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Comment by poly_morphis | Hacker News Reader

Did you even read the article?

> The Pentagon said the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected the object over Alaska late Friday evening. U.S. fighter jets from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, monitored the object as it crossed over into Canadian airspace, where Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joined the formation.

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I did read the article, yes. It was the US plane that did the actual take down. Of course RCAF planes joined, how much more pathetic would it have been if only foreign planes did the work. Did Canadian planes join in the other day when the Alaska one was shot down? Of course not, because the USAF is able to do it on their own, unlike the RCAF, which was my original point.

Because that's how it's supposed to work. The US and Canada work together to defend their combined airspace. They're literally under the same chain of command, hence "NORAD". It would be rather inefficient to set that up and then have both countries redundantly responding everywhere.

I'm familiar with NORAD. Take a look at Canadian media, you'll see they are talking about the fact RCAF could not do it on their own.

Well, if media is our standard for what are appropriate conclusions, we've got a real problem.

But there's no reason for them to be able to do it on their own, because of NORAD.

There's no reason for a country to be able to defend their airspace without the help of their allies? That's a defensible viewpoint of course, but the opposite is too.

Fair enough. It appears to me that Canadian fighters could have done it (see my other reply to the articles you posted), but it ultimately doesn't matter whether a US or Canadian plane did so, because air defense is shared. Recall that during the flight there was a period when a possible second balloon had been detected, and a US General, via NORAD, ordered Canadian CF-18s to search for it, as they were most readily able to respond.

If for some reason Canada felt it could no longer rely on the US for shared air defense, then I would agree with you that it would be important to build up domestic capability to do so independently—but as far as I can tell, that isn't currently a concern.

Which media ?

Ex, for this one: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/norad-shoots-down-unidentified...

for the last one: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/spy-balloon-canada-norad-ques...

From the second article you linked:

> Should Canada have acted when it flew into Canadian airspace?

> The short answer, according to military experts, is no.

> "To say that, oh, Canada should have shot this balloon down on its own — that's just silly," said University of Calgary history professor and military historian David Bercuson.

> "That just completely ignores the fact that NORAD exists that we're part of it and have been part of it for almost 80 years now."

And yes, it also says this:

> The operating altitude of Canada's CF-18 Hornet fighter jets is 50,000 feet (15,000 metres), while Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the balloon had been flying at about 60,000 feet (18,000 metres) — potentially out of range for those jets.

However that ignores the fact that the F22 that shot down the balloon did so from 40,000 feet. Using a similar missile, a CF-18 certainly could have done the same.

Your first quote, about "should", is not relevant, as I was talking about "could". The second part, about it being 'potentially out of range for those jets' is indeed what I was talking about.

But it makes no sense. You can't view it like that. Canadian fighter jets are part of the same organization as the American fighter jets.

We don't need to own those jets for them to be useful for us. Why would we buy jets for this purpose if the US is already guarding our skies with jets having this capability ?

Why does it matter ?

Also, the articles you linked aren't saying that "the RCAF can't defend their territory". They are stating capabilities. You are twisting facts or you really don't understand what is going on. Canadian medias are not making that mistake you make.

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