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Originally Posted by Low average
(Post 11379845)
The timing is too much of a co-incidence to me. The US has finally started to call China out over Taiwan and the South China Sea. Called it a bigger threat than Russia, and has just struck a deal for bases in the Phillipines. Resistance to the slow coiling Chinese Dragon is growing.
This balloon, with its considerable payload hovering over the continental US, capable or not...is a message. |
n Costa Rica exports account for around 40 percent of GDP. Costa Rica´s main exports are electronic components (18 percent of total exports), medical equipment (7.3 percent), pineapples (7 percent) and bananas (6 percent). Costa Rica´s main export partner is the United States (37 percent of total exports). Others include: Netherlands, Panama, Hong Kong and Nicaragua.
However, always rumours about secret US bases in S.America. |
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Biden Admin's indecisive incompetence over this all over US TV now - including comments from all the usual top commentators eg previous SecDef + various retired 3/4-stars.
Looks like they will finally be attempting a shootdown over Atlnatic. FAA issued ground stop in area - F-22As + F-15Cs + supporting tankers scrambled https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FoJH2UCa...name=4096x4096 |
Live excellent quality feed on Fox News now. Probably going to be multiple 20mm gun passes by F-22A and F-15C.
Ground stop is until 1445 EST. |
Originally Posted by mikeoneflying
(Post 11379968)
n Costa Rica exports account for around 40 percent of GDP. Costa Rica´s main exports are electronic components (18 percent of total exports), medical equipment (7.3 percent), pineapples (7 percent) and bananas (6 percent). Costa Rica´s main export partner is the United States (37 percent of total exports). Others include: Netherlands, Panama, Hong Kong and Nicaragua.
However, always rumours about secret US bases in S.America. |
Originally Posted by RAFEngO74to09
(Post 11379981)
Live excellent quality feed on Fox News now. Probably going to be multiple 20mm gun passes by F-22A and F-15C.
Ground stop is until 1445 EST. |
F-22s spraying 20mm all over Myrtle Beach. Meh, all you need is a helicopter and a box cutter :}
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BBC News reporting that Biden "is facing intense pressure domestically to shoot the object down." What is it with the Americans, thinking that the solution to every problem is to shoot it? It's not as though the US haven't flown plenty of their own weather balloons over China...
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Balloon splashed 1438 ET!
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Originally Posted by petit plateau
(Post 11379954)
More likely …. The payload is probably just …. and a wee pump. !
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Looked like the payload broke away when the balloon burst - that'll hit the ground hard.
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Originally Posted by Wokkafans
(Post 11380010)
Looked like the payload broke away when the balloon burst - that'll hit the ground hard.
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Missile strike
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Originally Posted by Brewster Buffalo
(Post 11379931)
With a proper breeding techniques and a ratio of, say, ten females to each male, I would guess that we could be back to the present gross national product within, say, 20 years.:)
Thank you Dr Strangelove. It won’t be difficult mein fuhrer. |
Originally Posted by MENELAUS
(Post 11380030)
Thank you Dr Strangelove. It won’t be difficult mein fuhrer.
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Probably trying to emulate Branson and be the first Chinese to circumnavigate the world in a balloon, but forgot to tell anyone. ;)
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handled well IMHO, cool and collected until it was offshore then splash with a conventional regular every day weapon.
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F-22A used an AIM-9 to shoot down the balloon.
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I live in Charlotte, NC. This thing came over us this morning, the US airforce was clearly following and watching it closely, with multiple contrails visible around it. Absolutely surreal...
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All very anticlimactic, I bet it will be more spectacular when they make the movie. I wonder if there was a sweepstake for who got the honours?
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Originally Posted by Ninthace
(Post 11380064)
All very anticlimactic, I bet it will be more spectacular when they make the movie. I wonder if there was a sweepstake for who got the honours?
True, but ducking and preparing for incoming nevertheless. |
Is this the first ever air-to-air kill for the Raptor?
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https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f70b72d28.jpeg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....06c4d96a8.jpeg Both a Poseidon and a USCG Dolphin helicopter operating in the impact area. The Helicopter appears to be in a low hover. |
Originally Posted by twb3
(Post 11380072)
Is this the first ever air-to-air kill for the Raptor?
(as balloon busters go) |
Salute!
Actchally, If it were a Raptor, then pilot could wear a p-suit or simply pull up and gun the balloon to allow a kinder more gentle descent of the payload for recovery and analysis. Using an AIM-9X from an F-22 seems overkill, and even an F-16 or F-15 could do a snap-up and an Aim-9. Even back in 1966 we practiced snap=ups versus high targets like U-2, B-57 and even the BOMARC interceptor doing 3.+ M and at 70,000 feet. If we were not cruising above 50,000 ft, we did not need the p-suits and the rules allowed us to go up for the shot and then pull back down to follow all the altitude/pressure rules. BFD. Anyway, looks like one bullet, one kill. Even versus a stoopid floating balloon. Gums sends... |
It looked like it was 60k or less when it hit the East coast. (Not really sure about the weird secrecy surrounding this event, it makes me uncomfortable. We knew exactly when where and what was going to happen to Payne Stewart and his crew when they were still buzzing along asleep for 6 hrs before they crashed in ND 10 yrs ago)
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Ok, well that even makes it look more duplicitous. What the heck am I missing?
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So presumably, F22 pilots would only wear a full pressure suit if expecting to fly at or above FL60 for a while i.e. the Armstrong line?
Otherwise it's pressure breathing etc? |
Of course all this is assuming it wasn’t transmitting the data home in real time and China already has what they wanted.
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China might try to politically use it as a bait. Now that the US shot down an overflight they might claim to be authorised to do the same to anything over "their" reefs airspace or similar? There is certainly more behind this. It's all too visible, a show piece.
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Originally Posted by NutLoose
(Post 11380107)
Of course all this is assuming it wasn’t transmitting the data home in real time and China already has what they wanted.
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So if it really was a spy deice, the best thing to do is let if fly cross the whole country, then shoot it down as it leaves
One explanation was they didn't want to risk collateral damage on the ground Now it is said they want to recover and inspect it, but it will be harder to find |
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Originally Posted by aox
(Post 11380121)
So if it really was a spy deice, the best thing to do is let if fly cross the whole country, then shoot it down as it leaves
One explanation was they didn't want to risk collateral damage on the ground Now it is said they want to recover and inspect it, but it will be harder to find Lots of folks not under the balloon’s flight path and in the political opposition were calling for shooting it down overland on every channel on which they could get in front of a camera. imagine these same folks outrage if it hit anything or anybody.or even came close to anything. Bringing it down as it left the coast was IMO the best option. https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....16b4bd292.jpeg |
Salute!
tartare Back in the day, we only had to wear a p-suit for "sustained flight" above 50K and maybe shorter flights way up there like those NF-104 jets. I am not even sure the Streak Eagle guys wore a p-suit and they toped out aroung 100K, certainly above 90K Our high altitude profile in the VooDoo and 106 was at 49K and go fast, then pull up for the shot. As a target, we cruised at 49K and 1,1M or so for 10 or 15 minutes in basic flying suit. Well, guess the crew chief can paint a timny balloon on the side of the jet now. Gums sends... |
One never can tell when interesting information can be gathered:
We were told to be very careful - not to buy our train ticket in Princeton, for example, because Princeton was a very small station, and if everybody bought train tickets to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in Princeton, there would be some suspicions that something was up. And so everybody bought their tickets somewhere else, except me, because I figured if everybody bought their tickets somewhere else. . . So when I went to the train station and said, “I want to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico, “ the man says, “Oh, so all this stuff is for you!" We had been shipping out crates full of counters for weeks and expecting that they didn't notice the address was Albuquerque. So at least I explained why it was that we were shipping all those crates; I was going out to Albuquerque. "You can observe a lot by just watching." - Yogi Berra Meanwhile there is no good understanding on the amount and type of information being exfiltrated that the TikTok app has gathered. |
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