Here's a notam I haven't seen before:

Jim K

Jim K

Final Approach
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Richard Digits
Screenshot_20230106-215448_Pilot.jpg

I was trying to decide where I was going to fly tomorrow, and I saw multiple of these warning areas around SPI. Then I saw CMI has one too. I didn't think too much of the balloon... assumed it was a weather balloon or something (although I've never seen a notam for a radiosonde launch before), but the "payload falling" got my attention. Anybody know what this is?
 
Bowling balls. . .FAA contract with Brunswick; if ARTCC center radar can't track the ten-pin balls it'll prove NextGen is THE answer and most radars can be decommissioned. The second test is duck pin balls with ADS-B xpndrs, they just won't be dropping in the antenna "dead" spaces that don't exist. Really, they don't. Really, it must be YOUR receiver. . .
 
Sounds like a weather balloon or one used for some other scientific purpose. Eventually it will freeze and pop and whatever small radio payload it's carrying will drop to earth.
 
A lot of amateur high altitude payload to space balloons end up dropping their payload (camera's etc.) via parachute. They sometimes use just a drogue until a low altitude so it may be moving fast and be hard to see.
 
NordicDave said:
Sounds like a weather balloon or one used for some other scientific purpose. Eventually it will freeze and pop and whatever small radio payload it's carrying will drop to earth.
Click to expand...
Well ... Er ... Not always.

When I was in graduate school I worked for a contractor who flew research payloads for ONR out of Churchill Manitoba. A typical flight was a 10 million cu. ft. balloon carrying a package of over 1,000# to altitudes above 100K ft. At altitude the diameter of the balloon was bigger than a football field. They would fly westward overnight, about 500 miles, then we would radio command cut the payload from the balloon. It would come down on its 'chute somewhere near our recovery base in Uranium City, Saskatchewan. When the package was cut loose, the balloon would destroy itself and become 1600# of dry cleaner bag and fiberglas tape falling to earth. At close to 60 deg. North we were not much danger to anyone, but at the same time NCAR was doing this sort of thing out of Palestine TX. I think they are gone now, but there may still be some entity doing serious balloon flights over the continental US -- maybe the reason for the NOTAM.
 
I never saw a notam, but did see ads-b once of a balloon at 60k feet moving about 100kts.
 
I thought it was odd that the launch area was so big, but the "falling" area was only five miles. I would've expected the opposite.
 
For awhile we had an aerostat at the south end of Fort Myers Beach providing communications after Hurricane Ian. I never saw it appear in the NOTAMs though
 
Theres another one today

Screenshot_20230114-104333_Pilot.jpg
 
I wonder what it could be.

Maybe the first notam is the balloon launch northwest of CMI. The location looks like it’s near the town of Mahomet IL.

The second notam is its payload dropping from 25,000 a few hours later. It was expected to fall into a big circle, centered southeast of CMI. The radius for that circle is do big that it includes the airfield.

In between the two locations is the city of Champaign. Seems like a lot of trouble just to fly something over the city.
 
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