Weather Balloon Collision

[old,not bold]

Article in the Times today....something about a Thomson aircraft colliding with a weather balloon yesterday (?) and diverting to Barcelona?

Any facts known?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1837998.ece

[HotDog]

Usual ignorant reporter speak! "Aircraft plunges thousands of feet" etc. Why do editors allow publishing statements like that?

[AltFlaps]

They allow it because it sells newspapers :uhoh:

[Llademos]

ahh ... shoddy journalism. It's been a while since they've had anything aviation-we're-all'-going-to-die related to get their teeth into.


The pilot banked the aircraft over the Mediterranean


... presumably thereby heroically missing the School (of fish).


"When we landed we were chased up the runway by ambulances and fire engines. There was a round of applause and those who were praying stopped,” said passenger Graham Percy, 61


... A friend of mine started singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' during an emergency landing; seems a much better idea than praying!

[SLFguy]

That's gonna need to be a helluva lot of cable...:confused:

[old,not bold]

wx balloons on static lines

Eh? Do they really exist?

[Spitoon]

Wx balloons are still used. By the time they get up to the the cruising FLs they're bleeding big (can't recall how big but I remember being very surprised!) but the payload is very small and doesn't weight much. Nonetheless, at cruising speeds I suspect that it could still make quite a dent.

I heard that a risk assessment on the things was done a while back and I believe that the probability of aircraft meeting balloon at high levels was very small - hence it was considered tolerable.

[Max Angle]

I very nearly hit one of these over the Alps about 5 years ago at about 25000ft. It came close enough for us both to pretty much duck as we went underneath it. Quite a big balloon (10-15ft high I should think) with a box (looked like cardboard) slung underneath which I assume had the instruments in it. We told ATC and filed a report when we got home but got no further info on it. It would have made quite a bang if we had hit I think.

[Shore Guy]

Yes, there are still tethered balloons/blimps. A Cessna hit the cable of one and crashed a few weeks ago in Florida.
NTSB: Eustis pilot was in restricted air space before clipping blimp cable, crashing
Christine Dellert
Sentinel Staff Writer
May 16, 2007, 4:51 PM EDT
MIAMI -- Air traffic controllers tried to warn a Eustis pilot flying through the Keys last month that he was in restricted airspace before his plane crashed into a cable tethering a military blimp, killing the pilot and two others on board, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Minutes -- or seconds -- after the warning, Mark Chase, 56, flew his Cessna 182Q into a steel cable tethering the huge blimp in the area of Cudjoe Key.
Chase, 56, died in the April 20, nighttime crash along with his wife, Margaret, 53, and her cousin, Denise Darcey, 47, of Ashburn, Va. The three were on their way back to Leesburg International Airport following a day trip in Key West.
Relatives say a memorial service for all three will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Religious Society of Friends meeting house, 316 E. Marks St. in Orlando.
Authorities won't yet release the communications between Chase's single-engine plane and FAA traffic controllers in Miami. But the NTSB says witnesses reported the left wing "flying off" when the airplane struck the military blimp's cable at an altitude of about 4,000 feet. Rescuers found the destroyed craft near Cudjoe Key in about three or four feet of water, according to the report.
A camera mounted near the blimp recorded Chase's plane entering the restricted airspace around the blimp. The dirigible is part of an Air Force radar system used in the Keys to track drug traffickers.
"The video record showed the airplane's left wing striking the tether, and the airplane entering a spin, and descending seemingly uncontrolled, departing the camera's field of view," the report concludes.
The crash will likely remain under investigation for several more months.

[Loose rivets]

said passenger Graham Percy, 61

Never, ever, trust anyone with two given names.



can't recall how big but I remember being very surprised!


I bet you weren't half as surprised as I was when I turned finals at Ostend and was confronted with a Batman emblem the size of a house...just feet from my windshield. I wrestled with the controls of course, and saved the day. (They were towing a banner promoting the first filum)

It's funny the things you find in the air.

[old,not bold]

Re the question a few posts up about "weather balloons on static lines"

I know there are "weather balloons" (radiosondes?), and I know there are tethered balloons, because I once jumped out of one, but.............

Is there such a thing as a tethered weather balloon, or one "on a static line"?

It sounds unlikely to me.

[PaperTiger]

Is there such a thing as a tethered weather balloon, or one "on a static line"?
Yup, TAOS for short...
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2000/vtmx.html
... but the line isn't very long (~3000' IIRC).

[old,not bold]

Thanks ...very interesting article. We live and learn.

[Double Zero]

First of all, are there any military test ranges in the area ?

I was a tech' photographer for BAe on Harrier trials, and since my job was done when the on-board cameras were fitted & loaded ( a place in SW Scotland ) I and a chum were tasked with the weather balloon.

They are sent up just before each trial flight, to help co-ordinate data on velocity etc.

The sonde in this case was about 6 x 2" in a cardboard box, packed with polystyrene.

The radar reflector below it, I kid you not, was a fold-out Christmas decoration !

As far as I remember the balloons were about 6' diameter at ground level, made of thick red rubber ( looked like a super large heavy duty condom - my chum took delight in flopping one on the bar table & raising his eyebrows at the local girls ) - they presumably expanded a lot on the way up.

I don't think the ones I dealt with would endanger a windscreen, but an engine might not like it.

[AN2 Driver]

Surely this one was not of the threaded variety but one of the standard sounding balloons which are widely around worldwide. I never heard of a collision before but I do recall vividly having one of the payloads being retreived from a runway on a large airport after it had come down on it's parachute.

To give you an idea about the sounding balloons, have a look at this link.

http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

Just change USA for Europe or whereever and you see the stations from which these things are launched from 2 to 8 times a day. They still do have a very valid function these days as they produce the Emmagramme soundings we all heard about in met during pilots school....

BTW, this site is one of the best sources for these soundings. Just change the type of plot to Skew-T and click on a station....

Best reagrds
AN2 Driver.

[green granite]

Is there such a thing as a tethered weather balloon, or one "on a static line"?

D206 just south of Bedford (UK), if it still exists, has a "barrage" balloon used by the met office for research purposes, flown on a cable up to 6000 ft, so technically you could say it's a tethered weather balloon.

[Fly380]

As replied to in a previous post (Mysterious Incident at LFPR Faro) I had a very near miss with with a weather balloon over at FL290 over Manchester in 1986. I filed an Airmiss report and the launching of the balloon was traced. It looked pretty big to me and in the fleating second I saw it (no time for avioding action) it seemed to have lots of things hanging from it and am sure it would have caused damage to our shiny BCal 1-11.:eek: Hanging things didn't look like aliens (as we know them:confused:) :}

[Basil]

There was a round of applause and those who were praying stopped
You'd think they'd have, at least, said "Thanks." :}


Like so many others, years ago we had a close encounter with one of these.
Just time to say "WTF's that?" and we were past it.:eek:

[matt_hooks]

It is indeed still permanently active up to 6000' GG. I quite often see balloons out of there, usually well above me as I come in to Cranfield.

The radisonde baloons start off at ground level looking like they are only half inflated. As they climb they expand as the pressure drops, until they burst and the sonde returns to earth by parachute.

[Yaw String]

Operating BI098 LHR-DXB about one month ago, FL330 over Frankfurt. F/O nearly jumped out of his seat as a met balloon passed just off our right wingtip. I was saved, by page 3, "car in ditch"story,the Borneo Beano, from witnessing anything!
ATC seemed fairly disinterested.
I suppose it is part and parcel of the risky nature of our job but it would be an unfair way to go!
Many years back. when real men wore white hats, it was me receiving the shock, from the righthand seat, B757,climbing through FL290 over south coast of UK as we passed through a cloud of party balloons!
Makes you blink!:ouch::ouch:

[Double Zero]

Just for info', the balloons we sent up from the Scottish test range were not fitted with parachutes, just expected to go pop or land in Iceland etc...

[ChristiaanJ]

Many years back. when real men wore white hats, it was me receiving the shock, from the righthand seat, B757,climbing through FL290 over south coast of UK as we passed through a cloud of party balloons!
Makes you blink!Yaw String,
Spoof or truth?
Like weather balloons, they would have expanded to several times their "launch" size... I would have thought the typical party balloon would have popped long before reaching FL290.

[yeoman]

Vaguely remember that there is a "military" balloon tethered at Marathon AB on the Florida Keys. It flies at fairly serious altitudes and the story goes it looks over the ground level horizon for drug movements in light aircraft.

[Yaw String]

Spoof or truth!!!
So, i was right, they were martian space ships after all!!! Must agree on the party balloon popping theory but that is exactly what they appeared to be, at 29,000 feet!:eek:

[Airbubba]

Perhaps one of the most memorable balloon UFO's was Larry Walters in his lawn chair:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters

As the FAA guy famously said: "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, some type of charge will be filed. If he had a pilot's license, we'd suspend that. But he doesn't."

I'm sure the pireps were priceless... "Approach, you're not going to believe what we just saw!"

[cwatters]

Something like this perhaps...but with more comfortable seating.
http://www.clusterballoon.org/
http://www.clusterballoon.org/index/index_04.jpg

[Jagohu]

ATC seemed fairly disinterested.
We can't really do anything but telling the others that there's something somewhere there, that's all.
The other day there was another one drifting over the Netherlands around FL340 - noone knew where it came from, not even that it's there until an a/c reported it... Unfortunately radar (at least ours) doesn't show these kind of things.

[matt_hooks]

Hmm, strange. All the ones I've seen have a radar reflector attached to the bottom, basically two pieces of shiny metal set at right angles in order to give a strong return in any direction. Maybe they are more suited to providing strong returns for the shorter wavelength weather radars onboard the aircraft?

[whitehorse]

Isn´t there a reward of about £5 if you return found radio sondes attached to the bottom of the balloons? Perhaps pilots should be greatfull for this possible increase in pay.:E
No ATC do not inform pilots about the launch of the ballons pilots. At an airfield I operate to they just let them go, normally 0900 and 1600 local time, plus or minus 15mins.:ugh:

[Green Flash]

Some radiosondes are still tracked by radar and therefore carry a radar reflector. The Viasala RS-92 sonde derives wind (via the DigiCora 3 system) from GPS. Unless it's coming off a ship (using a containerised fully automatic system) it should have a parachute attached. The sonde itself weighs a few dozen grams, although I'm sure it will sting if you clobbered one head on. The rubber balloon is about 1.5 metres wide at launch but is about the size of a large car by the time it bursts (allegedly; I've never been there!). I've tracked one up to 36mb so the shuttle had better whatch out too!

[ChristiaanJ]

Green Flash,
Any chance of a pic?
I have the same memory of a balloon, some very thin wire, a cardboard or polystyrene box with a very few frangible components inside, and a "Christmas decoration" radar reflector (although a bit big for my Xmas tree). But that goes back a bit.

Not totally innocuous if you meet one at FL290, but nothing lik a well-fed vulture.

[Flintstone]

Watched these being released from Alice Springs about ten years ago. All as described with the little box, radar reflecting crimble decorations and sparkly fairy sitting on top. I think her smile grew as the balloon expanded in the climb.

I assumed they used hydrogen as opposed to helium as the balloon wranglers seemed to wear flash hoods a la navy personnel.

[Green Flash]

http://www.vaisala.com/weather/products/soundingequipment

This is the Vaisala site. (I'm not a company rep, just a user!). The sonde system seems to be in wide use eg Finnish Mil, UK Mil, USAF, NATO etc

[xrossbow 737]

For those involved in aviation, small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) such as the glider this website describes may seem to present a new risk of mid-air collisions, in addition to the older risks of birdstrikes and other aircraft.
In fact, the risk is both an old one, and has already been shown to be very small. Weather services around the world have been launching "unmanned free balloons" (named radiosondes) unannounced for many decades, by the millions, and of comparable mass.

[egbt]

Vaguely remember that there is a "military" balloon tethered at Marathon AB on the Florida Keys. It flies at fairly serious altitudes and the story goes it looks over the ground level horizon for drug movements in light aircraft.

IIRC originally for sigint against Cuba. Certainly baloons still arround 2 years ago although I thought they were closer to Key West than Marathon.

[bubbers44]

Yes, the tethered blimps are in restricted airspace about 20 miles NE of Key West and usually are at 15,000 ft. They have down looking radar looking for smuggling boats and low flying aircraft doing drug trafficing. A light airplane hit the cable flying into the restricted airspace at night at around 8,000 ft about two months ago killing all on board.

[ShyTorque]

I seem to remember there was a flying inflatable pig over London a few years back. It escaped from a pop concert, IIRC.

[Rainboe]

The Japs used to send little bombs on balloons made out of tissue paper across the Pacific to attack the US mainland. I do believe casualties were caused by it. Damn good effort considering the distance, and it shows a superb understanding of natural materials and Pacific meteorology predating the 'discovery' of jetstreams by the B29 bombers.

[Jump Complete]

Slight tread drift here, appologies..
On the subject of rewards for recovering the sondes, the 'WIDI's (Wind-Drift Indicator) , wieghted paper streamers dropped by parachute aircraft to allow the jump-master before jumps, are not worth very much. However, someone once broke into the kit store of the Red Devil and pasted a notice offering a £20 reward to anyone returning it, with the address. For months afterwrds the Freds were apparenetly plaugued by people showing up with the basically worthless used WIDI asking for their reward!

[Green Flash]

ShyT

The flying pig was,IIRC, being used for a photo shoot for a Pink Floyd album cover (Animals) over Battersea power station when it broke loose.