7 ms·
UA 1093
CEO Tweet: https://twitter.com/johndeanl/status/1980462264974209292 https://twitter.com/johndeanl/status/1980462264974209292
- TechSquidTV 1y agoHuh, I just saw the Scott Manly video where he called out a comment of someone mentioning a weather balloon. Props to that guy.
- JCM9 1y agoInteresting. The “big sky” theory has its limits. Curious too to learn more about what data, if any, is shared with ATC on the location of these balloons. Airspace is regularly blocked off for rockets and other use, but for many weather balloons the theory is 1) the sky is big, and 2) designs are meant to be that a strike with an aircraft wouldn’t cause significant damage. If this was an impact with a balloon payload then “2” looks problematic.
- consp 1y agoIsn't this pure statistics? The big sky isn't as big since planes always follow certain patterns and so do weather balloons (because wind also has patterns). Now someone needs to do some black magic with that model and calculate the arrival time distribution of accidents and you get to see if this is an outlier or not.
- barbazoo 1y ago> planes always follow certain patterns At any particular and above a certain flight level maybe.
- pcthrowaway 1y agoThe birthday paradox seems relevant here as well: With 23 people, your chance of having a "collision" in birthdays is over 50%. With more objects in the sky, the chance of collision is likely greater than one would assume given the space they have to occupy.
- pastel8739 1y agoThough the birthday paradox is concerned with self-collisions, I think since these are explicitly collisions with other objects it feels less paradoxical to compute
- moralestapia 1y agoIt still applies. The classic scenario involves birthdays, a one-dimensional space that closes in itself; while this one is a three-dimensional space that is closed on two of them. Airborne objects also move so I don't know if that decreases or increases the probability of collisions, I guess it depends on how much correlation there is between their movements. It sounds like a fascinating thing to study!
- cloverich 1y agoRelated, i dont know what the technical term for this is, but was thinking about how because of speed, being in two places at once (collision) the equation depends greatly on speed. Simplistically, if planes traveled at the speed of light then an object on ANY point of their trajectory would collide. Much more complex than simply amount of space times size of objects. Knowing theres a whole science / engineering behind this, Im just so curious about the people and practices that go into this part of travel especially air and space travel.
- celeritascelery 1y agoIn hindsight, the fact that it was probably a balloon and not space debris makes a lot of sense. Something falling from space would only spend a few seconds at most in the zone where airplanes cruise but a weather balloon would be there significantly longer. Makes the chance of collisions much higher.
- blackcatsec 1y agoI mean, it also makes sense considering space debris would have hit that plane with significantly more force than a busted window.
- Polizeiposaune 1y agoReally depends on how big the space debris was and whether it had slowed to terminal velocity (the speed where the force of gravity equals the force of drag). I'd rather be in a plane hit by 1 gram piece of space debris than in one that hit a 1kg sandbag hanging from a balloon.
- throwaway48476 1y agoThere are thousands of flights every day for decades. There's going to be a collision at some point.
- modeless 1y ago> The system is designed to not pose a risk to human life in the worst case event of a collision. This is what the FAA 101 and ICAO weight limits are for. And indeed, there were no serious injuries and no depressurization event to my knowledge as a result of the collision. This seems close to a worst case scenario for this failure mode, and everyone is still OK. I consider that good engineering.
- blackcatsec 1y agoA reminder for those in the back, government regulation made this safe (FAA limits). And yes, this is good engineering, but through decades of learning crowdfunded with tax dollars.
- artursapek 1y agoAnyone arguing against government regulation as a whole is completely delusional. Companies can't be trusted to regulate themselves.
- baggy_trough 1y agoThe problem is we don't have a garbage collection method to get rid of counterproductive or even insane regulations, so they build up into a choking plaque over time.
- anjel 1y agohttps://ballotpedia.org/Federal_agency_rules_repealed_under_the_Congressional_Review_Act https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_agency_rules_repealed_under_... You can argue that is not effective enough perhaps, but the mechanism itself exists.
- baggy_trough 1y agoIt needs to be much stronger than the ability to pass new regulations, but it's much weaker instead.
- astroflection 1y agohttps://windbornesystems.com/faq#airplanes https://windbornesystems.com/faq#airplanes https://windbornesystems.com/blog/ua-1093 https://windbornesystems.com/blog/ua-1093
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- filenox 1y agoContext: https://abcnews.go.com/US/mystery-object-hits-united-airlines-flights-windshield-36000/story?id=126705192 https://abcnews.go.com/US/mystery-object-hits-united-airline... https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/injured-united-airlines-pilot-forced-to-make-emergency-landing-as-boeing-737-windshield-cracks-mid-air/4016106/ https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/injured-...
- amelius 1y agoGlad it wasn't this guy: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/vincent-reffet-and-yves-rossy-fly-next-to-an-airbus https://www.redbull.com/int-en/vincent-reffet-and-yves-rossy...
- davidkwast 1y agoLOL
- Gravityloss 1y agoWho would have believed, what was suspected of being a mysterious malevolence coming from outer space, was just a quaint weather balloon all along! Somehow that rings some faint bell but can't quite put my finger on it...
- bombcar 1y agoIt's probably a decorated bell, some form of art bell ...
- testplzignore 1y agoGive me... sugar. More. More.
- BubbleRings 1y agoOkay you two… Sugar and Art Bell. I had to get ChatGPT to refresh my memory, but I’m with you now… hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway.
- gnabgib 1y agoDiscussions (399 points, 2 days ago, 222 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45636285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45636285 (35 points, 2 days ago, 55 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191 Related: It was a weather balloon, not space debris, that struck a United Airlines plane (12 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652120
- vincefutr23 1y agoThe second photo .. https://windbornesystems.com/mission https://windbornesystems.com/mission
- thorsson12 1y agoIt is surprising that weather balloons don't have ADS-B out (or did this ballon have that and something about the system didn't work?). If it did work, ADS-B would have made this collision very avoidable.
- nine_k 1y agoWhat are the power requirements of ADS-B? How much more battery would the balloon have to lift?
- naberhausj 1y agoAbout the same as a transponder, I think. According to the FAA many weather balloons operate their transponders (if equipped at all) intermittently to preserve battery.
- mattofak 1y agoThe uAvionix EchoESX [1] claims 4W continuous and with antenna probably adds 400g (0.8lb.) WindBorne claims "12+ days typical flight, with demonstrated capability for 75+ day missions." So 1150Wh minimum (80Ah at 4S, which is probably like 16lb.) But you're up in the atmosphere and probably need to heat that battery so... more. But we're already at 18lb additional weight... Maybe you could offset with solar panels... But, given that the entire balloon and payload weighs 2.5lb we're already way off the edge of feasibility for an active ads-b out. Maybe there's something that would only listen and then respond when it heard something and that would reduce the power draw. But we're needing something 2 orders of magnitude less massive. [1] https://uavionix.com/general-aviation/echoesx/ https://uavionix.com/general-aviation/echoesx/
- yabones 1y agoEven a radar reflector would have helped a lot. ADS-B is off-limits for balloons, ultralights, hang-gliders, etc, and it seems like now that radio beacons can be manufactured very cheap & low power all those non-commercial aerial vehicles should be equipped.
- 1y ago
- mrdoornbos 1y agoTHIS is how you react to an incident. Bravo to this company.
- rocmcd 1y agoWhat I don't get is how did the pilots not see it? Are they that hard to see, or was vision obscured? The balloon in the attached picture looks pretty large.
- trothamel 1y agoI believe it was night out, so you wouldn't really have any light to illuminate it externally.
- dcrazy 1y agoThe actual part they impacted seems rather small. It’s basically a 2lb sandbag with a solar panel stuck to it.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y agoAt normal cruise, a B737 is travelling at 700 feet/second. You're not going to have much time to do anything but go, "oh, fuck!"
- the__alchemist 1y agoFighters can pick up balloons like this on radar, and you can see them in targeting pods (e.g. cued from the radar). You can see them with eyes if you get close, but it's not a guarantee.
- fnord77 1y agolooks like the window frame took the brunt of the hit. wonder if things would have been different if it hit the center of the window
- givemeethekeys 1y agoWhat changes does one make to a balloon to minimize time spent between specific altitudes?
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoThe balloon has a sand ballast that it can release sand from to descend.
- Jtsummers 1y agoReleasing sand will cause it to ascend, not descend. Balloons descend by reducing lift, which means releasing gas or allowing the balloon to burst and releasing a parachute (for a controlled descent, if you don't care about control, just let the balloon burst).
- dlcarrier 1y ago> We have been coordinating with the FAA for the entire history of the company and file NOTAMs (aviation alerts) for every balloon we launch. At this point, I'm pretty confident that NOTAMs exist as a way relegate all liability to pilots. Really it's 14 CFR 91.103, which opens with "Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight", that allows NOTAMS to transfer liability. Theoretically CFRs are limited to powers specifically authorized by congress, but in practice, they are full of overreach that is only limited when it becomes case law, but the FAA is so powerful that it can effectively shut down any organization trying to dispute them in federal courts, so there isn't really any case law limiting the scope of their CFRs.
- imglorp 1y agoNOTAM system is archaic and basically useless for this kind of thing. It's a blob of text which will not be specific, memorable, and actionable for an airline pilot, who is on their jetway at FL036 -- an altitude and speed where "see and avoid" doesn't really apply for a bunch of reasons -- and depending on ATC to route them around hazards. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/31058/are-weather-balloon-launches-notamed https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/31058/are-weath... There REALLY needs to be a unified ATC system that incorporates NOTAMS, traffic, and live position of whatever unmanned stuff is moving around. We have most of the tech deployed already. We have to integrate it.
- thomascountz 1y agoOT, but the response from Windborne and its CEO makes me think it would be a great place to work.
- ndneighbor 1y agoThe unfortunate irony is not lost on me that Windbourne's H1 is "record breaking Weather Balloons". I don't think any company would want this record. I am very glad the pilot and the souls on board are safe.
- elAhmo 1y agoI wonder how much damage to the society should Musk do before people stop posting links to Twitter.
- _vqpz 1y agoI don't know why you would expect a forum of wannabe tech startup founders to turn on Elon Musk, many people here still idolize him.
- whycome 1y agoDo you stop using American products when you don't agree with the ones running it?
- elAhmo 1y agoIt is a bit of an odd comparison to make - one on hand you have world's biggest economy which is part of huge majority of our lives, and on the other hand you have a website from a billionaire who is bored and wants to destroy our social fabric. But to answer your question: yes, if there is a good alternative or the product is replaceable. Twitter is one of those things. I do actively avoid products produced by a nation which is committing genocide for example and ignores international law.
- whycome 1y agoHow easy are these baloons to track? What prevents a bad actor from using them to cause damage?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y agoIt's very hard to make it go to a specific place of the actor's choice. There were attempts to use balloons as long range weapons in WW2 but they weren't very effective. Bad actors have a lot of ways to cause damage, most of them much more effective than balloons.
- moralestapia 1y ago>Our balloon is 2.4 pounds at launch and gets lighter throughout flight. Interesting, I wonder why is this.