I’m suspicious of the changed story. Where would the media get the idea that it was a surveillance blimp and why didn’t the military spokesperson correct them immediately?
Regarding local law enforcement shooting it; it sounds like they did the right thing. It was a danger to the locals so it had to be stopped.
There were two aerostats, located a short distance apart. One was for surveillance and the other was for “fire control”, which I assume means missile targeting or something like that.
I remember they didn’t put them up at the same time. They put one up, and the other about three weeks later.
[HacowiChief] “It. Is. Balloon…!” [/HacowiChief]
Huh. So, the Los Angeles Times publishes a very critical article about this thing, and then barely a month later it suffers a hugely public and embarrassing failure, causing pretty much the whole Internet to erupt in snark and jeering laughter?
Connect the dots people–it’s pretty obvious what really happened here:
Los Angeles Times reporter David Willman sabotaged our Nation’s vital Blimp Program!!! Yes, he knew that this will probably guarantee him a Pulitzer as the man who “blew the whistle” on JLENS just weeks before its spectacular public failure!!!1!
You read it here first.
In case it’s not clear, the existence and purpose of these blimps was not a secret. At 10,000 feet, they were visible from all over the Baltimore metro area. They had been up just long enough for people to get used to them. I actually found them to be a convenient directional landmark.
Now I expect we’ll never see them again. I’m sort of going to miss them, which is odd, because I found them very creepy when they were up there.
It was an inside job! wake up sheeple!
Yes! Obama did it so he could take away people’s guns… and help planned parenthood… and implement sharia law… or something.
I know! Here’s why he did it. He had to knock out the electricity in the area so that he could replace all of the residents with Muslim terrorist doubles. Without power they couldn’t tweet about what was going on! (They also blocked cell service.) Any tweets or pictures about the blimp that came from that area were actually coming from the NSA in Maryland.
Link to PDF press release about JLENS, from the Raytheon website:
Well, I guess it’s comforting to know that they have procedures for bring it down safely. :rolleyes:
Procedure 2 involves a pair of F-16s and a state trooper with a shotgun, apparently.
Trees create wind after all. Makes perfect sense.
We’re through the looking glass people!!!
Procedure 1 was to snag it on electrical lines. That didn’t work so well.
Depending upon how much free lift it had, & how large a release valve it had (which I heard it had but didn’t work) you could make that thing come down pretty quickly. I know nothing about this blimp, just speculating (Got that, NSA) but I could see it going from two miles up to being on the ground in a matter of minutes after the valves are opened, given how fast what I work with comes down.
Peoria, Arizona, anyway.
Raytheon (JLENS contractor) does have a facility in Tucson, but that’s pretty far away from the Phoenix area. Still, it is an eerie coincidence… 
ETA: The owners of the pumpkin balloon is “Big AZ Promotions?” :smack: Terrible stealth pun.
First the Aerostat, and now this? Coincidence? I THINK NOT!
If they were round, wind pressure would create a large amount of drag, which lowers the altitude considerably. Because the drag increases with the square of wind speed, even a modest breeze results in a round balloon flying very low. It is not possible to compensate by reeling out more cable, as the cable is very heavy, and so will soon drag the ground, at which point the balloon can be no higher regardless how long the cable.
Being…well, blimp shaped, gives them less drag, but also allows them to augment their buoyancy with aerodynamic lift, which keeps the mooring cable much more vertical.
The small ones used for advertising are sometimes called Kytoons, a portmanteau of kite, and balloon. In the calm it flys as a balloon, in wind as a kite.
Linus must have been quite excited.
BLIMP - The Untold Story
Oct. 28, 1220 hours, the blimp, released from its shackles, rose, soared, flew, ever upward. Free at last! Government authorities at the highest levels, made aware of the “situation”, demanded an immediate shoot down. In response, a squadron of F-16s (informally known as the “Jackboots”) intercepted the blimp and REDACTED with REDACTED and REDACTED to REDACTED the blimp. The cover story; the blimp was a threat to aviation. As a backup, power blackouts and communication blockages were instituted to conceal the brutality. Intrepid Amish photojournalists thwarted the plan by flooding the web with updates: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/blimp4.jpg?quality=100&strip=all&w=945 . Backed into a corner, the government then claimed that the blimp’s tether was responsible for the outages. The blimp at 16,000 ft with a 10,000 tether caused the damage?? Those are mighty tall electrical stanchions and cell towers - I think not:dubious:
Battered and blasted, the blimp landed, exhausted from it’s brief taste of freedom. Government operatives, posing as law enforcement personnel, riddled the body with shotgun blasts. There would be no testimony, no public trial, no alternate explanations. This pattern of government response to “untidy” occurrences goes back to Jack Ruby and LHO. Oliver Stone must be salivating. And after this, which should be considered an execution, the [del]body parts[/del] sensors were “harvested” to be used in other blimps. Know another totalitarian regime that performs these very acts? Well do you? I thought so.
As I write this, a special operations unit from New Mexico is sanitizing the scene. There will be no flowers, no memorials; just a complete revision of history. Even now, the initial press release that the blimp was a JLENS aerostat has been revised to read, “a [del]weather[/del] fire control blimp.” Do they think we’re stupid! We KNOW there are other blimps like this in government hands. Why do you think Hanger 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is restricted - TOP SECRET?
Join with me now when I say (in one of the larger font sizes available on the SDMB)
FREE THE BLIMPS FREE THE BLIMPS FREE THE uurrkkk
