Originally Posted by
212man
how big do you think the ones you saw launched ended up at top of climb? They were huge!
Perhaps. The payload was tiny though. I remember seeing the bloke get it out the back of a Landrover. The radiosonde bit could be lifted by one bloke.
This thing that was shot down had a payload the size of a small regional jet. Estimated to be a couple of hundred kg or so. That's about 100 times more than the weather balloons I've seen. The thing will have needed a specialised launch site. No idea how many people needed. Not just one or two blokes in the Landrover I'm sure.
I don't think anyone worried about damage from weather balloons coming down. The payload was so light there can't have been much risk of harm to anyone.