"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
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"Maxwell" luv^2^fly^99@^cox.^net wrote in message
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"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
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I recently met some high altitude balloonists during a launch. These
are similar to weather balloons, roughly 6'-10' in size at launch
elevation. When released, they climb in excess of 1000 fpm. They seem
to be mostly colored white, so they would be hard to spot from an
airplane. I have been mostly unaware of these balloons during all my
flying. So my concern is how to avoid these balloons during VFR
flights. A collision with them could be catastrophic - the chords can
be tangled in the prop or other control surfaces, or the balloon can
simply obscure the cockpit window. They did call the local FSS just
before launch, but I am assuming this is only for IFR separation. I
just flew in in my airplane to the launch site, so I know there was no
NOTAMs about this. Even if there were a NOTAM it would have to cover a
huge geographic area, spanning several states. I have never seen such
NOTAMs. It would seem that making the balloons in bright pink or neon
color might be a better choice instead of white.


Wouldn't this be a good reason to use flight following?

Do balloons have a transponder? I kinda doubt it, since thesy are
disposable items.

Why would they need a transponder? ATC wouldn't be giving traffic advisories
to an unmanned balloon.