Why would a 21st century warplane shoot a balloon with a missile?
aviation.stackexchange.com
aviation.stackexchange.com
* The IT community, despite the majority being some form of an intellectual, has either a flawed (read: Hollywood) or no understanding of physics or military aviation.
* The IT community, despite the majority being some form of an intellectual, has a patently insufficient understanding of how sovereignty, diplomacy, and laws work.
* The Chinese apologists are hilarious to witness, particularly the ones who believe two wrongs make a right.
I think the key is to treat off-topic threads like watercooler talk, friends shooting the shit with each other and enjoy the drama.
I'm sorry but I gotta laugh at "despite the majority being some form of an intellectual", as if that is worth something. If you don't have the experience and the domain knowledge, can you call yourself an intellectual in that domain?
As a boy, I read Ender's Game and Zhuge Liang's commentaries on The Art of War. As a man, I like to imagine that I now know enough to keep the whole world safe from catastrophic war. It is a comforting illusion.
I think I would phrase that as "despite the majority thinking of themselves some form of an intellectual, outside of their domain, they are out often out their depth and unaware of it".
> If you don't have the experience and the domain knowledge, can you call yourself an intellectual in that domain?
Yeah, that's the thing. You can assume that "in that domain" is irrelevant, and call yourself an intellectual, period. You can and you'd be wrong, very wrong, but you wouldn't be alone. It's common.
Not understanding how high 60,000 feet (roughly 18km) is is embarassing when you're an engineer of some description.
This phenomenon is something I've noticed with other subjects too; like a lot of the IT community not understanding how life works outside of cities when we talk about transport and infrastructure.
IT professionals affect the world in very significant ways with their engineering, but they also seem like some of the most naive/ignorant people I know of. I'm greatly interested in why this seems so.
Combination of poor social skills and arrogance.
It’s the arrogance associated with it. A kind of “I understand this complicated thing (computers) so everything else is trivial to me”. To learn something, you need the humility to say “I don’t understand”.
That's different from when an Oncologist forum is discussing SEC actions or an Accounting forum is discussing laser-guided munitions... or at least it might be different: you rarely know on HN who is speaking from direct knowledge.
And if it's about defense or proprietary information then HNers with knowledge will lurk but not participate.
Edit:
https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-06/china-let...
Edit: And by loosening their censorship on nationalist commentators to say incendiary things means neither side has any room to maneuver. It's like adding in dynamite.
This is not likely to remain constant given the above, and thus the tolerance of the totalitarian dictatorship is similarly unlikely to remain constant, and what does a dictator with a slipping grip on power want to shore it up? A nice foreign skirmish.
No need to be apologetic about a $1 trillion project shooting down a fricking balloon. At least the Soviets were sensible enough to let Mathias Rust land his airplane close to the Kremlin.
The US could have strategically used that $1 trillion on its human resources, on things like school and healthcare for all, that way they wouldn't have had a 25% deficit in recruiting personnel (last I've checked). But, hey, building an airplane that can shoot down balloons for the same amount of money I guess also works.
Yeah, I know about the opportunity costs of dissuasion ("nobody is going to attack us if we've got a $1 trillion airplane"), but, again, in the great and long-term strategic scheme of things looks like that was the wrong choice for the US.
What "other problems"? I hate it when people do that, i.e. saying stuff like "you're generally wrong, but I won't say exactly what, because you're so very wrong". Just say what you specifically say you see as wrong or don't say it at all (to be clear, this is not directed particularly at you).
- Whether intentional or not, you imply the entire budget for the F22 program was dedicated to shooting down a single weather balloon.
- Your source for the budget comes from Twitter, and you state without evidence that your sources are probably more accurate than official ones.
- Your posts mock military spending without engaging in the difficult political science questions of what may happen if your suggestions had been implemented. Something as large as defunding air force development has a scope far beyond the question of one weather balloon, and your discussions appears to lack awareness of that scope and complexity.
In short, many of the problems center around twitter-sized sound bytes being played in a venue that prefers well-constructed arguments and well-rounded discussion.
It's normally actually "there are a number of things wrong here but I don't have the time/energy/motivation to go into them".
That information can still be useful and isn't always just consensus building (which is admittedly a widespread problem).
On an unrelated note, you might want to recheck this: Also, most probably according to those figures the war in Afghanistan also didn't cost more than a few hundred million.
I also suspect the majority of commentators consider your epistemology to be completely broken and fixing that is a time investment far beyond what they can commit to. On the remote chance you'd actually interested in fixing it, the Less Wrong one (Sequences) might be very flawed, but HN will agree its better than what you've currently got.
I studied physics and it always surprises me how many good engineers really don’t have a very good intuitive understanding of basic physics principles like conservation laws.
Yes, just like with a force.
> but in the real world there is friction and air resistance where you have to keep applying torque to keep something spinning at the same rate
Yes, but I think you are forgetting one thing: If the friction is between the rotor and the body, then this friction does not only act on the rotor, but also on the body. I.e. the friction creates a pair of torques which the engine can perfectly counteract with it's own pair of torques.
If the friction is between the rotor and the air, then yes, the spacecraft needs some kind of counteraction or it will start turning.
In theoretical model of ideal XXX. Not when asked to actually calculate something practical unless the ideal model is good enough for constraints.
I am not an engineer. Actually MS in physics however ancient ;)
I suspect that the engineer in the GP's story might not remember the equations for angular acceleration, but has an intuitive sense that if a spinning something is in contact with a non-spinning something, you need a good reason for why some of the energy won't get transferred from the former to the latter.
Source: I am a helicopter pilot.
Wait what? What is your definition of intellectual because I don't think this is remotely true.
I think the problem is too many people see themselves as the type of generalist Intellectual when they shouldn't.
even times where topics like Health and Nutrition come up you find a lot of wildly inaccurate statements being made
That's your first error. Any trade can encompass a swath of subjects and nuances from history to technology, niche technique and even underlying mathematics thousands of years old, including those that built the floor your chair is on right now, but you'd probably drive by a construction site thinking the mouth breathers are right where big brother market sorted their 'intellect' to.
The subject does not matter, intelligence and other cognitive capacities do not matter, here there or wherever does not matter.
Almost no one ever works from the assumption that they are ignorant regarding a topic, and partially to wholly mistaken about everything to do with it, despite this being true.
Took me spending hundreds of hours learning about AI risk to realise I know fuck all.
No, the majority are some form of tradesman.
I think that why choose a missile over guns is a legitimate question.
As the author also later finds out, and only suggests it, perhaps using guns might have also worked, but just seems riskier because the proximity to the baloon (for the aircraft) and terminal velocity of bullets (though the baloon was shot down over safe airspace)?
Otherwise accurate, I can only object to your use of this phrase as intentionally vague when you could easily have been more specific and accurate: it is only software developers, apparently, that know everything. Network Engineers, DBAs, Systems Administrators, Tier II and Help Desk Technicians do not behave this way, but generally approach problems from a synthetic perspective of ignorance rather than knowing everything there is to know a priori. Developers are creators, gods among men.
> insufficient understanding
Insufficient for what? We are on a discussion forum. It's not like people here will have perfect knowledge about IT topics either, not to mention that there could be multiple correct actions/decisions besides the one that the expers have chosen.
We should be encouraging more critical discussion, not shaming people for daring to ask questions.
...is full of rather ignorant people who see themselves as "very smart" and therefore foolishly talk like they are an expert or near-expert in any area, especially after they've spent a half-hour reading Wikipedia or read some popular-audience book.
IMHO, it's generally the best policy to assume that an expert or conventional wisdom in another field is more correct than whatever "fatal flaw" you can think of in 30 seconds to form an internet comment. The main caveat to that is when political or ideological conflict is at play, no one should feel they need to defer to an expert's ideology or favored political policy choices.
The balloon was brought down with a missile that had the primary explosive removed, it basically just flew through the balloon. This being the F-22's first air-to-air kill after nearly 2 decades in service, it's not like these missiles are a precious resource to be conserved. It also would be quite embarrassing to attempt to shoot down the balloon and fail, so it makes sense to go for a guaranteed kill.
Finally, it should be noted that the balloon was at approximately 60,000 ft. The F-22's flight ceiling is above 50,000 ft, but the exact value is classified. It is possible that the F-22 simply could not get up high enough to engage with guns even if that was desirable, or it's also possible that the F-22 is capable of flying that high but the US did not want to confirm that to a potential foreign adversary. In general it is also just good practice to keep some distance between your most capable assets and foreign espionage devices.
As one can see from video of the encounter, it was very effective in bringing the balloon down in a controlled manner. It's one thing to monday-morning quarterback a failure, but this is ridiculous.
edit source: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/32...
The missile fused and was a normal AIM-9X.
You can see result of the war cranium detonation in the videos as a cloud of black smoke. It's just that things are happening so fast that it looks like the missile just sails right on through.
> This being the F-22's first air-to-air kill after nearly 2 decades in service, it's not like these missiles are a precious resource to be conserved.
The first clause of your sentence here is not logically related to the second clause. These acquisitions programs are separate. While missile purchase quantities are adjusted based on projected needs, it is not as if there is a quantity in inventory earmarked specifically for the F-22 only.
> It is possible that the F-22 simply could not get up high enough to engage with guns even if that was desirable
It wasn't desirable, based on the experience the Royal Canadian Air Force had trying to shoot down a wayward weather balloon in 1988. https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb
Over 1000 rounds fired without bringing the balloon down.
That's the tiny self destruct fuse going off after it's already gone through the balloon. An AIM-9X actually going off is substantially larger.
> The first clause of your sentence here is not logically related to the second clause. These acquisitions programs are separate. While missile purchase quantities are adjusted based on projected needs, it is not as if there is a quantity in inventory earmarked specifically for the F-22 only.
There is most certainly an inventory of munitions earmarked for the F-22. They are stored on the bases with the F-22, the pilots train with these munitions, if there was a need to deploy them they would deploy with these munitions. They could potentially be used by other planes, but only if they were urgently needed, which was the actual point I was making: these are air-to-air missiles, used only for an aircraft to shoot down another aircraft, something which has been a very rare occurrence for quite some time. Not only was this the first A2A kill for the F22, it was merely the second A2A kill for the US in the 21st century. This lack of aerial combat is the reason why the F-22 has been so rarely used.
No; the resulting exploding plane full of fuel is.
The actual explosion from the missile is small; you can see it at 0:54 or so on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YMSfg26YSQ.
As with a fragmentation grenade, they're shrapnel generators. https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-trending/grenades-movi...
Again, the goal was to preserve as much intact as possible, shrapnel production runs completely counter to that objective. I'm basing my comments off this source [0], which admittedly is just some guy on the internet, though I have not been able to find any source claiming the missile carried a munition, if you have one please share it.
No. Two clouds are visible. One (white) clearly from the balloon envelope, and one (darker) clearly from the missile. https://imgur.com/a/y386kLU
It's also very clear from the video that they targeted/hit below the balloon's envelope.
> shrapnel production runs completely counter to that objective
So does missing it, and they're already dropping it from 65k feet. They'll be prepared to piece things together.
> I have not been able to find any source claiming the missile carried a munition...
This is a pretty silly inversion of burden of proof. Between "some guy on the internet said something no one else reputable is corroborating" and "the Pentagon typically doesn't use dummy rockets to shoot enemy aircraft down", I know which side I fall on.
"war cranium"? Is it you, ChatGPT?
Please stop reciting this fake and incorrect information.
The closest anyone's come in this thread is "this YouTuber said so".
I don't have a source proving the cop who pulls me over has real bullets in his gun, but it's safe to assume he does, because that's the normal scenario. If you claim he's carrying a water pistol (highly unusual!) burden of proof is on you.
edit: Here. Debate settled.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/...
> GEN. VANHERCK: Yeah, absolutely. There was a warhead in the missile. You can see that explosion on TV as it goes through the lower part of the balloon and right there through the superstructure.
However, this incident is going to establish an interesting precedent of when it is ok to shoot down an satellite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspace
I don't see how this would set a precedent - it was over the US and they shot it down, seems pretty clear cut to me.
I suspect you'll get pretty universal agreement that 60-80k feet isn't that limit, though.
But there is a somewhat shared definition of where space start in the Kármán line at 100km of altitude so it should follow that the vertical airspace stops where space sparts? I might be completely wrong though.
This kind of thing has a long history -- the old "three mile limit" for territorial waters had more to do with the maximum range of cannon than it did anything else.
"The maximum altitude which can be reached during forward flight typically depends on the ability of the engine to breathe the thinner air rather than the rotor's ability to provide lift. Turbine-engine helicopters can reach around 25,000 feet (7,620 meters). But the maximum height at which a helicopter can hover is much lower - a high performance helicopter can hover at 10,400 feet (3,170 meters)."
Source: https://www.virginexperiencedays.co.uk/experience-blog/how-h...
A "balloon retrieval bot" using battery powered propulsion, launched by another platform such as a rocket (or another balloon!) might be a fun thing for someone at raytheon to pitch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)
> The planet's atmospheric density is about 1⁄100 that of Earth's at sea level, or about the same as 87,000 ft (27,000 m), an altitude never reached by existing helicopters. This density reduces even more in Martian winters. To keep Ingenuity aloft, its specially shaped blades of enlarged size must rotate between 2400 and 2900 rpm, or about 10 times faster than what is needed on Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Delsalle#Mount_Everest_...
Considering that they waited until the balloon was over shallow water it seems like a deliberate, 'surgical' move to seize the payload with minimum damage.
For public consumption this also provided a clean and decisive shoot rather than looking rather ridiculous by shooting rounds at it without necessarily any immediate effects. So a good ending for the President's image.
The fact that they it let cross the country first suggests that it wasn't deemed a threat, though.
Or do you think it was actually a laser-guided air-ground missile?
ADS-B track: https://twitter.com/HarryBloke/status/1621759602344988672
For a good example, look at pictures of the MH17 debris: https://twitter.com/samgadjones/status/491242301872955393
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/1835D/production...
Arguably, upgrading to explosives counts as 'more brute'
The grey cloud is the explosion. Real-life missiles don't look like a Michael Bay movie, and the balloon almost certainly carried no jet fuel for combustion.
The balloon is full of helium, notable for being unreactive.
> I don’t even known but I suspect a warhead would not even detonate when piercing a balloon
Sidewinder missiles have a laser proximity fuze. They detonate just fine.
2. Because it doesn't reallly matter; the "how did the missile detonate" question is readily answerable, and all that gas in the balloon is well above the impact site and smoke cloud.
The parent poster expressed disbelief because of an entirely incorrect assumption about how missiles work.
Hydrogen is a more common choice than helium for unmanned balloons. Only 12 of 101 weather balloon launch sites operated by the US's national weather service use helium[1], and that's with unusually cheap helium access in the US. I would expect other countries to use helium even less frequently.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/04/04/weather-ba...
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/...
> GEN. VANHERCK: Yeah, absolutely. There was a warhead in the missile. You can see that explosion on TV as it goes through the lower part of the balloon and right there through the superstructure.
"Some military analysis also pointed out that the missile may not be equipped with a warhead, and the U.S. military only selected a favorable attack position after monitoring the balloon in the past few days."
I mean, obviously the dumbest, brutest thing would be the jet equivalent of Ben Hur's wheel spikes. Sharpened wings?
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ad9rmXHhi2U/TaBxNpJvBtI/AAAAAAABI...
Over 4,000 recce balloons had entered their airspace up until the late 1970s and the Soviets compiled statistics that "on average 1.4 guided AAM's, 26 unguided rockets and 112 cannon rounds were used against each [destroyed] balloon"
You might want to play the NC (blue guys) in Planetside 2. They have shotguns on everything. Yes, even their aircraft have shotguns.
>Now [balloons] are making a comeback, because while spy satellites can see almost everything, balloons equipped with high-tech sensors hover over a site far longer and can pick up radio, cellular and other transmissions that cannot be detected from space. That is why the Montana sighting of the balloon was critical; in recent years, the National Security Agency and United States Strategic Command, which oversees the American nuclear arsenal, have been remaking communications with nuclear weapons sites. That would be one, but only one, of the natural targets for China’s Ministry of State Security, which oversees many of its national security hacks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/05/us/politics/balloon-china...
They're controlling the altitude so I assume they have it transmit data back either upon command or continuously.
I have read about lasers that are used against missiles and planes. I imagine that the balloon would be more fragile. Could it be hurt even if the laser has lost energy due to the high altitude?
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/why-shooting-down-chin...
Also, where is the limit when you would call the balloon a satellite? Satellites cross over foreign countries all the time, so there must be a height above which this is not a problem. Is there a fixed threshold for this?
The FAI treats the Karman line as the limit between atmospheric and space flight.
USAF uses a lower 50 miles threshold (80km), NASA uses that for uniformity since 2005.
EDIT: Assuming it was possible to pull it down. Was it?
If balloon pulling is a regular occurrence you can set up infrastructure for it. Devise some different approaches and test them to see what works.
If they waited that long, the balloon would have drifted out of US territory and the politics of downing an object over international waters would have been very sketchy. So yes, it's probably possible to engineer a solution to down a balloon using some non-destructive method, but there simply wasn't time to test it out and figure out what works.
As a first approximation: yes. Nobody can pull it down because not even the tallest human is tall enough to reach it. By far. So that is the answer to that.
On the other hand I assume you mean: Is it possible to pull it down with some machine? And the answer is yes, it is possible to pull it down with some machine.
Entirely within the demonstrated abilities of humankind.
If we want to, have enough money and time, we could make a machine which captures it, takes it to Mars, lands it there softly, dances the cha-cha-cha with it there, launches again back to Earth and lands it softly here. Entirely possible. Only a matter of time and money.
It is not a question of impossibility. It is a question of how much time you have (remember it is drifting out of your airspace) and how much money you want to spend on it, and how certain you want to do it, and how safe you want to keep your personal and people on the ground while doing it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery...
How the hell are you getting a heavily weighted net up to 60,000 feet?!
100% baseless speculation here. The US can, effectively, do whatever the hell it wants. Who's gonna tell us no? We invaded multiple sovereign countries over the past few decades and no one stopped us; you think anyone is gonna stop us doing anything to a balloon within our own airspace? And whatever happens afterwards is a matter for diplomacy, not international courts; there's no one who can enforce a ruling against the US (or China) like that. Welcome to the world of sovereign state actors, where might makes right.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_defense_identification_z...
So what's the real reason for telling the whole world about this and cutting off a diplomatic visit?
If you see a balloon, do you automatically assume it's a spy balloon from China?
If the US government ignored the sightings, or gave a plausible answer, I don't think there would be much of a hubbub.
Can jets even fire bullets? I'm no expert in physics, but somehow I think firing a bullet from a jet just wouldn't work.
Here is the F22's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6GhVrVjArI
Boresight shot towards a slow, non-maneuvering target plus laser fuze should be just fine.
There is no publicly known way to fire an AIM-9X without seeking. It can be fired with out the seeker having a lock and given updated guidance from the launch platform via datalink to direct it towards the target so that it can then acquire the target with its own seeker. Even in BORE mode, the seeker attempts to acquire the target immediately.
The fuze is a set of two separate mechanisms, an active IR laser and photodiodes for the non-contact fuze and a contact fuze.
https://twitter.com/MergeNewsletter/status/16219846548981104...
> A runaway weather balloon floating toward Britain over the North Atlantic is proving a tough target for some of Canada’s top guns. The helium-filled balloon, a 25-story high unmanned research station used to measure ozone levels over Canada, was launched Monday from Vanscoy, Saskatchewan.
> Jet fighters trying to bring the balloon down fired more than 1,000 rounds into it Thursday, but it remained aloft. The air force hopes the now-leaking balloon will eventually come down.
>``It’s at an altitude and an area where trans-Atlantic flights pass nearby,″
That is around 35k feet. I’m talking about the altitude that the recent Chinese balloon was at, around 60k feet.
You have 3 choices: an airplane, a drone, or another balloon.
Airplanes are fast, you can't just approach, slow down, reach out and poke the balloon.
Drones don't fly that high up. On the internet you can find that drones can fly as high as 33000 feet. It's likely the military has drones that fly higher, maybe even as high as this balloon. But you need one that flies that high, and also has the capability to puncture a balloon. It looks like such a modification was not doable in the given window of time.
Another balloon. That would obviously be doable. If a balloon can fly at 60000 feet, another one can too. But again, you need the modifications to make it go up there and shoot at another balloon. Maybe in the future they'll make this type of balloons, but for now they didn't have one handy. And if they had, they didn't want to tip their hand. Better to use weaponry that's widely known to exist, rather than new and classified stuff.
Can you provide sources to how "Chinese overlords" have manipulated "corrupt Biden family" in any specificity?
Do you believe that the thousands of career professionals in the US government just decided to not do their jobs because of "corrupt Biden family"?
I think some people will actually think your post isn't sarcasm.
Clearly development of higher-tech jet fighters must be funded ASAP.
Captcha updated to include question: "Pick images that have red ballons"
Captcha updated to include question: "Pick images that have 99 balloons"
F-35 software update deployment scheduled
Also, I knew about the "red" in the english name, but had no idea how different the english lyrics for the song are.
When people upvote jokes, the high-value expertise people freely share here gets drowned out, and will eventually disappear.
It’s interesting to draw parallels from the Cold War to today, especially when they are so on the nose.
After a certain amount of km, it's all good. Same as international waters.
- How do we know it is a spy balloon and not just a weather balloon that got lost??
- If it is a spy balloon why not take it down gently and look at its payload?
- Did the balloon got on top of a military base by chance or was it directed?
- How was it directed from so far away if the balloon has no propellers?
It has a much larger payload than weather balloons.
> If it is a spy balloon why not take it down gently and look at its payload?
That's what they did. Controlled shootdown over shallow water; they're collecting the parts now.
> Did the balloon got on top of a military base by chance or was it directed? How was it directed from so far away if the balloon has no propellers?
The Pentagon says it maneuvers. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinese-spy-ballo... Might be small propellers (think drone props) within that truss structure.
We've essentially zero reason to develop the technology to hijack a high-altitude helium ballooon. As clearly demonstrated, much easier techniques already exist.
Why would we spend money investing in a balloon defense system, when we already have an air defense system that can handle them.
We don’t _know_ this AFAIK, but we can make educated assumptions
> If it is a spy balloon why not take it down gently and look at its payload?
That’s what they did
> Did the balloon got on top of a military base by chance or was it directed?
Not publicly known AFAIK
> How was it directed from so far away if the balloon has no propellers?
I believe they said it had a propeller, but even if it didn’t balloons can be directed by changing altitude since the wind blows different directions based on how high up you are. This is how hot air balloons navigate
I don't buy the argument that all weather balloons look the same and this one is too big. If I wanted to camouflage spy balloons, I'd produce identically looking weather balloons.
That reasoning is topsy-turvy.
It would work if you would say: "It looks like a weather balloon, but I don't believe it is not a spy balloon just because of that. If I wanted to camouflage spy balloons, I'd produce identically looking weather balloons."
It doesn't work in a scenario where you are observing a balloon which looks different than the usual weather balloons. You cannot say "it cannot be a spy balloon because if it were a spy balloon I would design it to look like a weather balloon". Maybe it is a spy balloon and the people who made it didn't want to hide the fact. Maybe they wanted to hide the fact but couldn't.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government...
More of an issue would be that the plane has to come too close to the (relatively speaking) stationary target. That would be dangerous for the pilot and the plane.
What makes this reason a challenge for you to believe?
The F-22’s M61A2 20mm Gatling gun propels 20mm (~0.75”) rounds. A full load out is 480 rounds.
The target is a 90’ diameter, nearly atmosphere equalized pressure vessel. Striking the target with 480 rounds of that size is nowhere near enough to create a large escape surface for the slightly positive pressure gas to vacate quickly.
Also you assume a clean through-and-through hole, no tearing. I think the risk to the pilots from flying straight at a balloon is the bigger factor.
[1] “ The time a wayward Canadian balloon caused an international stir — and thwarted 3 air forces” - https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6737831
Multiple planes and over a thousand rounds is not enough to bring down a much smaller balloon[1]. Not to mention, a leaky balloon will fall slowly, making it an obstacle for regular air traffic.
A single missile is faster, cheaper, easier, etc. We didn't want to bring the balloon down "eventually". We wanted to bring down the balloon precisely and immediately, once it was over water but still in US airspace.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb
https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb
> Jet fighters trying to bring the balloon down fired more than 1,000 rounds into it Thursday, but it remained aloft. The air force hopes the now-leaking balloon will eventually come down.
Edit: As proof countries have downed high altitude balloons without F-22s and sidewinders in recent history.
Why wouldn't you use your weapon system that has the highest probability of working on the first shot? The entire world was watching.
Brazen invasion, I'll wonder if they (US or China) will release honest details, but I cannot imagine much real purpose there and for now only assume incapability/incompetence.
(Genuine question, I know it's really easy to be interpreted as dismissive or confrontational and my intent is to be neither of those.)
https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government...
For context it's closer to the first powered flight in 1903 than it is to the present day.
That's why the gean BND had it's Space theory to justify it's spying.
The chinese was way below that a ca. 19km
This exclusive sovereignty does not extend to space, because according to Article 2 of the Outer Space Treaty, outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.
But where does sovereignty over airspace stop, and outer space begin? The exact legal boundary of space is not defined in international law."
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-....
So No, but Yes eventually there is a limit ...
It's all ridiculous, on purpose, first rule of military, burn money so you can demand more.
A few bullets would have been a slow descent they could track and capture far more easily.
Now it's a show they can reproduce a million dollars a pop.
The NSA is also now free to float balloons around the country for cellphone capture.
Why would the NSA need to float balloons around the country when they could just ask/force the telecom companies to give them a copy of their cell tower data?
A missile not only is more precise than the guns, but can also be fired at a much safer distance.
Punching a big hole immediately exploded the balloon, whereas shooting a bunch of cannon shots could have resulted in much more unforseen consequenced
Where are people getting this idea from? I've seen zero reputable reporting of it, and there's a visible grey smoke cloud from the explosive in the close-up videos. https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1621996717624393728
Edit: In the closeup footage I see a flash of orange (explosion) in the debris cloud for a frame or two.
No, it tends to be far less dramatic than people imagine; the missile itself is largely a shrapnel delivery vehicle. If there's a fireball, it tends to come more from the thing you hit, which tends (but not in this case) to be full of jet fuel.
Had the balloon been at an altitude the guns could reach, though, maybe the would have used them.
The time a wayward Canadian balloon caused an international stir — and thwarted 3 air forces:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/weather-balloon-canada-chin...
> Had the balloon been at an altitude the guns could reach, though, maybe the would have used them.
The jet was flying at approximately the same altitude of the balloon. The altitude of the balloon was below the max service ceiling of the aircraft.
I can't find any reputable source claiming a removed warhead, and there's a visible detonation (it's not a Michael Bay movie, folks, they don't add gasoline to make a pretty fireball) on the close-up video; that greyish smoke cloud didn't come from the balloon. https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1621996717624393728
Moral of the story...China makes a minuscule investment in a ballon and the USA increases an already bloated and excessive DOD budget. China without going to war suckers the USA into losing another financial battle.
Cost is not the issue. Far more interesting is what was reveled. We have a political block to take down a foreign object in our airspace. The thing flew over the entire continental US. The F-22 can engage extremely fast (relative to the plane) targets at at least 65 000 ft with apparent ease (wikipedia's spec sheet previously said "more than 50 000 ft).
Edit: forgot to mention. The intercept was easy because the balloon was flying relatively low for a balloon. These things are hard to kill. If it were 80 000 ft, would you shoot it down with an F-22 and reveal a very secret characteristic of it? Or use a very expensive SAM?
Not saying you're wrong, but... what is your basis for saying this?
- its (suspected) payload
- a million is chump change in aeronautics.
Even if it were a weather balloon, the sensors on it would be insane and worth more than the missile. A spy satellite's sensors? Those lenses are filthy expensive.
Size matters, even just considering raw material costs. The fabric is not a cheap coarse cotton garment that would otherwise have become a pair of Levi's. Its full of Helium. On top of that the balloon's size makes it a difficult structural problem.
In terms of "return", that ratio has Bernie Madoff blushing.
Afaik that's false, they backtracked it to China using historical wind patterns, but it wasn't tracked from China to the US since day 1
Some people have a vested interest in various US parties (the executive, the military, others?) looking inept. Some people have a very vested interested in those parties or a subset thereof looking competent. No need to spend money on astroturfing when the team politics knuckle draggers will do it for you.
Your #1 answer should be The MIC.
Keep in mind, the POTUS takes a constitutional vow to protect the borders. And we get this? For a week? Stop being so naive.
do you have any proof it "infiltrated"? why use this charged language?
But the fact that that word caught your eye and not three-quarters of a trillion dollars is hilarious.
And only proves my point.
Do you have proof of that?
Sorry to disappoint but for only three-quarters of a trillion dollars you dont get a Wakanda style dome around the USA
https://www.ft.com/content/8a2c77c3-58cc-471d-a187-1823faa4f...