Chinese Spy Balloon Flying Over the U.S.

Good grief! You’re getting into minutia in response to a simple observation and going the opposite direction. Incredible!

 

I'm curious how you came to that conclusion from his reply.

It seems you didn't read it or, more likely, you didn't understand his reply.

 

cue the music.....

 

If its mission was to gather intel, the normal response would have been to not announce it publicly and feed it full of misinformation.. this one just happen to be spotted outside the club..

 

????
Totally lost me with this one

 

maybe you couldn't read the writing on the side.....

 

Hell, I, um, oh never mind, I cannot compete with those puns.

 

They are over your head, clearly.

 

Yep. No ideas popped into my head. My self-esteem is deflated. Time to go take a leak.

 

While it’s over his head, maybe he should rub it on his hair, build up some static electricity, and stick it to the wall someplace…that’d mess with their data.

 

No. ROE requires a positive ID of the target and a determination of hostile act or hostile intent.

HA/HI are vert clearly spelled out in the Air Defense of the United States Special INstructions (SPINS).

 

Consider the cost of a balloon to China compared to the cost to the US to remove it. Then ponder what might be the outcome if they were to suddenly launch them by the hundreds. How quicky could the US determine which, if any, were a direct threat, and how much equipment & manpower might be needed to stop a "balloon assault" if such a thing were to happen.

Might such a scenario manifest itself and while we are busy chasing balloons they counter attack from a different direction? Balloons used as a decoy?

I want to think our "protectors" have a handle on this but then we hear of how many came over that they admitted they didn't even know about ...

 

I bought a package of party balloons for my wife. The package says Made In China...... should I be worried.??

 

There’s a very interesting documentary called “Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control”.

One of the segments is a guy who builds robots. His comments about Mars exploration is similar to your comments about lots of cheap balloons. He was considering the comparison of a single large and expensive probe vs many small and cheap probes.

 

There's undoubtedly a cost misbalance already; each AIM-9X probably cost more than the balloons they shot down, not to mention the labor-hours, equipment wear, and fuel used to do so.

I'm not too worried about that (yet!) because I'm in favor of anything that lets our warriors practice being warriors. Call it a military exercise. A few hundred balloons might be more of an issue, especially if they start sending a bunch of cheap balloons with no payloads just to stress us out.

This, too is where (good 'ol) American ingenuity comes into it. There are undoubtedly hundreds of folks looking into more cost-effective ways of bringing these things down. A Perlan glider with a knitting needle *might* be somewhat close to what we'll need. Or fly over the balloon with a grappling hook (arr!), snag the thing, and drag it home.

We've already discussed that every U-2 occupied with chasing balloons is one less U-2 watching the South China Sea. Otherwise, though, we SHOULD be watching our borders; increased attention probably won't hurt our efforts elsewhere. Federal law prohibits using our space intelligence assets on US targets except in specific circumstances; balloon-chasing might get added to the list of exceptions.

Otherwise, I'm not seeing any major potential issues about the distraction these missions are causing. But, of course, that's the WHOLE purpose of distraction....

Of course, they are causing political distraction and upheaval, which might be a major goal. Have to balance, that, though, with the potential of additional sanctions that might hurt them.

Ron Wanttaja

 

I still think a laser equipped airliner equivalent would probably be the easiest deal like the previously mentioned experimental 747. You could probably zap the envelopes of 50 balloons in one flight if you did it right.

 

Or at least blind their sensors.

 

The Navy’s HELIOS laser weapon might be a possibility. They claim each shot is cheap. But the ship would have to be in just the right spot.

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine...9/navy-destroyer-adds-helios-laser-to-arsenal

 

ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz first reported that when fighters were scrambled, the pilots did visuals, got images and said there was no sign the object had propulsion.

It was described as "cylindrical and silver-ish gray" and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said.

Asked if was "balloon-like," the official said, "All I say is that it wasn't 'flying' with any sort of propulsion, so if that is 'balloon-like' well -- we just don't have enough at this point."

Is this it?

 

Here's the latest image. The pilots also stated they heard whale noises as they approached.

 

could have been a decoy.....balloon. and it was a test to see if we'd find it.

 

My thought too. Easy enough to cobble up a mylar contraption.

 

If it has no propulsion, the only way to provide lift is buoyancy. So it sure sounds like a balloon.

 

That’s only if you believe gravity is real.

Believe what you want…

 

Gravity doesn't exist; the earth sucks.

 

Indeed. For that matter, the second one could have been cobbled up by some high school students.

What're the Mythbusters up to, these days?


Ron Wanttaja

 

Did they also see a bowl of petunias?

 

I worked at a company where we used a lot of helium. Some of the engineers would sometimes take one of the biggest plastic bags we had, maybe 10 feet long (don't know why we had them-they were black), toss a strip of aluminum foil in it, fill it with He, tie off the end, and let it go.

 

Oh no! Not again!

 

Sounds like there are more:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...s-monitored-military-one-airborne-Canada.html

 

Well of course there are more. 99 of ‘em in total. All red.

 

Balloon number 3 now shot down over Canada.

 

JKeep shooting them down. Target practice is always fun. Shoot down enough of them and they’ll stop sending them.

 

Next one needs to be a gun kill.

 

The lady down the street is a realtor and is convinced that the Chinese are using the balloon, and others like it, to identify available real estate that is near sensitive military installations.

She may have a point:



Just a trial balloon.

 

Nah…. Make it a LASER kill!

 

That did it. I've run out of gas now.