6 ms·

How do you sleep at night knowing your hobby could malfunction and interfere with an aircraft’s flight path? Is it just that unlikely?

jcrawfordor 4y ago
These balloons are compliant with regulations that were developed to minimize the hazard of collision. It is the nature of aviation that other objects exist in the sky and can cause a hazard.
myself248 4y ago
Hate to break this to you, but NOAA and other weather agencies launch hundreds of weather balloons, significantly larger and heavier, every 12 hours. You can track them at sondehub.org. Recovering them is a fun hobby, I have several sitting on my workbench. You can harvest STM32's off the boards.
- runnerup 4y ago
  > Recovering them is a fun hobby This sounds amazing. How could I get into this? Is the balloon structure occasionally left intact enough to refill and reuse?
  - myself248 4y ago
    The balloon itself pops, it's not reusable. It's nice to pick up the litter if you can get it out of the tree or whatever, but it's latex so it'll degrade. The payloads are usually in great shape unless they come down in a road and get run over. My local launch site flies RS41's and you can find photos all over the internet. There's two lithium AA's inside, a couple of STM32s, and a Ublox GPS receiver. Getting into it, just pop onto sondehub a bit past noon or midnight UTC and see what's in the air. If there's one predicted to land near you, keep an eye on it and head out. If a sondehub feeder station is nearby, you'll hear it down pretty close to the ground, and the landing prediction will usually be spot-on. If the nearest station is still a long ways off, then you'll lose it at the station's horizon which may be several hundred meters up, and what happens in the terminal phase of descent is anyone's guess. To improve this, become your own station. There's a list of receivers on the right sidebar if you click the help button. I threw rdzTTGOsonde on a random Heltec lora board I had sitting around; the board was wired for 915MHz and the sondes use 404MHz which comes in the 433MHz Rx chain. The supported_boards page says: > The 868/915 MHz version contains the SX1276 receiver chip. The chip supports both 433 MHZ and 868/915 MHz, but using different input pins. The board connects the antenna to the 868/915 MHZ input pin, the 433 MHz pin is unconnected. Theoretically the 868/915 MHZ version can be modified to work as 403 MHz receiver by directly connecting the antenna to the right pin of the chip, but this requires somewhat advanced SMD soldering skills... So a few minutes later... https://i.imgur.com/aBmvnwh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/aBmvnwh.jpg And this sonde was polite enough to come down in a parking lot where I could literally drive up to it. I didn't even get out of the car to grab it: https://i.imgur.com/qMTVhR3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qMTVhR3.jpg (I did get out a few seconds later to pick up the balloon and throw it away.)
    - runnerup 4y ago
      Amazing. Huge thanks
- cactusplant7374 4y ago
  Why do you hate do it? It was a question. I'm not opposed to an answer. (Yes, I know it's an expression... but what is it expressing? I guess the downvoters are frustrated with my question for some reason).
dylan604 4y ago
I turn out the lights, put my head on a pillow, then close my eyes. How do you go to sleep at night?
- idlewords 4y ago
  On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Neither the pile of money or the ladies are a direct result of launching weather balloons though, so I left those details out as they weren't exactly relevant. You know, keep it classy
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Sounds to me like you are doing weather balloons wrong.
krisoft 4y ago
> Is it just that unlikely? It is not that it is unlikely but that the consequences would be very low. There are limits on the density and the mass of the balloon. If an aircraft hits it the same happens as if your car hits a butterfly. The butterfly dies and your car won’t even notice it. The relevant exceptions are in cfr 14 part 101.1.4: (4) Except as provided for in § 101.7 , any unmanned free balloon that- (i) Carries a payload package that weighs more than four pounds and has a weight/size ratio of more than three ounces per square inch on any surface of the package, determined by dividing the total weight in ounces of the payload package by the area in square inches of its smallest surface; (ii) Carries a payload package that weighs more than six pounds; (iii) Carries a payload, of two or more packages, that weighs more than 12 pounds; or (iv) Uses a rope or other device for suspension of the payload that requires an impact force of more than 50 pounds to separate the suspended payload from the balloon. https://casetext.com/regulation/code-of-federal-regulations/title-14-aeronautics-and-space/chapter-i-federal-aviation-administration-department-of-transportation/subchapter-f-air-traffic-and-general-operating-rules/part-101-moored-balloons-kites-amateur-rockets-and-unmanned-free-balloons/subpart-a-general/section-1011-applicability https://casetext.com/regulation/code-of-federal-regulations/...
dexterdog 4y ago
How do those pilots sleep at night knowing that their oversized flying bus could interfere with my hobby?

jcrawfordor 4y ago

These balloons are compliant with regulations that were developed to minimize the hazard of collision. It is the nature of aviation that other objects exist in the sky and can cause a hazard.

myself248 4y ago

Hate to break this to you, but NOAA and other weather agencies launch hundreds of weather balloons, significantly larger and heavier, every 12 hours. You can track them at sondehub.org. Recovering them is a fun hobby, I have several sitting on my workbench. You can harvest STM32's off the boards.

runnerup 4y ago
> Recovering them is a fun hobby This sounds amazing. How could I get into this? Is the balloon structure occasionally left intact enough to refill and reuse?
- myself248 4y ago
  The balloon itself pops, it's not reusable. It's nice to pick up the litter if you can get it out of the tree or whatever, but it's latex so it'll degrade. The payloads are usually in great shape unless they come down in a road and get run over. My local launch site flies RS41's and you can find photos all over the internet. There's two lithium AA's inside, a couple of STM32s, and a Ublox GPS receiver. Getting into it, just pop onto sondehub a bit past noon or midnight UTC and see what's in the air. If there's one predicted to land near you, keep an eye on it and head out. If a sondehub feeder station is nearby, you'll hear it down pretty close to the ground, and the landing prediction will usually be spot-on. If the nearest station is still a long ways off, then you'll lose it at the station's horizon which may be several hundred meters up, and what happens in the terminal phase of descent is anyone's guess. To improve this, become your own station. There's a list of receivers on the right sidebar if you click the help button. I threw rdzTTGOsonde on a random Heltec lora board I had sitting around; the board was wired for 915MHz and the sondes use 404MHz which comes in the 433MHz Rx chain. The supported_boards page says: > The 868/915 MHz version contains the SX1276 receiver chip. The chip supports both 433 MHZ and 868/915 MHz, but using different input pins. The board connects the antenna to the 868/915 MHZ input pin, the 433 MHz pin is unconnected. Theoretically the 868/915 MHZ version can be modified to work as 403 MHz receiver by directly connecting the antenna to the right pin of the chip, but this requires somewhat advanced SMD soldering skills... So a few minutes later... https://i.imgur.com/aBmvnwh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/aBmvnwh.jpg And this sonde was polite enough to come down in a parking lot where I could literally drive up to it. I didn't even get out of the car to grab it: https://i.imgur.com/qMTVhR3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qMTVhR3.jpg (I did get out a few seconds later to pick up the balloon and throw it away.)
  - runnerup 4y ago
    Amazing. Huge thanks
cactusplant7374 4y ago
Why do you hate do it? It was a question. I'm not opposed to an answer. (Yes, I know it's an expression... but what is it expressing? I guess the downvoters are frustrated with my question for some reason).

dylan604 4y ago

I turn out the lights, put my head on a pillow, then close my eyes. How do you go to sleep at night?

idlewords 4y ago
On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Neither the pile of money or the ladies are a direct result of launching weather balloons though, so I left those details out as they weren't exactly relevant. You know, keep it classy
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Sounds to me like you are doing weather balloons wrong.

krisoft 4y ago

> Is it just that unlikely? It is not that it is unlikely but that the consequences would be very low. There are limits on the density and the mass of the balloon. If an aircraft hits it the same happens as if your car hits a butterfly. The butterfly dies and your car won’t even notice it. The relevant exceptions are in cfr 14 part 101.1.4: (4) Except as provided for in § 101.7 , any unmanned free balloon that- (i) Carries a payload package that weighs more than four pounds and has a weight/size ratio of more than three ounces per square inch on any surface of the package, determined by dividing the total weight in ounces of the payload package by the area in square inches of its smallest surface; (ii) Carries a payload package that weighs more than six pounds; (iii) Carries a payload, of two or more packages, that weighs more than 12 pounds; or (iv) Uses a rope or other device for suspension of the payload that requires an impact force of more than 50 pounds to separate the suspended payload from the balloon. https://casetext.com/regulation/code-of-federal-regulations/title-14-aeronautics-and-space/chapter-i-federal-aviation-administration-department-of-transportation/subchapter-f-air-traffic-and-general-operating-rules/part-101-moored-balloons-kites-amateur-rockets-and-unmanned-free-balloons/subpart-a-general/section-1011-applicability https://casetext.com/regulation/code-of-federal-regulations/...

dexterdog 4y ago

How do those pilots sleep at night knowing that their oversized flying bus could interfere with my hobby?