because if it came that way, it would have crossed the Idaho border, and we know that they would have blown it out of the sky!
They would be filled will helium. And we should have airborne lasers if only in test form to take this down. Just need to poke a couple of holes in it.
What if they were riding on the outside of the fighter planes and shot their AR-15s. Could they hit it then?
This is what I’m asking. Cite? All I know is it was suddenly in the Montana sky. If you know that it came over the border from Canada, what’s your source?
New close-up view of the “balloon”*.
* May not actually be a view of the balloon.
60k feet is not miles above US fighter ceilings.
Who, you mean Maurice? I hear his pompatus is still in the shop.
This is correct. It was made in China…
I bet you weren’t ready for that!
Mindful that the daily news is only the First Draft of History, I am not trusting everything in the news today, even from reputable sources.
Some thoughts…while it’s possible that this balloon has some kind of propulsion/steering, a balloon cannot fly like a plane or helicopter. It cannot steer from point A to B with any accuracy. It is largely (or completely) dependent upon the winds.
Many non-pilots are not aware that the winds aloft can be quite different from those on the ground.
That said, it’s likely that this balloon wasn’t intentionally directed to spy on Montana’s missile silos, although it is not impossible that the Chinese would take advantage of locations where it might end up.
Keep in mind that almost any random location it might drift to can be analyzed as somewhere over something important, if you look hard enough and don’t specify the maximum range. The fact that it is over a missile silo now may be nothing more than random drift and conspiratorial thinking.
Or not. Time will tell.
I think an F22 can reach 10 miles? 52000 feet? If this is at 90k feet, that’s 17 miles.
Not suggesting this as an actual solution but, musing, what about using a laser designator? Here is a laser-guided bomb used on a small, fast moving target. You wouldn’t need to bring the balloon down, just destroy the instruments.
Wapo said 60k feet. F22 ceiling is 65k feet.
Thanks!
Couldn’t the Jewish Space Laser take care of this lickety-split? And with it being February, less chance of an unanticipated wildfire! Win-win!
I thought if spy novels where a country causes an incident to delay a visit of their officials with another country…
I am dubious that an F-22 could do much to down this balloon.
Air to Air radars and missiles have all sorts of filters to insure they do lock on to anything but a fast-moving objects, that behave like an aircraft. This is to insure they are not fooled by countermeasures an enemy aircraft might deploy. But I suspect this also eliminates the possibility of their use against a balloon.
The F-22 is also equipped with an 20mm cannon, but punching a bunch of small holes in a massive, low pressure balloon seems of limited value.
And there is the problem that anything fired, is eventually raining back to earth.
If the balloon is big and slow, don’t fire air-to-air missiles - fire air-to-ground missiles. If they can hit a tank, they can hit a balloon.
For that matter, how high can tube artillery shoot if you point the barrel as high as it will go?
Ooh, ooh, another idea - the 105mm gun of an AC-130 shooting flechette rounds. Shred the balloon to pieces!