Balloon over Sussex?
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Sussex
Posts: 225
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Balloon over Sussex?
Yesterday at 18:39 I was out in the garden taking pictures of birds when a glint caught my eye. Unfortunately I had only a short lens with me so I took a picture and ran into the house to get a long lens but when I got back it had disappeared. Much fiddling later I had this.
I looks like a high performance balloon, but it was at between twenty and thirty thousand feet in an airlane South of Gatwick/Heathrow to Europe.
It was losing altitude fairly quickly and swinging around quite a bit.
Does anyone know anything about it?
I looks like a high performance balloon, but it was at between twenty and thirty thousand feet in an airlane South of Gatwick/Heathrow to Europe.
It was losing altitude fairly quickly and swinging around quite a bit.
Does anyone know anything about it?
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 165
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Looks like a Radiosonde that collects data for the Met Office.
Weather Balloon Radiosonde Stock Photos NWS National Weather Service Key West
Floppy
Weather Balloon Radiosonde Stock Photos NWS National Weather Service Key West
Floppy
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Sussex
Posts: 225
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Thanks for the reply. A radiosonde was my first thought, but all immages of them I could find had single balloons. This appeared to be at least three with some sort of canopy over them and much larger.
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 588
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Maybe it was this...
Q) EGTT/QWLXX/IV/M/W/000/999/5047N00151W100
FROM: 09/05/30 08:43 TO: 09/05/30 23:59
E) BREAKAWAY BALLOON REPORT:
TIME SIGHTED: 0905300810
LAST KNOWN POSITION: OVERHEAD BOURNEMOUTH AIRPORT
TYPE OF BALLOON: LARGE TEDDY BEAR SHAPED
DIMENSIONS:UNKNOWN
MARKINGS:UNKNOWN
LAST KNOWN HEIGHT: FL270
WIND SPEED AT THAT LEVEL: 010 DEG 15KT
LOWER: SFC
UPPER: UNL
Q) EGTT/QWLXX/IV/M/W/000/999/5047N00151W100
FROM: 09/05/30 08:43 TO: 09/05/30 23:59
E) BREAKAWAY BALLOON REPORT:
TIME SIGHTED: 0905300810
LAST KNOWN POSITION: OVERHEAD BOURNEMOUTH AIRPORT
TYPE OF BALLOON: LARGE TEDDY BEAR SHAPED
DIMENSIONS:UNKNOWN
MARKINGS:UNKNOWN
LAST KNOWN HEIGHT: FL270
WIND SPEED AT THAT LEVEL: 010 DEG 15KT
LOWER: SFC
UPPER: UNL
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Sussex
Posts: 225
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I don't think that was it. What I saw was all silvered and not teddy bear shaped, and I am on the outskirts of Worthing so om 010 from Bournemouth, it would have been about a hundred miles away.
