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UA 1093

windbornesystems.com

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Re: UA 1093

#81

Post by Someone1234 »

dlcarrier wrote: post #74
blackcatsec wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: UA 1093

#82

Post by 3D30497420 »

trenchpilgrim wrote: post #34
thedudeabides5 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't the worst case it goes into the engine and it explodes/burns?

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.

There's even a whole Wikipedia article on the "chicken gun" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_gun

Re: UA 1093

#83

Post by alistairSH »

bjt wrote: post #61
alistairSH wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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? D…

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.

Re: UA 1093

#84

Post by MPSimmons »

johnldean0 wrote: post #79
modeless wrote: post #6

> 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.

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 s…

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!

Re: UA 1093

#85

Post by MPSimmons »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #54
trenchpilgrim wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As god as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. Through jet engines.

See, now I'm thinking of mayonnaise injectors to make instance turkey salad

Re: UA 1093

#86

Post by MPSimmons »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #75
dlcarrier wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Prohibited? Why? Will air travel become safer because we don't know where they are?

What happens to the payload mass when you add the transponder?

Re: UA 1093

#87

Post by ggreer »

Someone1234 wrote: post #81
dlcarrier wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: UA 1093

#88

Post by ggreer »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #75
dlcarrier wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Prohibited? Why? Will air travel become safer because we don't know where they are?

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 § 87.107: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title47-vol5/pd...

Re: UA 1093

#89

Post by kawfey »

thorsson12 wrote: post #21

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.

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.

Re: UA 1093

#90

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

whycome wrote: post #70

How easy are these baloons to track? What prevents a bad actor from using them to cause damage?

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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