Hot Air Balloon at FL530?

RyanB

RyanB

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Here’s a first, what’s this? Can’t say I’ve seen this on FlightAware before…

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Pretty common, actually. It’s a gas balloon, unmanned.
 
See them frequently west of the Mississippi, more in the Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana areas.
 
I was going to say that it was part of the Google Loon project but it looks like it was shut down last year. Maybe someone picked up the balloon and ran with it.
 
First UFO I ever saw as a controller was a small silver orb just hovering at what seemed to be about 500’ AGL. Turned out to be some sort of experimental balloon launched by the university of New Mexico. It was at 90,000’ and was at least 70 miles away. It was massive.
 
A few days ago flying EVV to FTW, ATC was pointing out the Google Balloon to us so we didn’t report it as a UFO. We were are Fl240 and the target was 30,000’ above us. Looked like a white orb. I think it’s a big coverup.
 
Interesting, this is the first time I’ve seen this! Thanks for the info!
 
Filtering by altitude often selects them. Didn't realize that google had given up the Loon. For some years there were always several airborne. Africa, S. America, Pacific, various. Don't think UK really has a 62,000ft tower!
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If you're interested in things like this, you can watch SITREP by MilSpecOpsMonkey on YT. Every other day or so he shows every military aircraft in the air around the world on Skyglass, which is like a 3D Flight Aware, and for many he goes through what their mission is, where they came from and where they're going. He mentions the balloons and NOTAMs for volcanic eruptions and VIPs. Interesting watch.
 
SkyGlass is a 3d visualization of ADSBexchange data, FYI.
 
LesGawlik said:
If you're interested in things like this, you can watch SITREP by MilSpecOpsMonkey on YT. Every other day or so he shows every military aircraft in the air around the world on Skyglass, which is like a 3D Flight Aware, and for many he goes through what their mission is, where they came from and where they're going. He mentions the balloons and NOTAMs for volcanic eruptions and VIPs. Interesting watch.
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You’re not gonna see all military. Not all are ADSB-out equipped. The ones that are can operate with it off or use a scrambled hex code to prevent ID.
 
Yes. Many of the tankers are in the clear. When you see the tankers in a racetrack, he assumes there are fighters nearby. He discussed the rolling codes for some .mil when showing the P8 Poseidon over the Baltic. It's amazing how many .mil and .gov aircraft are in the clear at any one time.
 
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LesGawlik said:
Yes. Many of the tankers are in the clear. When you see the tankers in a racetrack, he assumes there are fighters nearby. He discussed the rolling codes for some .mil when showing the P8 Poseidon over the Baltic. It's amazing how many .mil and .gov aircraft are in the clear at any one time.
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Similar to last week. I was watching ATAC jets on Flight Radar in the warning area just off shore of SC. They were operating out of MCAS Beaufort. You could see ATAC but you couldn’t see the F-18s and F-35s working with them.
 
Here's an interesting take on the pipeline. Forward to about 10 minutes in.

 
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