I remember seeing balloons on two separate occasions and hearing a balloon
report to Center on one other occasion. The last was a report from
commercial traffic inbound to ORD reporting the balloons up around 12,000ft.
Center nonchalantly acknowledged and the pilot clarified: "No, I don't mean
these are just some little party balloons, these are BIG, like from a mall
grand opening or a car lot!" This brought an immediate broadcast advisory
from Center about the location and altitude.

Jim
(slayer of 2 birds, 0 balloons)


"G. Sylvester" wrote in message
. net...
I had another close encounter with a (party / decoration-type) balloon.
I was flying back to SQL with 3 passengers in an Archer at 2500
AGL/MSL when out of the corner of my eye this black thing flew (no pun
intended) by. I asked a passenger what it was and they said it was a
balloon. I think this is the 3rd or 4th time out of ~250 hours that
I've been very close (less than 100 feet) to a balloon. One of the
times it was at 10,500 feet over Los Angeles. Any else see balloons all
the time? I'm guessing they can't do too much damage unless they go
into the engine air inlets or hit the ADF antenna. Now that would be
bad luck.

At least birds stay out of the way....unfortunately not all of the time.

Gerald