Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down by USAF

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf

by benryon • 3 years ago

528 356 3 years ago

aviationweek.com

hoppyhoppy2• 3 years ago

password4321• 3 years ago

A link to buy a balloon of your own!

https://balloons.online/orbs-32-silver/

arbuge• 3 years ago

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.

Invictus02• 3 years ago

Why do people keep bringing up the cost of the missile? The cost to run the us military is much more than 1 million dollars per minute.

andrewmunsell• 3 years ago

Because if we kept thinking this way, then the cost of the military would never go down below $1m per minute.

Unnecessary spending-- and not just shooting down Arduinos-- contributes to the total spend & therefore budget

jjtheblunt3• 3 years ago

Over 525 billion dollars / year ?

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/298001...

Well over $1million / minute.

macinjosh• 3 years ago

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.

closewith• 3 years ago

Roughly $85k per hour, so it cost a _lot_.

Source: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a41956551...

loopdoend• 3 years ago

I always marvel at costs given by governments and wonder if they aren't baking in a lot of salary costs that would be spent regardless.

bandyaboot• 3 years ago

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.

googlryas• 3 years ago

Does the government have the right to destroy whatever it wants in the air? Could this club sue for the cost of the balloon?

ceejayoz15• 3 years ago

Could this club sue for the cost of the balloon?

Almost certainly not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...

michaelhoffman3• 3 years ago

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.

bdcravens• 3 years ago

According to the article, the balloon cost $12 (though I'm sure there whatever equipment attached to it was much more)

Consultant32452• 3 years ago

I'm imagining the Commander in Chief having to show up to small claims court because he shot down your $12 balloon with $400,000 worth of ordinance.

pengaru• 3 years ago

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.

pc863• 3 years ago

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.

throwawaysleep• 3 years ago

I believe there are rules on flying stuff.

jabroni_salad• 3 years ago

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.

karaterobot2• 3 years ago

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.

shadowgovt9• 3 years ago

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.

shagie4• 3 years ago

The key treaty on this is the Chicago Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Convention_on_Internat...

https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf12/Document%20Archive/an...

Appendix 4 - Unmanned free balloons

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 also things like:

FAA guidance - https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html...

throwanem• 3 years ago

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.

qwery2• 3 years ago

The story is about US civilians' balloons, launched domestically, being shot down while over the US (I think).

sam3453• 3 years ago

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.

Rimintil• 3 years ago

Why would someone sue over what is likely less than $100 in total costs? That's silly. You can only recover actual cost.

Plus, who wouldn't be proud to be able to claim "I launched something that was shot down by an F-22!"?

CydeWeys3• 3 years ago

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.

tshaddox• 3 years ago

Dad, I tried to go to school, but this guy won't let me.

Oh yeah?! Him and what army?!

The U.S. Army.

Oh that's a good army.

markjenkinswpg• 3 years ago

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.

diebeforei485• 3 years ago

If a balloon flies at an altitude used by commercial aircraft, it should have a transponder similar to commercial aircraft.

ceejayoz15• 3 years ago

The balloon pictured in the article has essentially a zero percent chance of causing harm to a commercial airliner.

buildbot• 3 years ago

Personally I am not an expert, but since you seem to know, what happens to a turbofan when ingesting a ballon like this?

jjtheblunt3• 3 years ago

if a pilot freaks and abruptly maneuvers to avoid it?

jkingsman• 3 years ago

Per FAA regulations, that is not necessary when the payload is below certain limits.

tjohns2• 3 years ago

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.

arwhatever• 3 years ago

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.

kylehotchkiss• 3 years ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if they did; and the same sensitivity captures flocks of birds over the entire continent

kragen3• 3 years ago

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

cmsj3• 3 years ago

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.

TkTech• 3 years ago

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.

ben7799• 3 years ago

I've seen that thing in Pearl Harbor.. pretty amazing.

Navy guys claimed it could track a baseball in orbit.

bagels• 3 years ago

Radar can see cm scale objects in space. This is easy stuff.

outworlder3• 3 years ago

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.

kube-system3• 3 years ago

I would expect NORAD to have the best of the best... but there is a reason stealth planes are named as such.

VWWHFSfQ• 3 years ago

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."

So really, who knows.

CydeWeys3• 3 years ago

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!).

asdfadsfgfdda• 3 years ago

It's not just a passive payload, these targets have radio transmitters. So the task is probably easier.

bmitc• 3 years ago

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.

ceejayoz15• 3 years ago

Also, do they not have mechanisms that report the balloon's position?

Pico balloon payloads look like this: https://www.rmham.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_5385-sc...

Most ADS-B transponders are substantially larger than the entire payload.

ianburrell2• 3 years ago

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.

ianburrell2• 3 years ago

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.

Sharlin• 3 years ago

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.

jhbadger• 3 years ago

"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?

t0mas88• 3 years ago

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.

traceroute666• 3 years ago

UK for example is also missing from Live ATC because listening to (open, unencrypted) ATC communications is illegal there.

Actually no.

You CAN listen to it. Anyone is free to buy a scanner.

You CANNOT record it or redistribute it.

secondcoming• 3 years ago

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.

InCityDreams• 3 years ago

(something most sensible countries have put into their normal taxes a long time ago).

Yeah, italy - putting the license fee in the electricity bills.

retube• 3 years ago

TV detector vans are a myth

valdiorn• 3 years ago

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van

jamescun• 3 years ago

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?

dylan6046• 3 years ago

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.

throwaway677437• 3 years ago

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

alibarber2• 3 years ago

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.

traceroute666• 3 years ago

Why I wonder the UK and not other Western countries?

Pretty much the missing word here is ... UNLICENSED.

kawfey• 3 years ago

UK has weird laws. Airborne operation of amateur radio is prohibited in the UK.

Yemen and NK ban amateur radio outright, with very few exceptions for things like DXpeditions or royalty.

No other countries specifically call out a prohibition of airborne amateur radio operation; either they explicitly allow it or they don't specify.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23803850

[PDF] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0026/82637/a...

CraigJPerry3• 3 years ago

I’ve tried twice to challenge the ofcom restriction, they opened a consultation but frustratingly the RSGB position is against this change.

nradov• 3 years ago

Yemen isn't even a country anymore, so people there can do whatever the hell the want if they can avoid getting shot.

ajsnigrutin• 3 years ago

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).

anfractuosity• 3 years ago

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.

dylan6046• 3 years ago

Why I wonder the UK and not other Western countries?

probably because the gov't hates competition.

mhandley3• 3 years ago

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.

Edit: I uploaded video from the flight here: https://youtu.be/4jCU6kVOmc4

BrandoElFollito2• 3 years ago

This is impressive. When you say "school project", what kind of school was that?

Since you mention muons and their detection, I would expect some university (I used to be a physicist)

wkat42426• 3 years ago

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.

jacobjjacob• 3 years ago

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.

yawnxyz• 3 years ago

"Air Force pilot shooting down 6yo's birthday balloon" is going to be a popular Halloween costume this year...

mr_toad• 3 years ago

An F22 strafing children’s birthday party balloons sound like a sub plot from South Park episode.

fuoqi• 3 years ago

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".

mauvehaus• 3 years ago

The Russians are already doing it in Ukraine:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64661145

throwaway677437• 3 years ago

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)

AnIdiotOnTheNet• 3 years ago

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.

boomboomsubban3• 3 years ago

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.

csours• 3 years ago

They'll just write it off as live fire training.

And then someone will complain. "If you're explaining yourself, you've already lost."

guluarte• 3 years ago

using ballons as a ddos attack, making the usaf spend 500k per each

asdff3• 3 years ago

Sounds like you are just making your adversary fund a jobs program you probably can't afford to keep up with. Bomber gap all over again.

arcticfox• 3 years ago

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.

someweirdperson• 3 years ago

At that scale, a change to true mass production of ordnance would occur, significantly reducing the price per piece.

fma• 3 years ago

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.

karaterobot2• 3 years ago

In fact, the pico balloons weigh less than 6 lb. and therefore are exempt from most FAA airspace restrictions, Meadows and Medlin said.

Is this 6 pound rule up to date with the weight of actual surveillance and broadcast equipment? Feels like you could do a lot with 6 lbs.

jaywalk2• 3 years ago

That rule is strictly related to safety, not dealing with whatever the balloons might be doing.

Psychlist• 3 years ago

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.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

They don't allow drones to fly in most places, but allow these ballons fly all over the place?

boomboomsubban3• 3 years ago

Flying hundreds of feet above the ground is very different from floating thousands (tens of thousands?) of feet up.

CydeWeys3• 3 years ago

Regardless of whether it's allowed or not, it's very hard to stop, and laws are routinely broken all the time (like drivers speeding).

mrandish• 3 years ago

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.

jgrahamc• 3 years ago

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.

A4ET8a8uTh0• 3 years ago

Like I always say. People. They ruin everything.

AlexandrB• 3 years ago

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.

sam3453• 3 years ago

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.

kragen3• 3 years ago

at least they aren't burning you at the stake yet

sam3453• 3 years ago

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.

trallnag2• 3 years ago

Complete agreement. I like how this is approached in German law. Everything that is not forbidden is allowed.

umanwizard• 3 years ago

Everything that is not forbidden is allowed.

Isn’t that also true in the US, and virtually everywhere?

causi2• 3 years ago

The launch teams seldom recover their 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.

shadowgovt9• 3 years ago

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).

jakear4• 3 years ago

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?

Dylan168076• 3 years ago

n'ah

I don't think I've seen an apostrophe there before. Was that intentional?

causi2• 3 years ago

Regarding small research balloons: that has never been the case.

Why not? If I throw a "research baseball" through someone's window I'm still liable for replacing the window. Pick up your shit.

reaperducer• 3 years ago

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.

TedShiller• 3 years ago

Oh neat, I always wanted to be a litterbug

Exactly. We're worried about plastic pollution in the wilderness unless it's floating in the air, got it.

Dylan168076• 3 years ago

If you think about it for a few seconds, quantity is the important factor here.

rmason• 3 years ago

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.

ceejayoz15• 3 years ago

Why isn't there a website where a student or hobbyist group can register their balloons before they launch?

My local school district launched a balloon. It's made four trips around the world. What good would registering the launch site have done?

krisoft5• 3 years ago

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.)

mardifoufs3• 3 years ago

aviation hazard

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?

moomoo11• 3 years ago

I’m imagining Tom Cruise being serious and doing all sorts of crazy maneuvers to take down enemy hostile bogeys.

HeyLaughingBoy• 3 years ago

bandits

pastacacioepepe• 3 years ago

“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.

throwaway677437• 3 years ago

Well duh, that's the narrative, curtailing their own freedom is just collateral damage

deleted_account• 3 years ago

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.

blamazon• 3 years ago

I would be right away dialing my congresspersons to demand an appropriate victory marking[1] be placed on the relevant aircraft.

It would make for a great photo op someday when all this is just a historical footnote.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_marking

dylan6046• 3 years ago

I nominate this as the Victory Marking: https://mellywilliams.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/red-balloo...

NDizzle• 3 years ago

Yep.

Float around and find out.

WillPostForFood• 3 years ago

Pride for club and a little shame for the government.

dylan6046• 3 years ago

God. Country. Corp. Unit. Balloon.

par• 3 years ago

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.

thepasswordis2• 3 years ago

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.

krisoft5• 3 years ago

you're going to get labelled a terrorist and thrown into a prison cell

You are making up things.

jollyllama• 3 years ago

Yeah, if I were the guy who launched it, I wouldn't say anything.

e4e5• 3 years ago

Also see here: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/16/us/biden-china-ballo...

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

Red Scare!

nostromo• 3 years ago

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.

ceejayoz15• 3 years ago

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.

The 737-MAX has three pitot tubes and six static ports, deliberately placed on both sides of the aircraft. (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Boeing-737-NG-and-MAX-pr...)

liketochill• 3 years ago

But only 1 angle of attack sensor on some models …

petee3• 3 years ago

https://udayton.edu/udri/news/18-09-13-risk-in-the-sky.php

Thats just a 2lb drone and it rips into the leading edge of a small craft, imagine at 500+ mph.

Another good example is the Columbia disaster; it was just a piece of foam

Dylan168076• 3 years ago

Another good example is the Columbia disaster; it was just a piece of foam

Icy foam knocking a tile loose is not a critical problem for an airplane.

akira2501• 3 years ago

The pitot and static are usually redundant.

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.

Thaxll• 3 years ago

A single bird can cause an engine to fail so...

outworlder3• 3 years ago

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.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/33.76

palijer• 3 years ago

Single engine failure is trained for quite extensively by pilots. Even 747 pilots regularly train for a dual engine failure on the same side landing.

Cadwhisker• 3 years ago

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.

barkerja• 3 years ago

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.

outworlder3• 3 years ago

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.

bloak• 3 years ago

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.

(What about a bird with an arrow stuck through it, I wonder? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfeilstorch )

kulahan• 3 years ago

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.

brokenmachine• 3 years ago

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
they wouldn't even notice

What?

Imagine an aircraft sitting stationary on the runway and you fire a circuit board at it at mach 0.8, which is 988km/h or 274m/s. It's the same thing.

From google, an arduino pro micro, which is a small circuit board, about the size of a usb flash drive, weighs 13g.

From wikipedia, a .22 bullet weighs 1.3 to 3.9 g, so about 1/10 of that small circuit board, and goes at a velocity of 175 to 533 m/s.

Do you really think that's safe?

Would you be happy to fly in a plane where they shot at it with ten rifles before you get in?

thrashh• 3 years ago

But people have been doing it for decades and most people didn’t even know about them so maybe everyone’s making a deal of a non-problem?

stickfigure• 3 years ago

"My club's hobby is testing how small/flimsy an object can be to bring down an airliner and kill hundreds of innocent people."

BenjiWiebe2• 3 years ago

And so far the club hasn't managed to get even one person killed.

spoonfeeder0062• 3 years ago

Collision with a bird can take down a fighter jet. So a circuit board can probably do that too

If these have low radar signature, and they are below 60k feet then they could be a problem at least at night, and maybe during the day too

ssnistfajen• 3 years ago

Pitot tubes are rigid components with no moving parts involved in its mechanism. They aren't that fragile.

georgeg232• 3 years ago

six pounds poses no threat to commercial aviation, but is that really true?

It's because that's half the weight of a Canadian Goose.

adastra22• 3 years ago

Hitting a flock of birds can take out an engine tho.

tinglymintyfrsh• 3 years ago

There is no real problem here, and knee-jerk over-regulating won't help anything.

That small drones and hobby R/C planes need fucking transponders in the US is bloody insane.

Seeing aliens or Soviets in every birthday balloon that escapes into the wild blue yonder is ridiculous.

wkat42426• 3 years ago

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.

nodesocket• 3 years ago

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.

krisoft5• 3 years ago

I think “feared” in this context means they think it happened but have no proof of it.

We are living in a extremely heightened state of alert and security

I recommend that you take deep breaths. There are many worrying things but none of them will be better handled by panicking over them.

chrismsimpson• 3 years ago

Queue “Frolic” by Luciano Michelini

zxcvbn40382• 3 years ago

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..."

thaumasiotes3• 3 years ago

The moon festival is September 29 this year.

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.

zxcvbn40382• 3 years ago

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

jklinger410• 3 years ago

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.

ScoobleDoodle• 3 years ago

CYA: cover your ass

2OEH8eoCRo02• 3 years ago

There is no way to know what it is exactly until you shoot it down.

Barrin92• 3 years ago

That sentence qualifies for America's 21st century national slogan, and not just in the military.

paganel• 3 years ago

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.

not2b2• 3 years ago

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.

throwaway677437• 3 years ago

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)

mardifoufs3• 3 years ago

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.

davidw• 3 years ago

"Hey kids, remember the big balloon freakout of 2023?". I wasn't around for it, but this has some big 'red scare' vibes from what I've read of it.

smm11• 3 years ago

The remaining two ballons were from a birthday party in Sitka, AK.

jFriedensreich• 3 years ago

as predicted by nena in 1983. we have 96 more to go, brace for a long ride.

hinata08• 3 years ago

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)

How far are we actually from there with China ?

stan3223• 3 years ago

Wow. Knew '99 Luftballons' as a catchy song. Just checked lyrics thanks to your comment. Had no clue it was an anti-war song.

runjake• 3 years ago

If all of this nonsense in the news is interesting to you, check out radiosondes[1]. There is a very active recovery community[2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosonde

2. https://sondehub.org/

lukewrites• 3 years ago

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.

spoonfeeder0062• 3 years ago

Have you looked up FAA regulations?

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html...

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

pfych• 3 years ago

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.

prawn• 3 years ago

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.

tcmart14• 3 years ago

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.

T-A• 3 years ago

https://www.highaltitudescience.com/

https://www.instructables.com/The-Ultimate-High-Altitude-Wea...

http://www.daveakerman.com/?p=592

justin662• 3 years ago

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

https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-gove...

beebmam• 3 years ago

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.

justin662• 3 years ago

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.

Rebelgecko• 3 years ago

If you think that's bad, wait until you hear what the crooks at NOAA have been up to!

wkat42426• 3 years ago

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.

ancientworldnow• 3 years ago

Take it up with the FAA who explicitly allow it and believe to be safe.

nullc• 3 years ago

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.

trallnag2• 3 years ago

Wow what a nasty comment.

daveslash2• 3 years ago

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?

BenjiWiebe2• 3 years ago

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.

zhte4152• 3 years ago

Perhaps it's better to seek to inform and influence policy, rather than be passively dictated by it.

bigmattystyles• 3 years ago

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.

idlewords• 3 years ago

I remember how just last week people in some HN thread were scientifically proving that a small cylinder couldn't be a balloon, so it must be aliens.

bonyt• 3 years ago

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.

[1] https://imgur.com/a/1IAEBQs

bentobean• 3 years ago

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.

Someone needs to make this happen.

silexia• 3 years ago

How much did the missile cost that shot it down?

puffoflogic• 3 years ago

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.

Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down by USAF

Related Stories