Originally Posted by
SpringHeeledJack
Thank you GoN! very interesting website. I'm amazed that the launcher/owner of radiosondes don't have to have at least a tiny transmiter on their payload to keep aviators aware of their course, as getting one of those sucked into an engine would cause a lot of damage. Is it that ATC can follow their track and therefore notify pilots to take avoiding action if required ?
The sondes are very light-weight, and the addition of 'another transmitter' would not necessarily help with them reaching their best altitudes ... also, they've been around much longer that 'high flying' aircraft have been around. Some of these weather sondes reach FL600 plus, so there is very little for them to bump into up there - it's the getting there and getting back down again which should be cause for concern. When you consider that the prevailing winds in the UK are from the west and south-west, launches from Larkhill often head towards London and the home counties, and are generally coming back down about 90 mins (plus or minus) after launch. They do have a small transmitter on them (402-406 MHz), but that is sending back to ground stations the metereological measurements and the position data (which is how they appear on the map on that web-site). Every launch site leaves the transmitter running for the entire flight ('all the way up', and 'all the way down'), but those from Larkhill (for some reason) are programmed to stop transmitting after about 75 minutes after launch, so their location data is lost as they pass back through the London CTZ - yikes!
The launcher/owner of these sondes is the Met Office; perhaps they don't know/don't care/don't realise the potential hazard to aircraft they are creating.