This map gives the current locations of upper air ballon releases. It also gives the winds and weather conditions at about 32,000 feet. You can see the strong winds that yank a balloon around. Two flights a day are launched from each fo these locations (00 UTC and 12 UTC).
The balloons pop around 100,000 feet, 2.5 to 3 hours after launch. The styrofoam radiosonde (weather instrument) take awhile to float to the ground, but are not in the air for 12 hours.
There are reliablility problems, balloons every so often ice up or pop prematurely... so they don't reach full height. However, I have yet to hear of a plane running into a weather balloon and crashing.
btw, here's me releasing a weather balloon back in 1992.
Yep, DOD is good, RTCW is way better. Things that the RTCW multiplayer game has that is not in DOD...Medic and Engineer classes... flamethrower... air raids... rocket launcher... large terrain engine... in-game objective descriptions... etc.
The only blatant rip off that I can see is the delayed spawn or "reinforcements". Like DOD, the RTCW multiplayer is a war simulation, with objectives and classes, which are not unique to either DOD or RTCW.
DOD is for comps that can't handle the Q3A engine or people who don't want to shell out $50.
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The balloons pop around 100,000 feet, 2.5 to 3 hours after launch. The styrofoam radiosonde (weather instrument) take awhile to float to the ground, but are not in the air for 12 hours.
There are reliablility problems, balloons every so often ice up or pop prematurely... so they don't reach full height. However, I have yet to hear of a plane running into a weather balloon and crashing.
btw, here's me releasing a weather balloon back in 1992.
The only blatant rip off that I can see is the delayed spawn or "reinforcements". Like DOD, the RTCW multiplayer is a war simulation, with objectives and classes, which are not unique to either DOD or RTCW.
DOD is for comps that can't handle the Q3A engine or people who don't want to shell out $50.