Arkansas Balloon

There’s a balloon coming my way from Arkansas. I’ve received a handful of messages from over Arkansas, so I figure I’ll see it pop up on my feed any minute now. It’s getting to be bed time, but if I got to bed, it will pop up just as soon as I leave the computer. On the other hand, if I stay here and watch the screen, it’s not going to pop up. What to do? :slight_smile:

It’s at 59,000 feet and located just outside my 50,000 ft upintheair band. Seems like it could show itself at any moment.

One reason I want to see it is that I just redid my plane colors, and I want to see something at that altitude.

HBAL21 flew across South Louisiana last night. It was the first time I have seen one of the Project Loon balloons on my receiver. It was at 65,000 feet and 20 kts.

Yeah, it’s west of Houston now, headed my way. The Arkansas one now is near Athens, but is somehow not being picked up by my receiver. Maybe it’s not transmitting ADS-B messages.

Edit: Of course, as soon as I posted this message, HBAL475 showed up on my receiver.

Photo Courtesy of FlightAware.comhttp://e1.photos.flightcdn.com/photos/retriever/1bf1971192e0f83ccb009cc998fdf5d768632786

Click the image to see a larger version, where you can see some of the detail of the balloon.

Apparently, it landed near Llano. I wonder who gets to retrieve and launch these balloons.