[HN Gopher] UA 1093
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       UA 1093
        
       CEO Tweet: https://twitter.com/johndeanl/status/1980462264974209292
        
       Author : c420
       Score  : 202 points
       Date   : 2025-10-21 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (windbornesystems.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (windbornesystems.com)
        
       | TechSquidTV wrote:
       | Huh, I just saw the Scott Manly video where he called out a
       | comment of someone mentioning a weather balloon. Props to that
       | guy.
        
       | JCM9 wrote:
       | Interesting. 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 wrote:
         | Isn'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 wrote:
           | > planes always follow certain patterns
           | 
           | At any particular and above a certain flight level maybe.
        
           | pcthrowaway wrote:
           | The 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 wrote:
             | Though the birthday paradox is concerned with self-
             | collisions, I think since these are explicitly collisions
             | with other objects it feels less paradoxical to compute
        
           | cloverich wrote:
           | Related, 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 wrote:
       | In 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 wrote:
         | I mean, it also makes sense considering space debris would have
         | hit that plane with significantly more force than a busted
         | window.
        
           | Polizeiposaune wrote:
           | Really 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 wrote:
         | There are thousands of flights every day for decades. There's
         | going to be a collision at some point.
        
       | modeless wrote:
       | > 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 wrote:
         | A 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 wrote:
           | Anyone arguing against government regulation as a whole is
           | completely delusional. Companies can't be trusted to regulate
           | themselves.
        
             | baggy_trough wrote:
             | The 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 wrote:
               | https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_agency_rules_repealed_und
               | er_...
               | 
               | You can argue that is not effective enough perhaps, but
               | the mechanism itself exists.
        
               | baggy_trough wrote:
               | It needs to be much stronger than the ability to pass new
               | regulations, but it's much weaker instead.
        
               | alistairSH wrote:
               | Is that really true?
               | 
               | An agency can remove a regulation it created. Congress
               | (via the linked law) can also remove a regulation.
               | Congress can also create regulations via legislation
               | (though they typically don't go to that level of detail).
               | 
               | And we have to remember, at one point, every regulation
               | that exists was created to solve a problem / prevent a
               | harm. The cost of removing that regulation prematurely is
               | reintroducing that problem / harm.
        
               | bjt wrote:
               | The problem is more about regulatory capture. An industry
               | adapts to a regulation, and creates winners and losers.
               | Once the regulation no longer makes sense (costs
               | taxpayers/consumers more than it benefits), those who are
               | winning from it have a strong interest in keeping it
               | around anyway.
               | 
               | A good example is the state franchise laws against car
               | manufacturers owning dealerships. Why can't Toyota sell
               | me a car directly? Direct manufacturer sales seem to work
               | fine in other contexts (e.g. Ikea). In Europe they're
               | moving more and more direct sales. There's no good reason
               | to keep them here in the US, but the dealership owners
               | who benefit from these laws are the only people impacted
               | directly enough to bother hiring lobbyists.
        
               | alistairSH wrote:
               | Agreed. And, IMO, the fix to regulatory capture isn't
               | adding a mechanism to directly make deregulation easier.
               | Instead, it's to (somehow) remove the money from
               | politics/campaigning.
        
               | baggy_trough wrote:
               | > And we have to remember, at one point, every regulation
               | that exists was created to solve a problem / prevent a
               | harm.
               | 
               | It would be comforting to believe so, but that requires
               | ignoring every aspect of human nature.
        
               | hangsi wrote:
               | There is a mechanism for this, internationally usually
               | named some variant of a Law Commission [0]. The idea is
               | to look for laws that are technically in effect but can
               | rarely or never be applied. For example, the UK Law
               | Commission boasts a repeal of 3000+ acts in its time [1],
               | such as repealing rules for conducting slave trades that
               | were made obsolete in the 1800s but not repealed at the
               | time.
               | 
               | In addition to the sibling comment's mention of the
               | Congressional Review Act for agency oversight, there is a
               | US Office of the Law Revision Counsel [2]. It has an
               | official website [3] which is beautifully old-fashioned,
               | but looks to be purely a resource for accessing the
               | letter of the law and doesn't recount its volume of
               | repeals in the same way.
               | 
               | None of this matters if the insane or counterproductive
               | regulations are deliberate and desirable for the current
               | lawmakers, of course.
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_commission [1]
               | https://lawcom.gov.uk/repeals/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.o
               | rg/wiki/Office_of_the_Law_Revision_Cou... [3]
               | https://uscode.house.gov/
        
               | vkou wrote:
               | We do, it's called the legislature.
               | 
               | Half the legislature campaigns on _not_ doing anything if
               | they get elected, though, and when they get elected, you
               | get... Well, you get a lot of different things, most of
               | them awful.
        
             | dlcarrier wrote:
             | This event was unsafe, despite being wholly within the
             | regulations, but in the comments of this post, the CEO of
             | the company has made a promise to do better:
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656044#45659295
             | 
             | Government regulators have failed, but at least the company
             | is making an effort to prevent this from happening again.
        
           | dlcarrier wrote:
           | A reminder to those who presume regulators make the right
           | decisions, a cheap ADSB out transponder would have prevented
           | this incident, but putting one on a weather balloon is
           | prohibited by the FAA.
        
             | AnimalMuppet wrote:
             | Prohibited? _Why?_
             | 
             | Will air travel become _safer_ because we don 't know where
             | they are?
        
               | MPSimmons wrote:
               | What happens to the payload mass when you add the
               | transponder?
        
               | dlcarrier wrote:
               | It could easily be less than a percent of added weight,
               | considering that there's probably already batteries and a
               | GPS receiver on the balloon.
        
               | ggreer wrote:
               | The FCC requires that airborne transmitters identify
               | themselves by broadcasting the an FAA designator such as
               | the aircraft registration number.[1] The FAA has no
               | identification or registration process for small weather
               | balloons. So this effectively prohibits them from
               | broadcasting. It's possible to add a radar reflector, but
               | they add significant weight and bulk to the balloon's
               | payload. I think reflectors are only required for larger
               | weather balloons.
               | 
               | 1. See SS 87.107: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR
               | -2024-title47-vol5/pd...
        
             | Someone1234 wrote:
             | An ADSB transponder, along with supporting electronics and
             | battery will add to the weight of the aircraft. It makes it
             | safer in one way, and less safe is another. This isn't
             | quite the "slam dunk" you seem to believe.
        
               | ggreer wrote:
               | Weather balloons already have restrictions on weight to
               | minimize the consequences of collisions. The issue is
               | that even if you can add a transmitter and meet the
               | weight requirements, it's currently not possible to
               | legally broadcast ADS-B data from a weather balloon.
        
               | Someone1234 wrote:
               | They would need to increase the weight requirements if
               | they're to add ADSB. Current ADSB transponders weigh as
               | much as the entire weather balloon's package. Then add on
               | the pounds of weight for batteries.
        
               | ggreer wrote:
               | The uAvionix ping200X weighs 50 grams according to its
               | datasheet.[1] With a 1.5W continuous power draw, a 60
               | gram lithium battery would power it for 8 hours, for a
               | total of 110 grams. WindBorne balloons weigh 1.1kg at
               | launch (including ballast), and the FAA limit for such
               | balloons is 2kg.
               | 
               | 1. https://uavionix.com/wp-
               | content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2025/07/...
        
               | dlcarrier wrote:
               | The balloons likely already have batteries and GPS
               | receivers. An extra radio and antenna would add a few
               | grams of weight and tens of mW of power consumption. That
               | could be well under one percent more weight.
               | 
               | It's much, much lighter than a radar reflector, which
               | aircraft weather radar displays aren't even designed to
               | display.
        
         | thedudeabides5 wrote:
         | isn't the worst case it goes into the engine and it
         | explodes/burns?
        
           | trenchpilgrim wrote:
           | No, because the plane is designed to safely fly without an
           | engine. They test the engines by shooting turkeys from the
           | grocery store into them while they run.
        
             | bdangubic wrote:
             | without working one working engine - sure. with serious
             | structural damage - perhaps not so much
        
               | trenchpilgrim wrote:
               | Yes, with serious structural damage. It's part of
               | certification process for the engine:
               | https://youtu.be/iBqWS1hil18
        
               | MaxfordAndSons wrote:
               | I think GP meant structural damage to the airframe. That
               | said, I think there are some modes of structural damage a
               | modern plane can sustain and still fly, but to gp's
               | point, probably not many.
        
               | bdangubic wrote:
               | yes I did :)
        
               | trenchpilgrim wrote:
               | The FAA limits the mass of a weather balloon for this
               | reason. I also would not be surprised to see new
               | regulation on the distribution of that mass as a result
               | of this incident.
        
               | ggreer wrote:
               | There are some limitations on such balloons already. For
               | example, if the payload is 4-6lbs, stricter rules apply
               | if the weight/size ratio is greater than three ounces per
               | square inch (measured by the smallest surface on the
               | payload).[1]
               | 
               | Also for larger balloons, any trailing antenna must break
               | if subjected to an impact force of 50lbs, or the antenna
               | must have colored streamers every 50ft.
               | 
               | The ideal measurement would be some sort of crash
               | testing. eg: The payload is accelerated at some standard
               | velocity towards some standard target that represents the
               | weakest part of an airplane (either cockpit glass or
               | leading edge of a wing) and must not damage the target
               | beyond some threshold. But that seems like it would be
               | expensive, since every change in payload would require
               | re-testing. Limits on sectional density seem like a good
               | compromise.
               | 
               | 1. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subcha
               | pter-F...
        
             | cbm-vic-20 wrote:
             | As god as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. Through
             | jet engines.
        
               | HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
               | Pretty sure even Les wouldn't have thought that ;-)
        
               | MPSimmons wrote:
               | See, now I'm thinking of mayonnaise injectors to make
               | instance turkey salad
        
             | eirikbakke wrote:
             | Afterwards, they ship the entire engine, with turkey
             | giblets and all, to a lab where the resulting damage is
             | analyzed. Smells awful, according to the engineer I sat
             | next to at a Thanksgiving dinner once...
        
               | Polizeiposaune wrote:
               | Hopefully the giblets at your Thanksgiving dinner didn't
               | come from the engine-sliced turkeys...
        
             | modeless wrote:
             | Exactly. The plane can land with one engine or even no
             | engines, but it can't land without a pilot in a functioning
             | cockpit.
        
             | 3D30497420 wrote:
             | There's even a whole Wikipedia article on the "chicken gun"
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_gun
        
           | dlcarrier wrote:
           | Depressurizations are worse than losing an engine. It can
           | incapacitate the flight crew in seconds.
        
         | johnldean0 wrote:
         | WindBorne cofounder CEO (John Dean) here -- Thanks, indeed I
         | think that a strike to the cockpit glass, in the corner where
         | there is more stress concentration, is one of the worst places
         | to hit for human safety. And indeed the system was designed to
         | be safe in the event of a collision.
         | 
         | But still, in light of this I think we can do better. I think
         | it's possible to operate the way we do and have a the mass
         | distributed such that the only damage is ever cosmetic. We
         | follow FAA 101 regulations on this but I want to have better
         | internal impact modeling as well.
        
           | MPSimmons wrote:
           | It's unfortunate that this happened, but this will help drive
           | better engineering decisions in the future for everyone. Glad
           | everyone is mostly okay from this!
        
           | tyre wrote:
           | Pretty great, public response from you to publish this and be
           | in the comments here. Kudos. I hope more CEOs take your lead.
        
           | dlcarrier wrote:
           | Please put pressure on the FAA to do better too. NOTAMS, as
           | they currently are, are pretty useless, and allowing unmanned
           | vessels to output ADS-B could be extremely beneficial.
        
             | johnldean0 wrote:
             | Yea, the FAA does a lot and I think overall they do a great
             | job, but I wish there was better systems for communications
             | here. I think ultimately companies like WindBorne just have
             | to go above and beyond what is required if they want to
             | operate at scale safely in this space. And no one else
             | operates balloons at the scale that we do, and safety has
             | to be built into the design and operations regardless of
             | how the official systems work.
        
       | astroflection wrote:
       | https://windbornesystems.com/faq#airplanes
       | 
       | https://windbornesystems.com/blog/ua-1093
        
       | filenox wrote:
       | Context:
       | 
       | https://abcnews.go.com/US/mystery-object-hits-united-airline...
       | 
       | https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/injured-...
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Glad it wasn't this guy:
       | 
       | https://www.redbull.com/int-en/vincent-reffet-and-yves-rossy...
        
         | davidkwast wrote:
         | LOL
        
       | Gravityloss wrote:
       | Who 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 wrote:
         | It's probably a decorated bell, some form of art bell ...
        
         | testplzignore wrote:
         | Give me... sugar. More. More.
        
         | BubbleRings wrote:
         | Okay 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 wrote:
       | Discussions
       | 
       | (399 points, 2 days ago, 222 comments)
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45636285
       | 
       | (35 points, 2 days ago, 55 comments)
       | 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
        
       | vincefutr23 wrote:
       | The second photo ..
       | 
       | https://windbornesystems.com/mission
        
       | thorsson12 wrote:
       | It 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 wrote:
         | What are the power requirements of ADS-B? How much more battery
         | would the balloon have to lift?
        
           | naberhausj wrote:
           | About 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 wrote:
           | The 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/
        
         | yabones wrote:
         | Even 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.
        
           | imglorp wrote:
           | Off limits? What's the reason? Why not ADS-B everything in
           | the air and let the computers sort it out?
        
             | alistairSH wrote:
             | It's not off-limits. But, it's not required (for most
             | balloons, ULs, etc). And due to cost and/or weight, people
             | don't always use it when it's not mandatory.
        
               | mbreese wrote:
               | The comments I was reading at ArsTechnica suggested that
               | adding transponders was off-limits to balloons. The
               | argument was that balloon operators wanted to add
               | transponders but that it was resisted by FAA worrying
               | about there being too many non-plane transponders for
               | pilots/ATC to keep track of.
               | 
               | I obviously don't know which is right, but it does show
               | that there is definitely confusion out there about the
               | issue.
        
             | Jtsummers wrote:
             | It's not off limits in the regulatory sense. Balloons are
             | generally exempted due to their size and power constraints.
             | Per the submission, the balloon weighs 2.4 lbs at launch.
             | That doesn't give them much room to add a transponder and
             | battery for ADS-B while staying within the target weight
             | limit.
        
             | naberhausj wrote:
             | 47 CFR 87.107 requires that radios transmitters in aircraft
             | broadcast an identification number, and the allowed forms
             | of identification aren't permissive enough for non-
             | registered aircraft.
             | 
             | ADS-B out is still relatively new (especially in aviation
             | terms) so I expect we'll see this continue to evolve.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | For a 2.5 lb ground weight balloon, a radar reflector is
           | likely still too heavy. The lightest weight marine radar
           | reflector [1] I could find is about half a pound.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.westmarine.com/plastimo-tubular-radar-
           | reflector-...
        
             | wat10000 wrote:
             | Marine applications care a lot about durability and pretty
             | much zero about weight, so I wouldn't expect that to be
             | representative of how light they can be. You could make a
             | radar reflector from a bit of cardboard and aluminum foil.
        
             | kawfey wrote:
             | you can make one out of cardboard and aluminum foil (better
             | yet, aluminized mylar (space blanket) on foam) on the order
             | of a few oz. https://www.instructables.com/Lightweight-
             | Radar-Reflector/
             | 
             | A radar reflector such as that, or this
             | (https://overlookhorizon.com/product/radar-reflector/,
             | which is ~300g) has roughly the same RCS as a small (piper
             | cherokee) to medium (gulfstream) sized aircraft.
             | 
             | That being said, detection isn't everything; primary radar
             | cannot make accurate altitude measurements, only bearing
             | and range. While that's enough to route traffic around, it
             | could be also mistaken for a false return.
        
               | toast0 wrote:
               | Any idea how much that homemade one weighs? 300g for the
               | commercial one is more than half a pound, similar to the
               | one I linked but a different shape.
        
         | anjel wrote:
         | Google's late great balloon project wasn't about weather but it
         | did regularly show up on ADS-B
        
         | bri3d wrote:
         | ADS-B, as regulated, is a terrible solution for this stuff.
         | EIRP requirements make it extremely impractical as a
         | transmission solution for small devices, most ADS-B In
         | equipment isn't designed to correctly alert for separation with
         | non-fixed wing devices, and (due in no small part to the very
         | high EIRP), there are concerns about both air-time saturation
         | and management plane saturation (ie - ADS-B In equipment also
         | wasn't designed to track very many entities).
        
         | kawfey wrote:
         | Some do. Edge of Space Sciences (EOSS) is group of citizen high
         | altitude scientists, and their large balloon flights include
         | certified ADS-B transponders [0] and radar corner reflectors.
         | They also file their flights with the FAA to publish NOTAMS.
         | They have significantly larger payloads than this, but are
         | designed to quickly ascend to ~100kft and pop reducing the
         | loiter time in congested airspace.
         | 
         | Project Loon balloons also show up on Flightaware, so they
         | either have ADS-B or TIS-B.
         | 
         | A situation like this will almost certainly cause some
         | congresspeople to fret and write bills that would require ADS-B
         | on all balloons, which would be a death knell for amateur
         | ballooning unless ADS-B (or "legacy" Mode A/C/S) transponders
         | become significantly smaller and more affordable. Mode C/S
         | transponders are already available in miniaturized form factors
         | thanks to the UAS industry, and are designed to be interrogated
         | by aircraft equipped with TCAS (i.e. all 10+ passenger
         | aircraft) that provides pilots deconfliction commands
         | automatically and with no ATC support. But they're still priced
         | for industry, not amateurs.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.eoss.org/ Look for N991SS, N992SS, N461SG.
        
       | mrdoornbos wrote:
       | THIS is how you react to an incident. Bravo to this company.
        
       | rocmcd wrote:
       | What 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.
        
         | dcrazy wrote:
         | The actual part they impacted seems rather small. It's
         | basically a 2lb sandbag with a solar panel stuck to it.
        
         | trothamel wrote:
         | I believe it was night out, so you wouldn't really have any
         | light to illuminate it externally.
        
         | HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
         | At 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 wrote:
         | Fighters 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 wrote:
       | looks 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 wrote:
       | What changes does one make to a balloon to minimize time spent
       | between specific altitudes?
        
         | trenchpilgrim wrote:
         | The balloon has a sand ballast that it can release sand from to
         | descend.
        
           | Jtsummers wrote:
           | Releasing 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 wrote:
       | > 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 wrote:
         | NOTAM 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-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 wrote:
       | OT, but the response from Windborne and its CEO makes me think it
       | would be a great place to work.
        
       | ndneighbor wrote:
       | The 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 wrote:
       | I wonder how much damage to the society should Musk do before
       | people stop posting links to Twitter.
        
         | ikamm wrote:
         | I 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 wrote:
         | Do you stop using American products when you don't agree with
         | the ones running it?
        
       | whycome wrote:
       | How easy are these baloons to track? What prevents a bad actor
       | from using them to cause damage?
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | It'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.
        
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