Its BAACK! after floating out or range at 250 NM for a few days it was circling the original position I reported, and now seems to be heading to HNL area at 125 NM. It's amazing that they can steer a non-powered craft.
I just got a clean eyeball visual on this. After circling Molokai it went west and is now 15NM north of me (Kailua, HI) at 67,000' Spectacular clear blue sky today, got an easy visual, then pulled out the scouting scope at 60X was able to see the solar panels and instrument gondola! Sorry I don't own a real camera now.
The Ballon has been joined by a bro. Tail N257TH HEX A27330 FLT HBAL577. Up to 65000 feet out of nowhere. Possible confirmation it might be another USN mission. One of the USN barges out of Pearl Harbor was shown on a maritime traffic site in the area before it showed up on ADBX. I know James and Mr. W are overloaded, but a maritime map overlay would be the bomb.
I think it after me. second pass in two days right over me. ADS-B Exchange - tracking 7672 aircraft (adsbexchange.com)
I guess I don't follow the local news...... But I was on this a month before. Ping James - there is an ADSB-X image in one of the stories! FAA: Those bright objects in the sky over Oahu aren’t UFOs (hawaiinewsnow.com) F-22s Scrambled To Investigate A Mysterious High-Altitude Balloon Off The Coast Of Hawaii (Updated) (thedrive.com) Raven Aerostar (@RavenAerostar) / Twitter
If you look at the Raven Aerostar Site, You are correct. It's hydrogen, with a balloon inside a balloon. Whet it first popped up on my receiver, I saw the call sign HBAL and just wrote hot air balloon. Obviously true hot air balloons can't reach 70,000 feet like these do.
