An order must have come from Trudeau - but it applied to the RCAF. He has no authority to issue orders to US pilots, and they are certainly not allowed to act upon orders issued outside their own chain of command (at the top of which sits POTUS).
This was a NORAD operation, which means that the Canadian military is indeed in the chain of command for certain Americans. The Deputy Commander of NORAD is always Canadian.
Why the Hell are we wasting missiles on these things?
They’re balloons, for gosh sakes!
A quick burst of cannon fire would work fine.
Well, maybe just really big darts!
Also, unlike the President, the Prime Minister isn’t actually considered to be in the chain of command of the military. He didn’t “order” a shoot down so much as give approval for the shoot down. The dynamic in Canada is very different than in the US (citation: the clusterfuck that was the Convoy here in Ottawa last year. The reason that went on for so long was because the civilian leadership doesn’t actually have the power to order any particular actions be taken by the military or police, and the military and police were refusing to take any actions on their own authority.)
How about the New York Post or Washington Times?
While trying to learn how telecom companies are able to keep charges so damn high.
Of the four publications mentioned above, I only subscribe to the first two.
As for the others, I don’t read them enough for a fair critique.
Missiles have a limited shelf life (I believe some are 25 years.) If a Sidewinder is at the point where it’s about to expire anyway, might as well fire it.
+3
seems like “standard procedure” … i worked for multinationals in food-business, to the same rules …
Don’t talk unless authorized - and refer them to PR.
of course - this is completely bi-lateral material…
This former fighter pilot does not think guns would have been a good option:
TLDR version: the missile ensures the balloon comes down right then and right there. Bullet holes could not guarantee the same.
Yes, they wanted the wreckage to fall in US waters (12 mile zone of national sovereignty) not the fuzzier “economic interest” zone.
A missile does that. Bullets don’t.
They’ve twigged our secret plan to convert Canada back to feet and inches.
+4. I worked in tech, and sometimes did interviews as a technical expert on a product we were trying to sell. You only taked when authorized and with a PR person in the room. (This was pre-Zoom.)
Same. The only time I talked to the media was at formal organized press events when specifically asked to do so. Typically a marketing manager and PR person would be present, at a minimum.
- Activate NORAD defense radars and record radar signature, strength, location… information useful to learn how to avoid or jam our radar in the future.
The one thing satellites can’t do that balloons can is active our defenses so that we show our hand. This is a very old technique and there are aircraft designed to do this, but balloons don’t shout ‘threat’ the way aircraft do and may not even be shot down.
But my guess is that the last two objects are mundane weather balloons or something, and that they were shot down because we are in a bit of a panic. It reminds me of the incident off of LA in WWII where people started seeing enemy aircraft everywhere after a false report. The movie ‘1941’ was loosely based on it.
Latest: yet another “object” was shot down today on the US side of Lake Huron. Is this now the fourth, or is it the fifth? It’s a bloody epidemic! Just heard this on the car radio, there’s nothing on the CBC website yet. Also, casual mentions by various officials seem to suggest that all these objects so far are balloons – either confirmed or suspected.
That’s possibly one explanation for why there’s a sudden rash of them. Or else China is up to something nefarious. Regardless, the two (at least) that were said to be at around 40,000 feet (and could easily drop lower) were definitely a threat to aviation even if they were weather balloons.
Fourth, according to the news stories I’ve seen.
China’s claiming to have an “unknown flying object” of its own, now.
We are going to have to start some sort of numbering system.
may I suggest:
yyyy-mm-dd/1234