Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

About the same time President Joe Biden was explaining to the public February 16 that three balloons shot down by the U.S. military were probably private, business or weather balloons I stumbled across a story in Aviation Week about pico balloons.

The next day I started seeing headlines like; “Did an F-22 blow up a hobbiest’s pico balloon?” or “Hobby clubs missing balloon feared shot down by USAF” or “UFO shot down by $400K US missile may have been a $12 hobby balloon.”

The Aviation Week story dealt with the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, a small balloon hobby club in Illinois.

The balloon hobby club launches balloons with very small circuit boards with GPS trackers and radio transmitters. These are lightweight devices attached to different shaped balloons filled with helium that can get up around 40,000 feet or higher. They are small enough that they say there are no FFA regulations that apply.

The fun is in seeing how far they can go before something destroys them. They weren’t intending that be Sidewinder missiles, the usual culprit is the weather itself. The Illinois club has had one balloon that circled the globe over three times.

The balloon that was shot down over the Yukon is thought to be the club’s balloon identified as K9YO. It had been aloft 123 days and 18 hours when it started across Alaska and entered the Yukon Territory. It had been around the world twice already. The balloon envelope was 32” in diameter and hanging from it was a wire that doubled as an antenna and a small GPS and radio transmitter, the weight of which was measured in grams. In other words, it was very light.

Some of these transmitters are powered by batteries while others are powered by small solar panels.

After it was announced that U.S. military had shot down an unidentified object over the Yukon February 10 the Illinois club stopped hearing signals from K9YO it now wonders if that was what was shot down.

The military has said in news broadcasts that it has been seeking remains of what it shot down. If it was a 32” balloon with a tiny circuit board attached it could be a difficult search for anything. That area of Yukon Territory is pretty isolated. The population of Yukon Territory is about 40,000 and 30,000 live in or near Whitehorse in the Sourthwest corner of the Yukon.

                  

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The Northern Illinois club has officially launched about 25 balloons although it says it has launched a few more unofficially. Six ended up in trees, six had radio transmission failures, eight traveled the United States and nine made it out of the US.

As of February 10 it had two balloons still in flight, K9YO mentioned above and AA6DY which has made it around the world three times and is still flying.

It launched its first balloon Sept. 21, 2021.

A club picture shows a group of 12 with eight adults, some with grey hair, and four young people.

You can Google the club name and get to its website. What is interesting is that they have tracking maps of a balloon flight. One such flight shows that one of their balloons went over the Pacific Ocean and shows various tracking readings as it did so.

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The balloon club story might also answer the question about China claiming that it had spotted US balloons crossing its land. In the Aviation Week story a club member indicated they shut off the transmitters as the balloons cross places like Russia, China or North Korea in order not to set off some international incident. And also, one would guess, to keep them from being shot down.

The story also mentioned a balloon supplier who had tried to call the FBI and the military to explain the hobby balloon aspect. He said he just got the runaround.

I don’t suppose the USAF is excited about thinking it took a $400,000 missile to shoot down a $12 balloon when a BB gun might have done the job!