Put this into the “I can’t believe it column”. This week I was coming back from Souda Bay when at FL410 and just entering Swiss airspace, I noticed an aircraft approaching us from the opposite direction, slightly higher and offset to the left of our track. I took a quick glance at the TCAS which showed no traffic. I looked back up to see that the “traffic” was going to pass pretty darn close. The old adage if it does not appear to be moving it is very close and about to hit you came to play, when I realized I was looking at a weather balloon. It was about 4 feet in diameter and had a cord maybe 15 feet long with an instrument package attached to it. It passed approximately 50’ above us and 100’ off our wingtip. I did get the other pilot to quickly see it, so it was not just me seeing some reflection off of swamp gas back lit by the sun with Venus in alignment. Based on our FMS it was moving East at 56 knots with the upper wind. Big sky little balloon theory is great until you share that little piece of the sky. Anyone else ever seen one up close like this?

Isn't there one just outside the Tweet MOA's at Laughlin at like 14,000' that makes the Emeregency Safe Alt for Del Rio some insanely high altitude for that area?

Wx balloons don't affect ESA's. It's not like they're tethered...

[ 26. January 2007, 11:14: Message edited by: Skids Down ]

surveillence radar ballons are tetherd at Key West, possibly the same at Laughlin for border partrol. you def dont want to hit that steel cable.

https://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/tars.htm

[ 26. January 2007, 11:39: Message edited by: thefranchise ]

Zipped past one a few years ago somewhere out west, I think it was just North of ELP when the Restricted area was not in use. Went by pretty fast.

Don't know if it was a weather ballon, but about two months ago, we were flying west at 34,000' over L.A. and we passed some sort of balloon mabye 100' off of our wingtip.

I passed a mylar red heart balloon on Feb 14 a few years back at 14,000ft. I assumed it said Happy Valentine's Day.

Had just departed RND on our way to ADW, and flying in the weather when all of a sudden something bright red caught our eye...it was one of those standard party balloons. Came within a few feet. Woudn't cause any damage, but wasn't too cool to see a flash of red when you're in IMC.

Almost hit one of those mylar balloons too...in Socal.

Originally posted by Skids Down:

Wx balloons don't affect ESA's. It's not like they're tethered...

Sure they do (if they're thethered). I've seen tethered balloons between 7,000 and 13,000 before. They have one down in Corpus and the ESA for every LL route is 13,000M.

Originally posted by C21Cowboy:

it was one of those standard party balloons.

Funny you mentioned that. I had a red balloon pass five or ten feet over my wingtip while flying up initial on my first area solo in Tweets.

HD

Yeah one time I was taking off of 28L at KLAN early in the morning and I saw this weird balloon off to my left. I thought it was cool so I took a picture of it with my camera phone.

I know of someone that thought it'd be cool to fly through a huge cluster of party balloons in a Stearman and f'ed up the leading edges pretty good. Dumbass.

Originally posted by HerkDerka:

Sure they do (if they're thethered). I've seen tethered balloons between 7,000 and 13,000 before. They have one down in Corpus and the ESA for every LL route is 13,000M.

HD

Originally posted by slacker130:

I passed a mylar red heart balloon on Feb 14 a few years back at 14,000ft. I assumed it said Happy Valentine's Day.

You have one shit hot wife/girlfriend if she can pull that one off!

About a month ago I was on the ramp at Naples with a pretty good wind blowing. The other pilot and I were amazed to see a horse shaped ballon "galloping" through the air. Based on the distance it was about 10' across as it came across the active at app. 300' and went over the tower and ramp.

Wow, look at this

Story is that this CRJ took a weather balloon a month ago.

Came across this last month off the gulf coast of Texas just north of the old Matagorda Island AFB.

1000ft AGL going opposite direction of the 15 knot wind.

Anyone have a clue what that thing is?

Try this if the you see the red x.

WTF Is this?

[ 31. January 2007, 18:50: Message edited by: SpyGadget ]

Helo Dude, you're right about that red balloon near one of the Laughlin MOA's at 140. I saw it once. I've heard several funny stories of how it scared the piss out of students on their initial area solos.

I came across a weather balloon at 280 the other day near Lake Tahoe. Big @ss balloon.

The CRJ picture is being called an uncontained engine failure by the NTSB. No mention yet of a balloon encounted causing it. If you are on the ground in the Denver area, they do say they are looking for pieces.

https://ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2007/070131.htm