(TI-59) Winds Aloft

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(08-05-2020 06:47 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I am curious as to whether the practise of tracking the balloon azimuth optically to determine position (and hence wind speed) is still commonly used. (As opposed to using GPS and a radio link).

As far as I know the optical tracking was mainly used for low level balloons to measure the cloud base. Once the balloon is inside or above clouds optical tracking is over anyway. Cloud bases are usually measured with ceilometers now, even smaller airfields have them.

By the way: Worldwide wind fields are sampled from "normal" commercial aircraft since many years. Because of the COVID outbreak, air traffic is redusced drastically and meteorologists are already complaining that because the lack of data their predictions have become less accurate.

Regards
Max