PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Chinese Spy Balloon loitering over continental US
Old 5th Feb 2023, 06:46
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Originally Posted by WillowRun 6-3
So I'm just saying it might, have been worthy of reference in somebody's NOTAMs. Yes? - I mean, it was an event with potential effects, potentially serious, on air-missions, was it not??

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Dear Willow, do not want to sound pedantic , but there is no conspiracy theory here regarding the NOTAMs, First above 60.000ft is non-regulatoryairspace and the FAA is not responsible for airspace above that ,Secondly NOTAMs are by(ICAO) definition to warn about things affecting CIVIL flight operations ,. Since Concorde is gone , there are no more civil operations above 60.000ft ., so also no NOTAM required.

The Canadian NOTAM posted here by by India Four Two is indicating a volume of application between 20.000 ft and 45.000 ft .so it might or might not even refer to this perticular balloon , but if it is, it make sense as they could think it could come down on this perticular piece of airspace, . The US had obviously made anothere ertimation: i.e. that it would just cruise and follow the jetstream at 65.000 ft..so again no need for a NOTAM

In my active time as Controller in the ( upper ) airspace I controlled . I saw regularly NOTAMS referring to weather balloon launches , but as a warning when they go up, slowly and from Surface to 45.000 ft ( our controlled airspace limit in my FIR) but I never saw one on the cruise part , and neither on coming down as nobodyreally knows when and where they will come down., (except thoses that have a self destruct mechanism )

My guess on all this, is that it is indeed a surveillance balloon that should never have gone that far up for some reason , got into the jetstream and could not be controlled out ( up far North the jetstream goes well above 100 Kts) someone in China decided to let it go and see what the US reaction will be, Well they know now.,The path and fate of the second similar balloon now over Central America and the Carribbean , if it is is the same type, and launched from the same place in China, would perhaps be a good indication of what was initially intended and if something went wrong. ,

As to get the debris back from the sea, well normally everthing in weather balloons is made of extremely light material to save weight,,if the strucure is attached to something heavy, like a camera or a large transmitter , the terminal velocity of the whole thing when dropping from 65.000ft would be so high when hitting the water and not easy to get those small debris back. If the whole thing is made of very light material and comes down slowly ,them the area to search will be huge...In both cases it could take quite a while to get everthing back I would say .
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