-gf of mine was caught red-handed with the TV on and brazenly (and impressively) bluffed her way out of a conviction. She said it wasn't her flat and the real owner was out.
The inspectors can't do much if you refuse to identify or incriminate yourself.
Those detector vans were a hoax. I don’t have a TV licence because I don’t fit any of the criteria for requiring one. Screw taking it out of my tax instead.
Germany solved that issue by making owning any device capable of receiving internet broadcasts part of the eligibility criteria. By that point they could just as well make it part of general tax budgets...
Germany just sends a bill to every registered resident, no matter what.
The Rundfunkbeitrag is applied per household, not based on devices, and it's up to each person to either pay the tax or justify to the Beitragsservice that they don't need to.
And of course young people are also less likely to watch TV in the first place. It's basically subsidized entertainment for the elderly, which would be fine if the funds were sourced equitably. I also don't buy that this weird totally-not-a-tax setup makes the news any more independent from the government - after all, it's still the government deciding to uphold or even increase the fees as well as allowing and supporting the enforcement.
Yeah, it's a pretty shitty system and I wish we would get rid of it. Don't have high hopes of that happening anytime soon though.
Some countries have a very interesting way to frame the requirements: "any device through which you can listen/view broadcasts produced by the national radio/television". When they stream national video/radio online it automatically qualifies every computer or smartphone or car radio as a device that makes you required to pay the tv fee
Actually they were a thing, briefly, but technology rendered them obsolete as quickly as they appeared (better shielding to avoid interference etc) - but they remained a deterrent for quite a while
Because the RSGB is run by tedious atavistic old farts, who want the hobby to be an Old Men's Club forever.
Meanwhile Ofcom's unofficial position is that they literally cannot be paid to investigate things that happen on the amateur bands, and don't much care what you do anywhere else as long as you're not making a nuisance of yourself.
Formally - no, i think the official stance last i saw was that you can submit a request for a “notice of variation” on your licence but i don’t know of anyone who’s done that and from my knowledge of other NoVs that have been granted i expect it could be hobbled in some way. E.g. in the uk a full licence holder may transmit at up to 400w on most bands but you can submit for a NoV to be able to transmit at 1kw like the US - except the NoV can carry constraints like you must not transmit your call sign. That’s not a typo, you must NOT transmit your callsign when using 1kw. It’ll depend on the reason for the NoV being issued though.
Informally i’ve had nothing but condescending dismissal on airborne operation because i mentioned some experiments involving a drone (my other hobby).
Doesn't UK also have some extra regulation about unmanned transmitters and repeaters? There is a "pistar-keeper" functionality in dmr hotspots (pi-star), that disables transmission if the operator('s phone) isn't close by (distance is detected via bluetooth).
If you send a balloon around the world, would you really care if the North Koreans get their knickers in a knot over some telemetry? What are they going to do, ask for extradition?
They might shoot it down but I'd personally consider that a badge of honor. Pissing off the worst dictatorship in the world and getting them to waste at least 50k$ on a jet sortie for a few hundred bucks worth of hobby balloon sounds like money well spent.
I'm not into ballooning but I'm surprised they actually obey this. The UK is another matter of course.
At some point you have to realize that you might not be safe just because you aren’t in that country. I don’t think North Korea is going to kidnap you or something, but intentionally antagonizing foreign governments that aren’t amicable to your own government just seems like it could have unintended consequences down the road.
I'm based in the UK and have a passive interest in amateur radio. If I had to guess, it isn't outright forbidden, just a licensed activity. Maybe the license isn't easy to get or widely granted?
Obtaining an amateur radio licence in the UK is fairly trivial. The courses and exams are administered by volunteers so the hardest part is finding availability to align with your schedule. COVID really helped because it became possible to take the exams online.
There are 3 levels, Foundation through to Full which come with different privileges. You can achieve a lot with the basic Foundation.
In terms of airborne transmitting - yes the UK is an outlier. It is forbidden to make amateur radio transmissions in the air over the UK, or use a UK licence to do so anywhere I think. The key word here is amateur - so specifically on those bands and with that licence. I think the ISM bands would be fine - and there are balloon projects and clubs in the UK.
I have a Finnish amateur licence in parallel and that doesn't have this restriction but naturally it would still not be allowed to use it to transmit from an aircraft over the UK. And even if it were to be elsewhere there are still some rules surrounding that, and it's hopefully obvious that you need permission of whoever's in charge of the aircraft.
Transmission outside of unlicensed bands requires a license, amateur radio has a license requirement to teach responsibility and proper clue, which isn't a bad thing per se
you have to have a license to watch television for chris' sake, so it absolutely falls in line you'd need licensing to transmit. you probably have to have licenses in your kid's walkie-talkies. this is the same country that has the national power grid introduce "hum" (or whatever it is technically callled) in the signal so that a time reference can be decoded from it.
> this is the same country that has the national power grid introduce "hum" (or whatever it is technically callled) in the signal so that a time reference can be decoded from it.
I don't think that's intentionally introduced. My understanding was that mains hum in any grid is an artifact of a noisy signal that just happens to be useful as a forensics fingerprint.
Yes, it seems I crossed a few streams in my head. Here's an article[0] talking about how the forensics is done because someone is creating a database of all of the fluctuations that give it the forensic finger print rather than it being deliberately injected.
Its not really a license as much as it is a fee, even if it is called that. It'd be like calling taxes a life-license or something. Also worth noting its not the only country that has one, just off the top of my head I know that Ireland, Switzerland and Japan have them as well
You can from what I understand transmit RF from balloons - https://ukhas.org.uk/doku.php?id=start has lots of info. There are limitations on what frequencies and power you can transmit at, iirc the power is around 10mW.
People keep saying a lightweight craft under six pounds poses no threat to commercial aviation, but is that really true?
I doubt a balloon with a circuit board could cause an engine to fail, but there are lots of sensitive measurement devices, like a pitot tube, that I imagine could fail if a balloon hit it. (For reference, Aeroperu 603 was brought down by tape that wasn't removed from the plane.)
I'm all about hobbyists hobbying, but it does seem like there should be at least some so of registration system so we know what people are launching into shared airspace.
> People keep saying a lightweight craft under six pounds poses no threat to commercial aviation, but is that really true?
True enough for the extremely risk-averse FAA.
> there are lots of sensitive measurement devices, like a pitot tube, that I imagine could fail if a balloon hit it. (For reference, Aeroperu 603 was brought down by tape that wasn't removed from the plane.)
Tape over all of the multiply-redundant static ports on the aircraft. We don't treat tape as a critical threat to aircraft.
If only that was the worst design issue with the 737 Max... It is astonishing how Boeing got away with that clusterfuck of a plane. All because they didn't wan't to invent a new body and beat Airbus to market.
> People keep saying a lightweight craft under six pounds poses no threat to commercial aviation, but is that really true?
Most likely.
Even more so for lighter than air aircraft. An airliner traveling at Mach 0.8 would most most likely push this tiny thing out of the way like a feather even if it was in the flight path.
Note that, regarding your pitot tube example, they are _pointy_. And heated. Assuming the balloon would even be hit and have its fabric intact, it would still be punched right through.
Remember, 90000 pound aircraft traveling at Mach 0.8 (for an average 737) against a lighter than air balloon where the most rigid components are small circuit boards and thin solar panels. There isn't even an electronics case in most instances.
Maybe engines would ingest it, but they wouldn't even notice.
> Maybe engines would ingest it, but they wouldn't even notice.
Someone once told me, but I can't remember whether it was an aviator or an ornithologist, that a bird with a metal ring on its leg could cause total destruction of a jet engine. Of course they don't attach metal rings to birds any more and haven't done so for a long time, and I'm not sure how big the risk was even with the chunkiest of old-fashioned rings.
Bird Ingestion Tests [0] are performed with a chicken gun™ in order to test the damage a bird would do to the engine. They don't put metal rings on them though !
I imagine it would destroy an engine on ingest, but that doesn't mean the plane goes down. They can fly with just one engine. It's hard, and they land ASAP, but nobody dies.
Ya but if people are allowed to put up small craft as they please there's a much greater chance of the plane encountering and ingesting another small craft as it gets closer to a location for emergency landing
In the case of Aeroperu, it was being serviced, and so _all_ the static ports were taped over with duct tape. Which is an extremely unusual maintenance procedure and resulting failure mode, and in flight you wouldn't expect all of them to fail simultaneously, even after an impact with an foreign object.
And critically, in their case, the ground radar warning system was working; however, due to all the other failures and alarms occurring on the flight deck, they did not notice or did not pay attention to this alarm.
Modern aviation is so filled with redundancies and double checks that most disasters are the result of a long sequence of chained failures, and not due to a single piece of equipment becoming inoperative.
Don't forget that they usually travel at 2x the flight ceiling of an airliner. The transition up and down is really quick. So the effective risk is low. And usually you can inform the authorities so they know where it is.
Improbable unless it's a really enormous bird (or many large birds at one time). A chicken wouldn't be big enough. Bird ingestion would probably cause some damage that would have to be repaired, but jet engines are tested for this exact scenario. And engines are tested for large birds and both medium and small engine flocks.
Sure, it _could_ happen with a single bird, but it probably won't.
Engines are also tested for speeds and altitudes where birds are typically encountered - ie, not Mach 0.8 at FL35. Canopy tests are similar.
If I’m remembering correctly, I think the typical “speed limit” is 250 kts below Class A airspace, which is a far cry from a Mach number.
edit: I also recall that the testing allows for destruction of the engine as long as shrapnel does not penetrate the fuselage. Engines are not happy ingesting a goose regardless of speed or altitude. There’s a liner surrounding the turbine blades the must remain intact to pass the test.
To pile on, the average weight of male Canadian Geese is > 8 pounds, which is higher than the largest 'large bird' that needs to be tested, and they travel in flocks. I think they worked out that each engine probably ingested two birds. At the time those engines were certified, the largest bird tested was 4 lbs and they only volleyed them into the outer area of the engine, not the core where the accident engines hit.[1]
Now they have to send them into the 'most critical area' of the engine, but depending on engine size the largest bird tested could still be 4 or 6 lbs.
Reminds me of the joke where an engineer is testing cockpit windshield resistance to bird-strike by firing dead chickens at it from a special cannon. The windshields keep shattering and they wonder why.
One engineer suggests that they probably defrost the chicken first.
All kinds of FOD (foreign object damage) can cause issue, regardless of its size or material. Look at what damage a small bird can deal, especially to a jet engine.
Here's that didn't take down the plane, but made a big hole in the canopy spewing blood and guts all over the person in the back seat with the body hitting them in the shoulder.
Here's some bird ingestion data for you from the certification of a GE90 Engine (large commercial airliner engine)
"As part of the required certification testing, the GE90 successfully completed
both the 2.5 and 8 lb. (1.13 and 3.63 kg) bird ingestion tests on the engine’s
composite blades.
In October 94, four 2.5 lb. birds were ingested with the engine running at
speeds required to produce 85,000 lb. (377.8 kN) of thrust at takeoff on a hot
day. There was no thrust loss and the engine responded to all throttle
commands during the required 20 minutes of operation following the
ingestion."
Yeah... your typical aircraft is not reaching Mach 20 where a hole would cause high temperatures leading to structural failure. Concerns about balloons and such can be valid but a comparison to Columbia is a big stretch.
Clearly i should have added more words as I thought it was obvious I was just comparing projectile vs target; ie, just because an object is small or light doesn't mean it can't cause significant damage, and we don't have a lot of research into it.
If it penetrates the wing, can it hit the fuel tank?
And 6lb of metal hits different than 6lb of goose, depending on what it hits. Hail can destroy a radome.
Fuel tanks are kevlar-lined nowadays, no? Certainly that doesn't make them invulnerable, but they can take quite a beating before they start leaking or worse.
That's not the point and you know it. Don't be pedantic. It doesn't help the conversation. The above poster is saying that even small problems can lead to catastrophic consequences in complicated machines.
It was my point, and i thought it was clear enough that it was just a comparison of projectile to target, and the damage a tiny object can cause; I should have added more words, maybe. Most at NASA thought that the foam couldn't have damaged the spacecraft, and they were wrong.
If a drone penetrates the wing, we don't really know if it can make it to the fuel tank when it hits at 500...
If your point is "small problems can lead to catastrophic consequences in complicated machines" then it's not helpful, because we have more specific information for planes that overrides such a generic statement.
Who's being pedantic here? The conversation is about a complete fiction, since a balloon never caused an airliner to crash. Why do we have to entertain that scenario that never actually happened, and how does that help the conversation about the danger of balloons to air traffic?
> The above poster is saying that even small problems can lead to catastrophic consequences in complicated machines.
Sure, but they picked an example that's outside of this kind of aircraft's spec, so it's not clear that it's applicable. Bad examples deserve to be called out.
Would actually be quite impressive if it’s confirmed that NORAD is able to track and target a balloon/payload weighing between 11 grams-6 lbs, and flying between 30k-40k feet altitude.
Mobile and fixed systems like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-based_X-band_Radar exist around the US and are reported to be able to pickup baseball sized objects from the other side of the continent (and that's what they claimed a decade ago before the upgrades).
They're just typically not used with such precision because of the sheer amount of false positives they'd generate and how little concern there typically is about something so small.
I suspect objects "in orbit" are some of the easiest objects to track. Once you have a few data points, you can pretty much calculate where it will be at any given point in time. It takes a lot of energy to meaningfully alter the course of an orbiting baseball, so much so that any attempt to do so would probably result in the operator now successfully tracking a debris cloud that used to be in the form of a baseball.
I don't think anyone really knows exactly the fidelity of what NORAD can see. And anyone on here that claims to know is almost definitely full of shit.
But as Donald Rumsfeld famously said: "we can destroy a bomb placed under a pedestrian footbridge from 6,000 miles away without destroying the bridge."
if it's metal foil or metallized foil it could have a quite large radar cross section, more so if it's carrying a corner reflector to make radar tracking easier
Therefore this is the start of open source stealth tech - hobbyists fearing military intervention will begin to construct their balloons out of radar-absorbing materials.
> Would actually be quite impressive if it’s confirmed that NORAD is able to track and target a balloon/payload weighing between 11 grams-6 lbs, and flying between 30k-40k feet altitude.
Is it really impressive? Modern stealth fighters have a radar signature smaller than small birds.
The weight of the object doesn't matter though. All that matters is ita radar cross-section, which can be through the roof even from a one gram piece of metal foil (which would give it much more total radar cross-section than an entire F-35!).
Yeesh. This guy is not helping the future of his hobby, which I'm guessing is pretty precarious right now:
“I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS), a Silicon Valley company that makes purpose-built pico balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists.
In other news:
Biden wants ‘sharper rules’ on unknown aerial objects
Weren't these balloons at the altitude level that civilian aircraft fly? How exactly is it legal to do what these guys claim to have been doing? This is bizarre stuff.
This guy should be thankful he's not in prison yet, even though he should be.
> This guy should be thankful he's not in prison yet, even though he should be.
That's awfully nasty and blood thirsty. Thousands of weather balloons are launched very day, they are usually even more massive. These balloons are within the parameters that are explicitly permitted and are believed to be safe by the FAA.
Not everything unfamiliar to you personally is a threat.
Not everyone who does something which you haven't personally deemed safe deserves to be locked in a cage.
I expect they were operating their balloons within the lawful parameters set by the FAA. I also expect those parameters might soon change now that spy balloons are a thing.
That guy's hobby needs a talented spokesperson right now, and he definitely is not it.
60.000 feet is double the maximum ceiling of any current airliner. So no. most airliners do 35k or so max. Concorde went a lot higher but didn't reach 60k either (it also cruised much higher meaning it had basically the whole airspace to itself)
Of course the balloons must transition but it goes quite fast.
But the recently shot down objects were at 20,000 feet, 40,000 feet, and 40,000 feet, right? Part of the justification for shooting them down was their proximity to commercial aviation…
The 3 Balloons which were shot down after the known Chinese one were all flying between 20,000 - 40,000 ft. In truth it's kind of insane to me that drones seem to have greater FAA regulation than these balloons, some of which were close to active airports.
Yeah, I agree. The "they're going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down" feels like a low-blow to me. Shooting them down seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to me at this time.
Seems like we weren't even really looking for balloons until recently. Now that we've noticed the Chinese Spy balloon, we're reviewing radar logs with refined analysis and are finding some in the past. So we don't really know the characterization of this potential threat. Our ability to positively ID things in this realm is still developing. Until it's a matured discipline, seems reasonable to act with an abundance of caution.
Even if the military could positively ID a pico balloon as such, who's to say pico balloons couldn't be used for nefarious purposes? Purposes still warranting being shot down? I could see the hobby moving to align with drones -- requiring FAA registration and a transponder. That seems like a solution that would allow well-intentioned pico balloons to continue operating and allow military to more easily discern: friend or foe?
These balloons do have a transponder already and are tracked on public websites. You would think a government organization patrolling the skies might be aware that a balloon sized object might be a balloon, and do some research before shooting it.
2.1 An unmanned free balloon shall not be operated without appropriate authorization from the State from which the launch is made.
2.2 An unmanned free balloon, other than a light balloon used exclusively for meteorological purposes and operated in the manner prescribed by the appropriate authority, shall not be operated across the territory of another State without appropriate authorization from the other State concerned.
2.3 The authorization referred to in 2.2 shall be obtained prior to the launching of the balloon if there is reasonable expectation, when planning the operation, that the balloon may drift into airspace over the territory of another State. Such authorization may be obtained for a series of balloon flights or for a particular type of recurring flight, e.g. atmospheric research balloon flights.
2.4 An unmanned free balloon shall be operated in accordance with conditions specified by the State of Registry and the State(s) expected to be overflown.
---
Section 2.2 and 2.3 is applicable here. That they didn't know, and the government didn't know, and this wasn't a exclusively used as a weather balloon... there are possibly some things that the hobbyists did that may not have been completely within the bounds of the treaty.
> there are possibly some things that the hobbyists did that may not have been completely within the bounds of the treaty
Given the geopolitical moment, I'm inclined to think it might work out for the best if that were so.
Not that today's neocon China hawks are any more in the habit of listening to reason than they were when they were the neocon Iraq hawks of a couple of decades ago, but anything that gives everyone else another reason not to listen to their incessant warmongering is in my view entirely welcome.
I'm not an international lawyer but I'm fairly certain the Chicago convention has nothing to do with states within the US, it has to do with nation states. So the above is totally irrelevant.
It sets down the rules for which civil aviation (including unmanned free balloons) follow. You could argue that "a balloon launched in Illinois and found in Alaska is within the US"... but it transited other countries airspace (there is no way for a balloon from Illinois to get to northern Alaska except the long way around) and should have been following the rules there.
And so, the question that I'll ask - "did the people launching balloon obtain permission to launch from the United States and prior permission for countries that it passed over?"
This isn't exclusively a weather balloon - which has a different carve out for permissions.
But it is an aircraft that traveled internationally and through the airspace of multiple different countries.
Post the balloon flight on flight progress strips along the planned trajectory and revise routing as tracking/position reports require.
Radar flight follow balloons to the extent that equipment capabilities permit. If radar flight following is not possible, tracking should be attempted by communication with the “chase plane,” telephone contact with the operator, pilot, or ground observation reports.
Provide traffic advisories to all affected aircraft during initial contact specifying the balloon's known or estimated position, direction of movement, and altitude as “unknown” or “reported,” as appropriate.
Unless ATC requires otherwise, operators of unmanned free balloons are required to monitor the course of the balloon and record its position at least every two hours. As required in 14 CFR Section 101.39a, balloon position reports are not forwarded by the operator unless requested by ATC.
UNMANNED FREE BALLOON OVER (name of location),
or
ESTIMATED OVER (name of location), MOVING
(direction of movement).
LAST REPORTED ALTITUDE AT (altitude as reported by the operator or determined from pilot report),
or
ALTITUDE UNKNOWN.
---
If this was followed, and someone could say "there's a balloon near this location which is similar to the last reported location of Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade balloon 12345" this probably wouldn't have happened.
As it is, they're getting into the airspace used by airliners at a time when peoples' hackles are raised with unknown balloons.
As it is, this still falls under the Chicago Convention.
> 2.2 An unmanned free balloon, other than a light balloon used exclusively for meteorological purposes and operated in the manner prescribed by the appropriate authority, shall not be operated across the territory of another State without appropriate authorization from the other State concerned.
> 2.3 The authorization referred to in 2.2 shall be obtained prior to the launching of the balloon if there is reasonable expectation, when planning the operation, that the balloon may drift into airspace over the territory of another State. Such authorization may be obtained for a series of balloon flights or for a particular type of recurring flight, e.g. atmospheric research balloon flights.
This is not exclusively a meteorological balloon. It is not getting authorization from the airspace it drifts into. That is not being done prior to a launch and as it travels.
> Does the government have the right o destroy whatever it wants in the air? Could this club sue for the cost of the balloon?
I assume the reason nobody seems to be eager to claim these downed balloons is fear of their liability for flying unregistered, transponder-less hazards to other flights.
Transponders are not required for payloads below approximately 100x the weight of these types of balloons. There is zero liability, but also zero recourse.
It's hard to argue that if the government can't identify something operating in controlled airspace that it can't take measures pretty solidly in the realm of "national defense," up to and including blowing it up.
Not only does the government have the right to destroy it, but so does anyone else.
There's no reasonable expectation of recovery when you launch a balloon calibrated to go globe-trotting.
It's basically no different than the person who abandoned a mattress at my apartment block's dumpster. It's littering. They're giving it away, they're not expecting to be able to come back for it later.
Furthermore, nobody has a right to unregistered, unmanned, long duration balloon flight. Such a right would only exist if a state constructed it for its citizens. (and it would end at their boundaries)
I think it's cool that in practice people have been able to do so, but it seems the cool times are coming to an end.
I don't think you should be downvoted for asking a question. I'm sure there are legalities we don't understand, so it's legitimate to ask about them. I'd also like to read a response from an informed source.
It's not quite the right question to ask. The government is going to destroy whatever it wants to in the air, and there's only ever gonna be potential consequences (of a diplomatic nature) if it accidentally results in the injury/death of an innocent party.
The Supreme Court is not going to intervene here in matters of military discretion, and no one is going to be able to sue here over this.
> Does the government have the right to destroy whatever it wants in the air?
Hashtag-its-complicated.
To a first approximation: no. The US scrambling a fighter to blast a plane full of people out of the sky would be a huge mess and incur significant lawsuits.
Refining the approximation: militaries accepts the burden of responsibility to protect their people from threats, including airborne threats. Airborne threats are already traveling with significant potential (and often kinetic) energies so they are default-threatening. So militaries have wide discretion to presume an aircraft with no transponder is hostile and respond appropriately. A lawsuit on that topic would land somewhere between "no compensation" and "Sorry kids; Uncle Sam had to blow up your project to protect mom and apple pie; here's the money for the cost of the mylar and radio parts."
At the boundary-limit of the responsibilities, you can find disasters like the tragedy of Korean Airlines (KAL) flight 007, where Soviet planes failed to establish contact with a commercial airliner and shot it out of the sky.
If you read the linked article, you will find that the United States has laws that waive sovereign immunity for torts committed by people acting on behalf of the federal government. Which is what I assume would be alleged here.
That doesn't mean that they would win such a lawsuit, however.
They can waive torts, yes. Doing so is a very specific process.
Cops regularly get qualified immunity for absolutely egregious conduct. The military is not going to get successfully sued for shooting down a $12 balloon while acting in good faith on national security duties.
What do you think the "very specific process" involved for the federal government waiving immunity to tort claims? I assume that is what you mean by "waive torts" which is a phrase that doesn't really make sense. Since it is "very specific", can you describe it?
You ask what the procedure is, and then link right to it. Legislation giving citizens the right to sue in certain scenarios. Without the government's OK, no suing the government.
The decision here would be "there's no clearly established law that the US can't shoot down a balloon with an F-22" on qualified immunity grounds.
With hobby balloons they are usually small enough to be exempt from FAA 101.
Even if they aren't, you just need permission from whoever controls your airspace (call them 20 minutes ahead of time) and only launch if there is very good visibility around the ascent path.
I’ve been talking to my five year old about weather balloons lately and he’s interested in launching one of his own to try to get a picture of the Earth’s curvature. Can anyone recommend resources on this topic? Surely there are hobby groups around but I must not be searching for the right combo of keywords - haven’t found anything.
Check out the Ham radio community. There are amateurs who launch balloons and put things on board like radio with APRS and such. You might get some good ideas and help your kid down the road to a pretty interesting hobby.
Doesn't answer your question, but if you're not aware, try watching some of Mark Rober's videos on YouTube with him. There was one recently about trying to safely drop an egg from space. He'd probably enjoy a lot of the other videos as well, including the squirrel obstacle courses.
Also, might be good to look into putting a device that will broadcast its location via radio or radar. I believe that above 60k feet airspace is unrestricted, but up till there it might be a good idea
Plus a broadcast signal might scream "This isn't a spy balloon" to USAF lol
I've only just got into radio after hearing about these pico balloons. I've found a decent community over on r/RTLSDR that share information and pictures about hobbyist/DIY radio stuff. I picked up the recommended gear for about $40 and will be trying to receive transmissions around my area.
From some posts there it looks like even beginner gear can get images from the NOAA weather satellites.
These balloons don't seem to match the, however brief, descriptions of what was shot down. Also, do they not have mechanisms that report the balloon's position? Seems like a lot of speculation.
I wonder if APRS transmitter would be acceptable as transponder.
It should be possible to make a tiny, cheap ADS-B transponder. They are similar to APRS, with GPS and VHF radio. But there really isn't a market now for small ones, and there are regulations that make expensive.
I don't think we have a description of the Canada object that is suspected to be this balloon. The car-sized cylindrical object in Alaska could easily be a balloon if the shape was misreported. The octagonal object in Lake Huron trailing cables could have similarly misreported.
It is hard for fighter pilots to observe small objects passing by them at high speed. I also suspect that they will see balloon as interesting object when can't see the payload.
Identification missions are supposed to also photograph the target though, presumably with an appropriate telephoto camera. No need to rely solely on the Mk I eyeball. But admittedly that’s not trivial either at high relative velocities.
I know it says a lot that's not great about the US military, etc.., but if I was a hobbyist, I'd wear the fact that the USAF shot my amateur craft down as such a badge of honor.
Was in a group where we launched a couple of weather balloons back in undergrad. One we recovered and got cool pictures from[1]. The other one never returned. I now choose to believe it was shot down by the USAF back in 2010.
By necessity a flying balloon weighs almost nothing. Otherwise it would be a falling balloon. I suspect the rules refer to mass rather than weight though.
As a long-time RC hobbyist who designs, builds and flies small, short-range battery-powered foam aerobatic planes and gliders for fun and relaxation, it sounds like yet another engineering-centric, technical hobby is about to have their fun ruined by lack-of-understanding, politically-driven performative "safety theater" and media-fueled runaway paranoia.
For proof of this just check these HN threads where many commenters think this balloon was a danger to commercial airliners. And this is a forum populated by nerds.
I've been wondering about the nerd/engineer mindset when it comes to rules and regulations. I've always leaned toward curiosity, freedom, experimentation, and logical reasonableness and thought this was common among the nerd set. Unfortunately, it seems there are a lot of people who bring their desire to control objects into the regulatory realm and lean toward engineering society - favoring manipulation, control, and centralized planning at the expense of reasonableness, the free market, and social benefit.
Yep. When I heard the description of this balloon I was sure it was a picoballoon. Having done balloon flights and dealt with the regulations and reporting etc. I can see how this hobby is going to get shut down for no good reason. Sucks.
I agree. People seem to be quick to propose regulations to monitor and control every inch of airspace. No sense of cost/benefit, one of the costs being to curiosity, learning, and fun.
> “I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS)
Way to overreact, USA. It feels like they're just looking for excuses to escalate the situation with China. As if what's going on already in the rest of the world wasn't enough.
I just ctrl-Fed the comment section to find that ref.
thank you ! that news enlightened my day.
the coldwar style of conflict we're living, the harmless Luftballons auf ihrem weg zu Hoziron (compared to UFOs), and the fighter pilots who're "going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down" make it really look like that song.
now let's find out if we reach 99 luftballons, or some Dr Strangelove thing first
( a year before Nena made their song, NATO made an exercise with a plot that went all the way to using nuclear bombs _Able Archer 83_, and the Soviets almost retaliated to false warnings of ICBMs launches, that were issued by a computer that couldn't be wrong)
I called this whole thing as a joke a few days ago, glad that I was proved right.
Of course that the propaganda machine won't touch the Air Force (or the US military more generally) not even with a feather, it's full "the Emperor's clothes are all so wonderful!"-mode.
The original Chinese balloon was completely different from these three tiny things that were shot down later, and that one was worth investigating. It was huge, the other three are tiny and probably hobbyist balloons.
I'm not sure what the prorated cost of the fighter jets and crew to shoot these things down was, but I have seen multiple news reports that the cost of the missiles was around $450k apiece. In at least one incident, two missiles were needed after the first missed.
got to feed the outrage machine. It would be great to start to educate around terminology in this space. What would it be fixed costs vs variable costs, so only count variable costs into the equation, something like that?
These missions may not actually represent much extra cost beyond the expended weapons however. The pilots have to get a certain number of flight hours regardless of whether they come in the form of training flights or missions to keep the world safe from small mylar balloons.
So? I am not disturbed that we used 0.00001% (or whatever) of the military budget on a missile. I am disturbed that for a cost of that single missile we could replace the lead pipes in an elementary school or employ multiple teachers for a year.
I don't know why it surprises you that it costs a lot of money to research, develop, manufacture, store, distribute, and maintain low-volume cutting edge weapons technology using expensive all-American components and labor. The fact that a babysitter is paid less than the cost of a missile seems pretty unrelated. And if you think you can build a sidewinder for under $30k, please go right ahead, the country needs you.
If the missile wasn't fired, it would end up in a disposal yard. The US orders missiles and airplanes in large batches, then uses them or they become obsolete.
The cost of the missile was already baked in long before it was fired.
I wonder if Russia and/or China will start launching a bunch of relatively cheap stratospheric balloons with foil-covered cardboard boxes to imitate payloads to troll the US and make it spend millions on shooting them down. To make the trolling a bit less obvious they even may add some innocent recording devices to claim that they are "scientific experiments".
No, they "started" doing it the day after a fake spy balloon was shot down, it's narrative not truth (and actually soviet balloons predate everyone else by about 60 years)
Yeah, but actually the Soviets started before then even, pioneers really - just like the Nazis pioneered a lot, but we can't possibly acknowledge that because they're evil
I'd simply retaliate by doing the same. I don't think Russia can afford to waste resources and if China is building up for a Taiwan invasion - the same for them.
Everyone acting like the USAF has never scrambled jets and fired AIM9Xs before for practice... the 3 so far have been a more fun (and probably more effective) training program.
If somebody starts sending thousands...the retaliation clearly isn't going to be against the balloons, but against the sender.
People talk about the millions of dollars of missiles like it is even a little significant to the USAF. They'll just write it off as live fire training.
Firing these four missiles isn't a significant use of their budget. If they start firing four missiles to destroy every three balloons out there it very quickly will be a massive cost.
Plus, if they started getting so many balloons where this is no longer feasible in cost as a method of bringing them down, it will create a lot of incentive to develop cheaper methods that wouldn't have been developed otherwise, and no other nation can keep up with the level of investment the U.S. can deliver on warmaking. Maybe it would have been better for you if you just didn't poke the bear and get it started on all these projects that are now undoubtedly going on behind the scenes because of all of this.
a much welcome subtle jab. lest we forget even the world's "most advanced army", or, at least the most populous / funded, still has the same error-prone monkeys as every other army
I am full of criticism for the military, but a 75% success rate in such situations seems fair.
A plane moving hundreds of miles per hour is firing a missile traveling similar speeds at a fairly small object likely miles away that is heavily influenced by the strong winds. Comparatively, professional soccer players regularly miss the net.
At that point they might remember they have 20mm gatling cannons on the F16 and F22. Not as cool or long range as missiles, but I imagine significantly cheaper to fire in short bursts.
Bullets fired still land somewhere and are difficult to stop once they leave the gun.
The F16 and F22 are somewhere in the 110 to 160 knot range for stall speed. The balloon, for all practical purposes, is 0 knots. Shooting at something straight ahead that isn't moving while you're moving at 160 knots may pose some more challenges than locking into it with a missile.
A zero pressure balloon ( https://www.nasa.gov/scientific-balloons/types-of-balloons ) is roughly equal pressure on the inside and outside. These balloons do not "pop" as such when punctured and may cause additional hazards as they descend uncontrolled.
Hobby balloons, though, are not zero pressure balloons. It's part of how they control their own flight time, by intentionally bursting when they reach a high enough altitude. So a 20mm cannon would probably have a reasonable chance of success, though it would be spreading a lot of lead downrange that would eventually hit the ground, and could annoy people in the path.
these balloons are too high up sometimes to get in cannon range. then there's the question of where the bullets fall after they rip through the balloon, hopefully not on anyones house.
You know what would sell like hotcakes? A large, inflatable party balloon shaped like the Chinese spy balloon. It would have an inflatable piece on the bottom shaped like the solar array.
Is it just me, or is the tone of the title and this article a little absurd? "Feared"? It's a hobby balloon for goodness sake, it's not a human being. We are living in a extremely heightened state of alert and security and frankly we all should be worrying a lot more about larger problems than science experiment balloons.
reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska
Oh neat, I always wanted to be a litterbug and a floating aviation hazard at the same time. If you launch something into the sky, be it a drone or a balloon, you should be responsible for retrieving it.
Regarding small research balloons: that has never been the case.
Even the NWS has a return rate of 20% for the radiosondes they attach to weather balloons.
Not saying a rules change can't be considered, but the current rules are "n'ah." No more than people are expected to retrieve their plain-old helium balloons from birthday parties (and we know those do ecological damage).
I get that NOAA and NWS and whomever else release balloons that they never see again, but those at lease provide helpful data that benefits the public in some way. These seem to just... blast some portion of the EM spectrum with their location?
The interesting data they provide is how they move and the air currents that cause that motion.
Amateur science is still science and woe betide the free people that moves towards reserving science to professionals disproportionate to risk of harm.
Pretty low. Successfully crafting it, getting it off the ground, and having it go as far as the ocean without popping is a pretty good accomplishment providing value disproportionate to cost.
More environmental damage was likely done fabricating the plastics in the balloon than crashing it into the sea.
I spend most of my days picking up trash from the ocean (<1 mile away from me). Suffice to say, our perceptions of the difficulty and nobility of throwing trash into it are vastly different.
I always wanted to be a litterbug and a floating aviation hazard at the same time.
It's not hard to find a dead endangered tortoise in the Mojave Desert because of people in Los Angeles letting their mylar Happy Birthday balloons float away.
It's usually on purpose, because they can't think of anything farther than the end of their noses.
I have noticed, however, in some other parts of the country and the world (Australia), that people have started to realize that they are polluting in ways they didn't think of before.
Why isn't there a website where a student or hobbyist group can register their balloons before they launch? So the FAA knows what balloons are in the air at any given time. I'd bet they're already tracking the governments weather balloons right now.
Right now it would be a fools errand to launch a balloon and actually expect it wouldn't be shot down.
If your payload is above a certain weight limit or density you have to inform the FAA under part 101.7. You can obviously opt to inform them even if you are under those limits. (There are some safety equipment you have to design into your unmanned balloon if it falls under part 101.7, such as a radar retro reflector and redundant flight termination system.)
I guess you know more than almost every single aviation regulator in the world, since they don't usually consider that type of usage to be dangerous to airplanes?
It is so funny that it is literally as simple as: Air Force found one Chinrese balloon and now they are shooting down every similar one. I'm imagining some red-faced colonel barking this order, embarrassed by being caught on their ass about the first balloon.
I would be absolutely SHOCKED if this represented anything more than simple incompetence.
This will be followed shortly by new regulations emulating what other countries do about their air space.
This whole balloon fiasco is a straightforward case of CYA. Which is why we have no details, and everyone thinks they are UFOs now. Priceless.
This may be the wrong take-away, but the Air Force shooting your balloon down would be a massive source of pride for the science clubs I remember from my youth. We would have had that on a t-shirt within a week.
I feel like this sort of spirit is now completely gone. If your science experiment gets shot down, my expectation is you're going to get labelled a terrorist and thrown into a prison cell.
I’m sorry. I completely believe that this is how you feel. On the other hand I see no evidence to show that there is any reason these guys will be prosecuted.
I suspect that maybe you feel this way because this is the context you are hearing about pico balloons the first?
The people who launched the balloon first studied the law, and then designed a balloon to colour inside the law. For them the question: “is this even legal?” did not just come up today. They started with the question “what is legal to do with balloons” and went from there.
And it is not like they launched and bam got shot down immediately. That very balloon has already circumnavigated the planet multiple times.
Imagine if you live on a desert planet and the first time you hear the concept of “swimming” through some horror story where someone drowns. Because of the context you would be appaled and would think only crazy daredevils would try such a thing. Maybe you would be of the opinion that anyone who provides facilities for swimming surely must go to prison prompt. On the other hand if you grown up in a coastal or river-side community and spent many days with your friends swimming on beaches then you know that while drowning is a danger, most people return safely from a swim.
Yes, but that was a different America. Post 9/11, post housing crisis, post global terrorism, post decline into late stage capitalism is changing the narrative substantially. Everyone is constantly on guard these days. But I agree with and love the sentiment.
A large weather balloon is like $100 and the sidewinder missiles being used to shoot them down cost ~$500,000. If some prankster launched a thousand balloons wouldn't it cost half a billion dollars to shoot them all down? "I'm Steve-O and this is the moon festival..."
Interestingly, despite requiring foods named after the moon, featuring special moon-related holiday blessings, and having viewing the moon as one of the primary celebratory activities, the name of the festival doesn't mention the moon.
I was picturing Steve-O launching a thousand butt shaped weather balloons and calling it the "moon festival" as a play on words. Unidentified Flying Orifices seemed too obvious. Hope Wee Man doesn't go airborn and get shot down.
Would also be hysterical if Kim Jong-un declared that the Great Leader had a great sense of humor so he commanded all the caterpillars of the fields and forests to weave a thousand giant balloons of the finest silk which he then filled with the rays of the sun and sewed shut with a single hair from the purest school girl, and then sent them to America with a wave of his hand to confuse and bewilder the Great Advisory. And the generals around him did laugh and then they cried because fate was so fortunate to allow them to witness the Great Leader's spectacle.
One day someone is going to train ChatGPT on that, and that's why we can't have nice things! m-(O.o)-m
This is horrifically embarrassing, the anti China rhetoric has now strayed into paranoia, they could have easily determined what it was beforehand with their "world class" warfare suite - it's no wonder the east thinks they're a joke (which they really are)
It's really funny how just a few years ago, making fun of those "idiots" back in the 1950s-60s for being paranoid about the red scare and of their toxic, almost ridiculous commie paranoia was common and mainstream. Yet we are back at almost exactly the same spot, with the exact same rhetoric and a similar public/media discourse. Just wild.
That's not really feasible. Transponders require relatively huge power sources - 70-125 watts of RF output. The battery needed to support that for a usable length of time would be far too heavy.
However, they often do have passive radar reflectors.
It's shredded and burned up almost instantly. They test engines to failure by taking an entire 15 lb. or so frozen turkey and throwing it directly into the blades to test bird strikes. This balloon is way smaller material than even a small bird.
That's not true. Bird strikes are a thing and cause flameouts. You can't even takeoff/land on dirt runways with most jets because the dust will damage the engines.
Smack someone with a goose, then smack them with a Mylar balloon. Compare the results.
You don't want to routinely ingest gravel from a dirt runway (nor balloons!) into your engines. Having one pebble kick up off the runway won't cause an issue.
You suggested an engine will "happily" consume a human which suggests it would continue functioning, you're getting blowback because you are making statements that indicate you don't know what you're talking about.
That engine took at least 150 pounds worth of bony human in, turned them into mulch, and did no damage to the rest of the aircraft. The other engine also remains intact. Pico balloons are measured in grams.
A Mylar balloon isn't going to do anything like that much damage.
First, we're not talking a tiny 12 inch party balloon. Weather balloons are easily 20 feet wide at altitude.
But more importantly, you've always got a sizable package of hard electronics dangling off the balloon for sensors and telemetry. Ingesting that is going to cause damage, guaranteed.
> Weather balloons are easily 20 feet wide at altitude.
But this is not a weather balloon in question but a pico balloon. 14 cfr § 101.1 4 provides the limits on them.
> you've always got a sizable package of hard electronics dangling off the balloon for sensors and telemetry
Both the weight and the density of the payload package is limited by law.
> Ingesting that is going to cause damage, guaranteed.
Excuse me but i am going to believe the FAA on this over your say so. They say pico balloons are fine and they are extremely risk awerse. If they say it is fine then they are fine by a wide margin.
A bird is usually not an issue (unless it's huge like a condor or something).
The problem is ingesting a whole flock. Turbofans are designed to fling debris (rain, hail, gravel, birds) out to the bypass via centrifugal force. However, too much material (or insufficient thrust) causes the impeller to bog down, so more junk gets sucked into the burn chamber, which can cause a flameout.
After processing a hundred and fifty pounds or more of human being. If that plane had done so at 30k feet, it'd have been an entirely survivable emergency.
Then they're inconvenienced and discomforted but otherwise fine. The first job of a pilot is "keep the plane flying." Any avoidance maneuver the pilot undertakes should be within the flight envelope of the plane. And planes should be separated enough that emergency maneuvers do not put the plane at risk of immediate collision with another plane.
If a pilot saw a balloon, freaked out, nosedived / stalled the plane and it crashed, the investigation would conclude "Pilot error," much the same as it would if a pilot saw a flock of geese and did the same thing.
Nobody is handflying a commercial airliner at 40k feet, and nobody is maneuvering an airliner traveling 500-600mph to avoid a balloon like this, it's unlikely you'd even see it before you ripped through it.
In hindsight, "Mass hysteria (and pethaps a need to distract the news cycles) lead US administration to order destruction of private property by US military" really should have been on my 2023 bingo card.
The rest of the West really has got it made. Spend nothing on defense because the USA will always bail you out. Meanwhile US citizens get ridiculed for producing the most powerful economy in world history.
I see this statement a lot, but the US spends about 2-3x the cost per capita for healthcare than the rest of the OECD. That includes both public and private spending. (see https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm)
We can afford it, with or without the military spending.
The US has by far the largest trade deficit in the world. It's a net consumer, because it can print dollars. It is not remotely the most powerful productive economy on a per-capita basis.
Compared to small, rich city-states and oil-rich Middle Eastern countries, sure. But in any more apples-to-apples comparison — the EU, China, India, Brazil - the US is in the lead by a lot.
It's certainly an accomplishment to achieve a highly productive per capita economy, but I don't think it's quite the slight on the US when the four countries with higher productivity per capita range in size from 0.3% to 2.8% of US GDP. Achieving productivity per capita at scale is hard.
Yup, and nevermind that almost everyone is ignorant of the massive role of the US Navy in protecting global shipping lanes from piracy, which is why you can send a 40ft container from Shenzen to LA for something like $2000 and expect it to get here with 99.999% certainty. The piracy off of Africa was a short-lived phenomena - until they found out that forking around where the USN plays works out very badly for you.
