March 8, 2022 Spying a Great Pumpkin

The Liberty Gazette

March 8, 2022

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: We’d departed from Big Spring flying over eastern New Mexico just north of Roswell when I noticed a traffic target on the iPad at 57,000 feet above us. I thought, what flies at that altitude that would show up on our equipment? The object was barely moving, maybe one mile an hour. I craned my neck to see if I was imagining things, but no, the sun was reflecting off the target like a bright star in the deep blue cloudless sky.  

Thunderhead Flight 579
as shown on ForeFlight

Being near Roswell, I thought about flying saucers, but those wouldn’t have transponders that tell us their location and altitude. This blip even had an identification tag and an aircraft registration which showed on the screen. I figured it must be a balloon. 

It was Thunderhead Flight 579, which had departed a field near Santa Fe the day before we saw it. It would remain aloft for four days coming to rest about ten miles south of Tucumcari. Raven Aerstat developed the balloon system to use for military contracts, survey work, marine and environmental monitoring. Raven was big in sport ballooning in the 1960s and 70s but transitioned to private contractor status around 2000. Their last order for a recreational hot-air balloon was in 2007. 

Thunderhead balloons float in the stratosphere, high above the weather. Some can soar up to 95,000 feet. Not many aircraft can get that high, and though their gas envelopes are visible in the daytime, they are nearly invisible at night, and their transponders can be turned off. This makes them a difficult target to hit and good for spying. And, deflated, they are quickly transportable and deployable.

Reconnaissance balloons have been around since the civil war. Spy satellites on the other hand, can’t change their orbit that easily or quickly, so there is a need for this buoyant type of observation platform. The US Air Force and CIA continue to fly U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes for similar purposes – on demand reconnaissance. However, it’s been proven that even the U-2 at high altitude is detectable and can be shot down. I wish the Air Force still had a few SR-71s in operation. Nothing flew high or fast enough to get them, but their flights were expensive.

These balloons can stay aloft for months, drifting with wind currents in different directions at different altitudes, so as to keep them over the same spot for an indefinite amount of time. For research that requires constant monitoring, this makes them a good tool. Solar power keeps their instruments and cameras running and charges their batteries, which they use at night. 

When the balloons are launched, they look like a jellyfish drifting in the air. But climbing into the stratosphere, the gas inside them expands, and they take on the appearance of a translucent flying pumpkin. But even Snoopy would have a to admit that this Great Pumpkin is something of an alien and doesn’t require a new battle plan to keep from being shot down.

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