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Chinese balloon/airship over USA

The right-wing media in the USA are making a big thing over the fact that Biden didn't have the bloody thing shot down earlier, somehow forgetting that during the Orange Moron's reign, three such balloons sailed into USA airspace with him doing absolutely nowt about it. Biden had ordered the balloon to be shot down when it was safe to do so.
 
Dunno about mil spy balloon platforms. But from being involved in their use for 'scientific' measuremends long ago my recollection is that they have to include either:

A mechanism that cuts the package-balloon link on command or a timer, and/or

The balloon has enought lift to reach a height at which it will burst.

Heavy bits need a parachute that will limit its fall velocity.

Either way, it then descends, misson done.

One science package I recall came down in a forest and managed to wedge itself in the space between three trees. So took some work to recover it aftewards. It was launched from a site in the US, but I can't recall where. I think it got to more like 100,000 and was *big* when at altitude.
 
Does modern aircraft not have machine guns anymore? Why missile against balloon?
Reading that recently Russia used ballons as false targets for Ukraine air defence, they pretty fast get usefulness of this ballon thing.
 
gints said:
Does modern aircraft not have machine guns anymore? Why missile against balloon?
Reading that recently Russia used ballons as false targets for Ukraine air defence, they pretty fast get usefulness of this ballon thing.
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The balloons were flying thousands of feet higher than the F22 Raptors could fly. Bullets would not reach and even if they did would not bring them down.they aren’t like party balloons waiting to go pop. A few years ago the Canadians tried to bring one down with machine gun fire. It was hit with 1000 rounds but still flew.
 
There really are two situations going on here: very large PRC balloon with large payload (props,antennas ,etc.= radar target) and much smaller balloons with probably a much smaller radar cross section. The "first" balloon was something we'd like to look over -so letting it fly over (likely while maintaining radio/data transmission silence) and then wanting to drop it relatively precisely into the territorial waters of the USA makes sense.A missile hit gave the best chance of achieving this.The other smaller balloons probably come down to we've figured out something that works -let's just use it. My guess is they used AIM-9X's for this task -but there may have been some late night work at Boeing to modify targeting profiles to seek n hit a balloon -especially the smaller balloons - would be a challenge.
 
audiopile said:
There really are two situations going on here: very large PRC balloon with large payload (props,antennas ,etc.= radar target) and much smaller balloons with probably a much smaller radar cross section. The "first" balloon was something we'd like to look over -so letting it fly over (likely while maintaining radio/data transmission silence) and then wanting to drop it relatively precisely into the territorial waters of the USA makes sense.A missile hit gave the best chance of achieving this.The other smaller balloons probably come down to we've figured out something that works -let's just use it. My guess is they used AIM-9X's for this task -but there may have been some late night work at Boeing to modify targeting profiles to seek n hit a balloon -especially the smaller balloons - would be a challenge.
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Ah c'mon, we've got the toy shop here. We didn't spend tens of thousands of dollars to look at the things, did we? Let's shoot something down!
 
Bob McC said:
The balloons were flying thousands of feet higher than the F22 Raptors could fly. Bullets would not reach and even if they did would not bring them down.they aren’t like party balloons waiting to go pop.
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The balloon was at 60-65000 ft and the declared ceiling oi a Raptor is 65000 ft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Chinese_balloon_incident#Downing

Bob McC said:
A few years ago the Canadians tried to bring one down with machine gun fire. It was hit with 1000 rounds but still flew.
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The choice to use the the Aim=9X was less about needing to be able to reach the target but more likely the effect it has - it will have been chosen because the warhead uses a continuous rod which, when it detonated near the balloon would have effectively slashed it, if not cut it in half. Bullets would work, but not as quickly.
 
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