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johnldean0

39 karma · joined October 21, 2025

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johnldean0··on UA 1093
Yea, the FAA does a lot and I think overall they do a great job, but I wish there was better systems for communications here. I think ultimately companies like WindBorne just have to go above and beyond what is required if they want to operate at scale safely in this space. And no one else operates balloons at the scale that we do, and safety has to be built into the design and operations regardless of how the official systems work.
johnldean0··on UA 1093
WindBorne cofounder CEO (John Dean) here -- Thanks, indeed I think that a strike to the cockpit glass, in the corner where there is more stress concentration, is one of the worst places to hit for human safety. And indeed the system was designed to be safe in the event of a collision.

But still, in light of this I think we can do better. I think it's possible to operate the way we do and have a the mass distributed such that the only damage is ever cosmetic. We follow FAA 101 regulations on this but I want to have better internal impact modeling as well.