[HN Gopher] Unidentified balloon belongs to amateur balloonist: ...
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Unidentified balloon belongs to amateur balloonist: US official
Author : ironyman
Score : 19 points
Date : 2024-02-24 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nbcnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nbcnews.com)
| Wingman4l7 wrote:
| Very click-bait of them to use a still video thumbnail of the
| massive Chinese surveillance balloon of last year.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Completely memoryholed that incident. Was it Chinese then, I'm
| guessing they confirmed that after all.
| bombcar wrote:
| It was Chinese and (eventually) admitted such - the dispute
| was over what exactly it was doing.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Mainstream media both needs outrage for engagement and to stoke
| "yellow menace" flames to characterize 2 billion people as a
| "threat" and manufacture consent to appease the powers that be
| to make the case for expanded military-industrial complex
| spending instead of healthcare.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| Well there is some positioning going on for a possible war.
| The Chinese balloon was part of it. Stop trying to act like
| China is innocent and minding their business. They are not.
| They have a hundred year plan for global supremacy and the US
| has been falling for it, unwittingly. How many factories were
| sent overseas so we could have a "service economy" of
| OnlyFans and Uber?
|
| For all this talk of healthcare, we don't even make most of
| our own medicine. Much of it comes from China and friendly
| countries in the vicinity of China. I'm frankly amazed that
| the geniuses in Washington allowed this to happen. Someone
| must have warned them it was a bad idea.
| mikequinlan wrote:
| If they have identified it, doesn't that mean it is no longer
| "unidentified"?
| krapp wrote:
| Yes.
|
| The title probably should have used "formerly unidentified."
|
| Although most people would be capable of inferring that from
| the context clues.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Although most people
|
| oof, you have really high expectations of most people. most
| people on this forum or most people in general? there's a
| wide gap there
| markx2 wrote:
| The balloon is therefore identified.
| neilv wrote:
| How does one operate a balloon like that in US airspace, both
| legally, and otherwise without being a threat to other aircraft?
| rolph wrote:
| Amateur radio high-altitude ballooning:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon#Amateur_...
|
| https://arhab.org/
| reactordev wrote:
| You contact the FAA...
|
| Anytime you do weather balloons, rockets, anything that goes
| above 500ft AGL, you need to notify FAA ahead of time. Get
| permits. Approval. And on launch day, have them on the phone.
|
| If it will show up on radar, you better believe they will
| scramble the fighters.
| bozhark wrote:
| Oh sweet local rocketry club Jesus. It's only 500ft?
| cj wrote:
| I could be wrong, but 500ft is the minimum recommended
| altitude for helicopters. That might have something to do
| with it.
| reactordev wrote:
| depending on where you are. Yes. That's the moment you
| enter controlled airspace. Obviously it depends on where
| you are. In NYC, it's 500ft. In NM, it's FL10 or 10,000 ft.
| Either way, you should get the FAA involved so they don't
| waste tax payer dollars on F-16s. If you're flying an
| amateur rocket above minimums, it must adhere to Part 101
| or be waived by FAA.
| bombcar wrote:
| Everything below 500 is Class G (the G is for ground!)
| except right near airports, where controlled airspace
| goes down to the ground.
|
| Class G can go much higher than 500 feet in some places.
| reactordev wrote:
| I know, but someone in Class A, or B, that gets a drone
| for christmas might want to do some research before
| flying (some will prevent you from flying at all!). As
| too with amateur rockets (not the little model hobby
| kind) but anything that would show up on radar. ATC
| doesn't like it when things magically appear.
| reachableceo wrote:
| Please provide the citation for this requirement? What laws
| or regulations have this requirement?
| reactordev wrote:
| 7400.2P - https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpu
| bs/pham_htm...
|
| They list the air space requirements, the MSL's, the
| procedures, etc. 500ft AGL isn't set in stone but it's the
| moment when you would enter an airspace should you be in
| one. This is why people go out to the deserts where there's
| no airspace and the minimums are FL10.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Balloons are exempt from the ADS-B requirements to broadcast
| location. Most balloons are above 60,000 ft, away from all
| airplanes. Larger ones need to get exclusion zone when they
| launch. Small ones are assumed to be safe from small size.
|
| To launch balloons you buy balloon, build tiny payload, inflate
| it, and launch. Most balloons transmit location in other ways.
| They also explode when get too high, and then payload
| parachutes back to Earth, where it is collected.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| It varies around the world. In the US, Class E begins at FL600.
| Most of Europe, it's FL660.
|
| It would be best if all objects in the sky that could harm
| aircraft had transponders, including vintage aircraft without
| electrical systems and balloons.
|
| See also: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
| news/2017/january/19...
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| Amateur balloonists have been running these sorts of things for a
| really really long time without issue. Unfortunately due to China
| (Spying? Meteorology? we'll never know), now every time there is
| a balloon spotted there _will_ be an issue.
|
| While I'm not a fan of regulation, we should have some sort of
| optional transponder/beacon system that can be voluntarily
| registered. ADSB-like, which I know balloons can do...but true
| ADSB is expensive.
|
| That way hobbits can continue doing their thing, the cost per
| balloon goes up by some minor amount, and we don't scramble jets
| and make national news constantly.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| The large balloon was definitely from China, China never denied
| that. The dispute was over its intention, which China maintains
| was meteorological research.
|
| For example, here is a BBC article that takes a skeptical tone
| but correctly summarizes the statements made by the Chinese
| government. Under a more charitable interpretation, one could
| assume that the Chinese government remained silent for some
| time because they had to determine which research agency had
| launched it.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64633990
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| You're right, incorrect implication on my part. Fixed.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > The dispute was over its intention, which China maintains
| was meteorological research.
|
| I seem to recall the US military were able to recover it
| after shooting it down. If that's the case, analysis of the
| remains should dispel any doubt about its purpose: sensors
| used in meteorological research are quite different from
| those used say for monitoring radio waves or taking photos of
| terrain.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Yes, and there has been pretty extensive reporting that
| based on analysis of the wreckage the balloon was
| determined to be an ELINT (electronic intelligence)
| collection platform with a real-time C2 connection using a
| commercial US ISP (I assume a cellular carrier). I think
| that's pretty much what anyone with some general knowledge
| of modern military intelligence would have guessed, it's
| just the obvious thing to use such a balloon for.
|
| However, to my knowledge, this is all based on "sources
| within the intelligence community" and has not been
| formally acknowledged by any government official. So take
| it with a grain of salt, even on top of what you might
| usually apply to determinations by US intelligence.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I'm confused. Why is china to blame for america's paranoia?
|
| I know china's doing some shit, but that doesn't really excuse
| the paranoia being exhibited by balloons.
| dylan604 wrote:
| even amateur balloonists are supposed to contact ATC so that
| NOTAMs can be issued. i launched one to about 90,000'. ATC
| asked me if we had any kind of radio beacons for them to
| follow, but we were way too small for that. we did have a GPS
| that we could get some altitude updates on, and ATC asked we
| update them at every 10,000' for as long as it could be
| tracked.
|
| if someone is operating a balloon and _NOT_ contacting ATC,
| they deserve to have there thing shot down. that 's just highly
| irresponsible. it's a simple phone call, and then there's no
| confusion on if your balloon is a foreign spy platform or not
| patrickwalton wrote:
| I'll bet the main problem here is that they flew over
| restricted airspace. Basically the entitled Western half of
| Utah is restricted for Dugway and the salt flats, which is
| unfortunate, because it's the area that would be easiest to
| recover your balloon from. I did a high-altitude balloon in
| Utah a few weeks ago and had no problems, but we stuck to
| Eastern Utah (https://twitter.com/mpatrickwalton/status/17600
| 0350831999008...).
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Well, at least they didn't fire a $400,000 rocket from
| $65,000,000 fighter jet that costs $50,000 minimum to start and
| get in the air, only to miss... this time.
| cjbenedikt wrote:
| "Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the
| balloon not only did not transmit data back to China -- it never
| collected any." https://abcnews-go-
| com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/abcnews.go.com...
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| You need to stay on top of things. It was later reported that
| it was in fact transmitting.
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/china-spy...
|
| As I recall, the spying case was suspected from the start. The
| Navy cleared out a port just before the balloon passed
| overhead, just to be safe. I can only assume that's why the
| ships were evacuated, anyway. The media is not going to tell
| you the truth, especially not about stuff like this. They
| wouldn't have told us even if they knew it carried a bomb,
| probably.
|
| As a matter of fact, you should take anything the government or
| media says with a healthy dose of salt. Seek out alternative
| sources. It might save your life. For example, people in
| Ukraine were told that Russia was not invading up to the day it
| started. Then they closed their borders and conscripted just
| about all the men.
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