Google Balloons Off The Coast

[Grahame Hutchison]

We picked up three Google Project Loon balloons around 240nm east of Sydney this morning
(HBAL259, HBAL260 and HBAL265), indicated by the short straight lines on the right of the image.
These are the new generation ADS-B ballons, transmitting position data and are currently at 65,000ft.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 001.jpg

They have dropped back to MODE S only at times.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 003.jpg

Updated position on HBAL260 - the purple lines are all of today's flights, so you can see the full path of the balloons. We will now need to
add a balloon icon to our ASD-B setup. You can go to http://adsb.16right.com/ Live Radar to track the balloons, and they have appeared
on FlightRadar24 when operating full ADS-B.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 002.jpg

1058L Update

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 004.jpg

[Grahame Hutchison]

This is how the Google Project Loon Balloons have been tracking over the past 24hrs, their transponders
pinging about every 0.75 sec and now east of Port Macquarie.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 005.jpg

From the 16Right ADS-B Analytics (http://adsb.16right.com/) page, you can see the significant increase in transmissions from midnight to 5am today (purple line),
compared to the average.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 006.jpg

[Grahame Hutchison]

HBAL259 is now at 50,000 feet and very close to the coast at Forster. It would be interesting to know if they are visible from the ground ?

[AdamC]

What's the purpose of these Grahame, or anyone if they know.

Visible on flightradar24 also. There was heaps over New Zealand last week.

Cheers

Adam

[Grahame Hutchison]

From Google Project Loon (http://www.google.com/loon/) ...


Many of us think of the Internet as a global community. But two-thirds of the world’s population does not yet have Internet access. Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters.

Project Loon balloons float in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and the weather. In the stratosphere, there are many layers of wind, and each layer of wind varies in direction and speed. Loon balloons go where they’re needed by rising or descending into a layer of wind blowing in the desired direction of travel. People can connect to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their building. The signal bounces from this antenna up to the balloon network, and then down to the global Internet on Earth.

[Grahame Hutchison]

The is the latest position of the balloons with Range Rings and our current ADS-B reception Polar Plot. At 60,000 feet they are well above normal weather, only
needing small changes in altitute to pickup different air currents and change direction.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 007.jpg

The 16Right ADS-B (http://adsb.16right.com/) Analytics for today show the amazing difference in reception from the balloons transmitting all day, rather then
aircraft transmitting only for the duration of their flight (purple line compared to green).

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/Google Balloon 008.jpg

[Grahame Hutchison]

Update From this morning ...

http://adsb.16right.com/google_hbal.jpg

[Grahame Hutchison]

This story has been picked up by ZDNet's AU Edition by Leon Spencer.

Sydney sees Project Loon drift (http://www.zdnet.com/sydney-sees-project-loon-drift-7000031793/)

[Radi K]

They were west of Brisbane a few months ago, and over Victoria too last month.

[Grahame Hutchison]

They are up near Noumea at the moment.

[Easton S]

My ADS-B receiver is picking one up (HBAL271) about 400 km west of my location in Sydney at the moment (a bit north west of West Wyalong).

[Robert.M]

I picked it up just after 1pm today.

[Chris W]

Just south-east of Sydney now. Travelled all the way from west of Broken Hill.

[Matthew Chisholm]

Theres currently six of them on FR24 across Australia.

[Noel White]

Google Balloon again?

Just picked up hexcode BA1008 with a callsign HBALL287 at lat -36.01, lon 147.01 (S/W of Canberra), alt 63400ft, speed 27.3kts.

[David C]

It's showing on FR24 SW of Canberra at this time . There's also another showing a long way off, SE of Manaus , Brasil at 61,000' tracking in a Westerly direction

Dave C