Look! It’s a ball!
Uncle B calls over his shoulder, “there’s a ball on flightradar24.” And I’m like “?” Sure enough, there’s a little round icon on the map and the site lists the aircraft type as “ball”.
Obviously, a hot air balloon of some kind. Probably unmanned, judging from the picture. Set out from Burghausen and it’s going about 20 mph, so it’s been up there a while.
Pink Aviation is a military aircraft spares website, so probably not them. Grok tells me there’s a helicopter training service in Austria called Pink Aviation. Probably not them.
I got Grok baffled on this one. If that’s the actual balloon in the picture, I see no place for gear or propulsion, though it must at least have a transponder. That’s roughly the way the wind is blowing today. Just a giant lost balloon?
Uncle B writes to add:
Apparently: “The STU1000 is a Worner Gas Balloon model, specifically the Worner Gas Balloon NL-1000/STU. It is used by Pink Aviation and can be tracked on Flightradar24.”
For some strange reason it is currently parked at an RAF base in Cambridgeshire. I think we can safely discount little green men, though I do hope the RAF hasn’t decided to buy them for interceptor duties. At a stately 20mph you’d be better off with tea leaves than radar.
March 18, 2025 — 4:31 pm
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