It is just China testing America's resolve and appetite for taking direct action. They're just trying to get a handle on how America will respond when they hit Taiwan.

Looks like the answer is "too chicken to do anything".

This does not bode well.

I think most people have assumed the US will talk big but no action will ever be taken when China does invade Taiwan. Unlike Russia and Ukraine that will be resolved faster than the US could react.

Shame this old Girl is not still serviceable.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....03ac93906f.jpg

The USAF don't have much that will get up to meet it at 60,000+ Maybe the old F15? F22 won't make it up there. No point sending a drone I guess, it needs somone to pop a few holes in the canopy with a bang stick. Quite a sizeable envelop though, might need a fair few holes ... I suspect it will have helium supplies onboard so can probably compensate ...

Ahh .. maybe it got zapped!

Having been born here in the Good Ole USA in 1949, I remember 4 October, 1957. It was my mother's thirty-seventh birthday. It was the day the USSR launched Sputnik. My father took me out to our driveway and lofted me on to his broad, strong shoulders. "There it is!", he shouted, and pointed, as a small pinpoint of light traversed the deep night Connecticut sky.

We were all frightened. The Russkies could launch a satellite. It meant they could launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile full of fissile Uranium, or fusionable Plutonium. They might be able to put a warhead on target. All of us, all one-hundred-seventy million, were scared to death. We all know what happened next. MADD. So far.

The Chinese "meteorological" balloon is nothing more than an intrusion on the sovereign airspace of the United States of America. Nothing less. That the assclowns who comprise the current administration have failed to act against such trespasses in a timely fashion is the reason that the rest of the Free World laugh at us. I don't blame them at all, but I do wonder who shall come to our defense when the time comes.

- Ed

Billings Montana, wrong location?

Montana, Wyoming? Who cares? It’s all pretty much the same in the Empty Quarter! ;)

Meanwhile at FR24, they've put the aircraft type for a US weather balloon that everyone was confusing it with the Chinese one as "This is not as Chinese balloon."
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....af0b290225.png

99 Red Balloons
 

Pentagon now saying second balloon over Latin America -- will we get to 99 Red Balloons -- 99 Red Balloons," a protest song. In the lyrics, a boy and girl innocently release a batch of balloons into the air; confused by these flying objects, international governments panic, triggering a nuclear holocaust.

NENA 1984 song.

The song will now probably chart again!
mikeoneflying is online now Report Post

And it's now clear how prescient Nena was - while we all thought at the time that "red balloons" was a reference to their colour, she really meant their origin. :O

How hard is it going to be to shoot this object down?

It's going to be 50+ km high, on the edge of space, at a FL where only balloons can navigate. It is made out of latex, and may well be difficult to get a radar lock on - it seems that it was only found visually. And it's travelling slowly, which often makes it hard to target from a fast moving platform...

I suspect that the US authorities may not be shooting it down because they can't...

The US authorities are saying it’s at about 60,000’ - 9.9nm, or 18.3km. F-15 territory

We don't really know how it was found.

I think 50 km (160,000 feet) plus is a stretch for any balloon carrying a decent payload, but that's an IMO and open to correction.

In any event at a Pentagon press conference yesterday the senior officer doing the briefing said the balloon was at about 60,000 feet.... With a bit of a team effort that number would be fairly easy for some of the general public to confirm/deny, so I suspect that altitude would have to be credible.

I know there might be issues with radar cross section etc, but 60k would be inside the envelope (SWIDT) for a lot of kit in the US inventory, not just fast moving fighters.

Would not wonder if there are only cheap Alibaba style atmospheric measuring devices in or a Vaisala kit for weather ballons. The US should have L_A_S_E_R technology which could make a sufficient hole to get it down slowly.

Astute move calling it a weather balloon really....thoughtfully prevents Roswell V.2 being revived.

However, watched some clips on the news of US news and yep, no point in missing a potential conspiracy theory opportunity after all....somewhere called Wuhan was mentioned as a possible launch site....now where have we heard that name before ?

But it does beg a question...why, with the resources available, wasn't it quietly removed with no publicity....... before it gained the prominence it has ?

Second Balloon sighted over Costa Rica then Venezuela.- according to UK Daily Mail.

Washington Post --China is Latin America’s second-largest trading partner, just behind the United States, according to a 2022 report from the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the report, 20 Latin American countries have signed on to be a part of the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project led by Beijing.

Belt and Road or stranglehold.

Interesting to see where the next balloon will be sighted.

Shooting down shouldn't be necessary. Statistically, the runaway Chinese weather-balloon will shortly be hit by a falling piece of Chinese rocket-debris.

Because the public panic re China you can observe even partly here might be deemed useful?!
Fascinating what a friggin' balloon can trigger....

In contrast to this funny balloon Belt and Road is a very real threat to the West.