Chinese spy balloon

Some speculation from Taiwan about the purpose of the balloons. They are sort of like military weather balloons: they measure atmospheric data so they can make their missiles and radar systems more accurate.

Taiwan says 'dozens' of Chinese spy craft cross its airspace as tensions flare with US

 

First Attempt to Take Down UFO Over Lake Huron Failed as $439k Sidewinder Missile Missed the Target

 

While I understand why it was used to takeout the large Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina I'm not sure why the Sidewinder was the weapon of choice against the other three "objects" considering that both the F22 and F16 have M61A2 20mm Gatling guns which should be as effective at a much lower cost.
F-22A 20mm M61A1 Six-barrel Gatling Gun and Feed System
F-16 20mm Gun System M61A1 Six-barrel Gatling Gun and Feed System

 

We’re wasting lots of money just to be shooting down weather balloons just to keep Americans distracted from a pin impending proxy war defeat and the coming economic crisis.

 

I don't think bullets are very effective against the balloons. One aircraft shot over 1,000 rounds into a balloon several years ago (off the east coast of Canada) and was not able to take it down. I don't know if that means the balloons have some self-sealing elastomer, or the leakage from the holes was not sufficient to bring the balloon down. You need something with a larger diameter, or an explosive effect. I am thinking that a 4-6"-diameter missile with something like a hunting arrowhead (four large razor blades coming to a point) on the front would both open a large hole and start the fabric ripping away from the opening. You wouldn't necessarily even need an explosion, and the balloon would come down in a more controlled fashion. Sayonara, balloon.

 

Non-nuclear EMPs have little range, nor is there a practical delivery system. If the objective is to rupture the balloon and bring it down, an EMP wouldn’t be effective at all.

 

H

How about a slow moving aircraft carrying the entire US Olympic javelin team?

 

James Fallows, who’s pretty knowledgeable about this stuff, has some interesting data, suggesting that the fly over the United States could not have been planned, and was the result of some relatively unique meteorological conditions. I had read these balloons have algorithms and data collection that can change their altitude to steer based upon the variability of winds. But he seems to have a different view.

In the second part of the post, he flag some near, misses from big aviation disasters, and suggested the possibility that one’s gonna happen soon is growing


—About a week ago, the East Coast of the United States endured the coldest temperatures in recorded history. That was when the jet stream took an unusual deviation to the south.

—It was at that very same time that the wind-directed Chinese balloon came south into U.S. territory, from Canada.

Coincidence? Causation? We’ll see. But pay attention to the wind, even more than national “weakness” and “strength.” (Update: I see that the WaPo has just run an article about the unusual southward path of the jet stream, during the balloon’s voyage.)


Comments in a private message from a knowledgeable source:

Thirty and 60 degrees latitude are the boundaries between three fairly stable circulation systems, and that's where balloons that circle the earth, crossing over Canada and over Mexico would naturally go. The short polar incursion that routed the Feb 2 balloon over most of the US is quite rare, and probably not predictable by even the 10-day or MOS algorithms. I don't think even a rogue Chinese general could have planned this so perfectly.…On Feb 2-3, there was a jet stream collapse and a big mound of very cold polar air brought temperatures in the northeast down about 20 degrees C below normal for a day or two. That coincides with the time in which the Chinese balloon headed strongly south and exposed itself.




What the Hell is Happening in the Sky?

 

I don’t agree with this. La Niña jet stream routes travel much further south and typically go through the US precisely where this balloon traveled. Regardless, they sent it over South Korea, Japan and Alaska before it ever reached Canada or the lower 48. Quite the coincidence for a weather balloon, don’t you think?

 

Makes sense. But I trust Fallows. That’s not him directly - quoting others. But also made me think about whether that track was something new

 

The last three we demolished were most likely weather balloons or some other benign purpose.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/16/chi...nation-on-shootdowns-of-aerial-phenomena.html

 

This is what happens when people freak out over one balloon, we start shooting down someone's weather balloons

 

So we can expect to hear about a million dollar missile being used to take out someone's gender reveal party balloon....

 

Not that far off lol

Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF | Aviation Week Network

How embarrassing

 

Just another 'look a squirrel' or tough guy optics from this lying ass govt. Also quite sure it would only take a couple of fighter jet gun passes to destroy whatever was hanging underneath the damn thing instead of firing missles at it.
U.S. tracked spy balloon after it lifted off from China, officials say

 

Oh man ..... oops! Now, this begs the question ... were the three or four previous "Chinese spy balloon intrusions" during the previous administration and the early days of Biden's administration really "Chinese spy balloons"????

Biden says latest objects shot down over US not linked to China spy program

Biden says latest objects shot down over US not linked to China spy program

>>Joe Biden has broken his silence on unknown aerial objects shot down over North America during the past week, assessing that they were “most likely” operated by private companies or research institutions rather than China.

The US president’s tentative conclusion is likely to fuel criticism that his orders to take down the objects were an overreaction amid political pressure over the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that transited much of the country.

Biden spoke for eight minutes at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Thursday after Republicans and some Democrats expressed concerns that his unwillingness to comment on the issue could allow conspiracy theories to thrive.

“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were but nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” the president told reporters, against a backdrop of flags and the presidential seal.<<

 

hobby balloons? new one to me would seem to be a nav hazard if under 40k feet

A US Air Force F-22 May Have Shot Down a $12 Hobby Balloon - Running with Miles (boardingarea.com)

Now, there appears to be some new information that may point to what kind of object at least one of these balloons were. The possibility is a bit surprising to be sure as a balloon hobbyist group in Illinois says that their $12 hobby pico balloon had been in the same vicinity as the object that was shot down by a F-22 on February 11. Visit the club’s website to watch their balloon tracker and see more information about their hobby efforts.

But the circumstantial evidence is at least intriguing. The club’s silver-coated, party-style, “pico balloon” reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska, and a popular forecasting tool—the HYSPLIT model provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—projected the cylindrically shaped object would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11. That is the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same general area.

As an amateur radio operator, I am familiar with this practice that has been going on for years but has gotten even more advanced over the last decade or so. Radio clubs outfit balloons with small radios so that their progress can be tracked by the club and other radio operators as it makes its way around the world. Some of these balloons have gone all the way around the world – some even several times.

According to this article, NORAD has spoken with the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade club which had launched the balloon that may have been one of the objects shot down. These balloons have been flying around for years without any issues so it would seem to be an overreaction that objects similar to this and others were shot down after the Chinese balloon was shot down. The White House even admitted that the objects shot down most recently were objects with a “benign purpose” though after the fact.

Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF | Aviation Week Network

Launching high-altitude, circumnavigational pico balloons has emerged only within the past decade. Meadows and his son Lee discovered it was possible to calculate the amount of helium gas necessary to make a common latex balloon neutrally buoyant at altitudes above 43,000 ft. The balloons carry an 11-gram tracker on a tether, along with HF and VHF/UHF antennas to update their positions to ham radio receivers around the world. At any given moment, several dozen such balloons are aloft, with some circling the globe several times before they malfunction or fail for other reasons. The launch teams seldom recover their balloons.

The balloons can come in several forms. Some enthusiasts still use common, Mylar party balloons, with a set of published calculations to determine the amount of gas to inject. But the round-shaped Mylar balloons often are unable to ascend higher than 20,000-30,000 ft., so some pico balloonists have upgraded to different materials.

Medlin says he uses a foil balloon sold by Japanese company Yokohama for $12. The material has proven to be resilient for long periods at high altitude, he says, even if the manufacturer never intended the balloon to be used for that purpose. An alternative is Meadows’ SBS, which makes a series of balloons designed specially for circumnavigational flights.

 

Oh well, we tried .......

US concludes search for 2 objects shot down over Alaska and Lake Huron (msn.com)

>>The U.S military has announced that it has concluded its search for flying objects shot down over Deadhorse, Alaska, and Lake Huron.

The first object was shot down on Feb. 10th over Alaska while the second was shot down over Lake Huron on Feb. 12 and no debris was found in either of these cases, according to a joint statement released by NORCOM and NORAD.

“The U.S. military, federal agencies, and Canadian partners concluded systematic searches of each area using a variety of capabilities, including airborne imagery and sensors, surface sensors and inspections, and surface scans, and did not locate debris,” read the statement from NORAD published on social media. “The Secretary of Defense concurred with the recommendations.”<<