Project Loon internet balloons

[Nickajeglin]

Hello all. I’m looking at HBAL2 cruising at a brisk 12 mph at about 64Kfeet:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/HBAL2/history/20200529/1453Z
see also here: Loon - X, the moonshot factory

Flight history shows it was going 70 mph at one point? I don’t know much about weather, but how in the world does a balloon go 70?

Does anyone know what it’s doing up there? Is it actually providing internet access to someone at this time, or is it just some kind of test flight?

Anyone see another, or is it just one balloon at the moment?

[Ian091]

A quick Google search for “wind speed at 20km altitude” revealed that wind speed of 40 metres per second (ca. 80 mph) is not uncommon.

[SweetPea11]

There are four balloons flying over Western Australia at the moment

Flightaware shows them as fixed wing

They stand out on Planefinder

[Ian091]

Flightradar24 also assigns a balloon icon to balloons.

[Nickajeglin]

Thanks for pointing the other ones out. They show as balloon icons on my piaware local server. I wish I knew more about why they’re operating, but it’s I retesting in any case.

[Nitr0]

@Nickajeglin

I wish I knew more about why they’re operating

Here you go mate: Loon LLC - Wikipedia

[Ian091]

Good news.

This thread mentions that in the past week (i.e. first week of June 2020) changes were made such that more balloons now carry the balloon icon instead of the generic “unknown aircraft type” icon.