It's not just one source over the other, it is also the impracticality of the hot air balloon for this purpose, as I stated in my post. This observation, born

It's not just one source over the other, it is also the impracticality of the hot air balloon for this purpose, as I stated in my post. This observation, borne out of my (admittedly brief) exposure to both hot air balloons (I know hot air balloon pilots and have ridden with them) and weather balloons (I planned, but did not execute, a project with my son's boy scout troop to launch a weather balloon to the stratosphere), combined with my engineering instincts (FWIW), convinced that the Wikipedia source was correct.