SBWF ADSB 1090-978 Sightings from SYP and Diablo Peak
Not so mysterious sighting over Santa Barbara County last night at 11 PM. Our ADSB system spotted a hacker balloon at 30,000 ft. It had an ICAO ID which means it must have lights aboard. I was in the process of recording the data when my computer suddenly went dead. I tracked it about 10 minutes as it hovered at 30 miles NNE from Vandenberg AFB. I traced it down to a company in Los Olivos that markets balloon flight operations.
When the computer came back on the target was gone. Speculation is it parachuted back to earth.
These balloon flights are not rare. They can stay up for weeks at a time as they hover and move at 1 - 2 mph at high altitude in a diameter of 200 miles and stay clear of the jet stream. They ID as HBAL. They are known to take off and land near Mojave. From what I learned it is a low priced commercial testing of electronic systems to cover north and south America. At one sighting I saw three high altitude balloons very close to SB and VTU. A year ago ADSB uncovered another mysterious UAV over Lake Cachuma after several flights. It was followed back to a barn at Santa Ynez. It was a large scale commercial UAV aircraft capable of carrying a moderate payload. Wayne Beckman and I investigated this and were invited to inspect the aircraft. The rules covering such aircraft are quite clear..... they must have an N number and require a flight plan. We took many pictures if I can find them.
At the same time last night a REACH EC-135 took off from Santa Maria at 5525 ft headed NNE for a patient transport. It landed, we lost the ADSB signal behind terrain.
This does not cover my sightings of many of U2 flights and a Soviet TU-144 bomber flight over SB County. I don't normally send this out as a message to all as it is a no brainer.
Bill Talanian