From the BBC:USAF taking potshots at balloon causes politicians to take potshots at the President. Yet another example of the depressing nature of politicians these days.

I’m sure Mayor Bethune would have been more than concerned if the balloon had been shot down over land and killed one of her constituents.

I still think it must have been transmitting in real time, after all how else could China guarantee a successful landing of a balloon, we have moved on from From Ice Station Zebra and little capsules with film reels inside them.

Harbour cotter

i think you are referring to this.

Project was called Operation Outward and was run by the Royal Navy. The Balloons were obsolete weather balloons from RN Stocks that would have otherwise been scrapped. Most of the ordnance carried. the altitude control system and weapon release systems were very Heath Robinson. The only real explosive ordnance used were left over small mines for the Airborne Minefield systems pushed by Lindermann (Mutton and alike),The incendiary weapons were made out of beer bottles and large socks (sealed with tar) which were filled with incendiary material and an impact detonator. The wire weapon was 700ft of light hemp twine with 300 feet of piano wire at the end in a can with some water ballast in another can. The balloon climbed to around 18000ft after release at which point a rope affixed around expanded circumference of the balloon pulled taught and opened the gas release valve. Also at launch a time fuse was lit which burnt for around 24 hours. At that point, the Balloon should be around 1000 feet up and descending. The wire was released with one end of the twine still attached to the balloon and the wire touching the ground. The ballast release was also activated which would release the water at a rate that would keep the balloon at 1000 feet and allow the balloon to drift far enough to ensure some form of electrical transmission line got shorted to either the ground or to another phase line on the same gird line. The project was stopped in 1944 as the British needed the Hydrogen for other things like Barrage Balloons for D-Day and V-1 defence. The launch crews were mostly WRENS.

Why Ukraine are not using these types of weapon is beyond me..

On a lighter note.....

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a342fa6af7.jpg
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Exactly, and I am reminded that in the 2001 Hainan Island incident, they literally crashed a fighter into an EP-3E intelligence asset, that wasn't even over Chinese air space, such was their paranoia.

"Our barroon fright compretery successful, now under water off east coast. Now we risten to US submarines."

This was not a hot air balloon.

In an age of Woke nonsense, reassuring to know that the ghost of Benny Hill is alive and well.

Just a dumb question, but .. .
 

Press reports say F22 used Sidewinder. F22's gun would surely have been cheaper; were there special reasons for choosing a missile?

Gun door on F-22 can't be opened above a certain height, don't recall exact figure but I believe the balloon was at a higher altitude than this limit. They also wanted to ensure separation of the payload and balloon; this I imagine would've been tricky to achieve with a gun.

Don’t really care about the cost of a single 9X when you’re a superpower…

"Convoluted air routes to avoid their military bases (not that you could see much as the country is 99% smog).
Sometimes threatening or actually having to declare an emergency in order to get clearance to deviate to avoid thunderstorms.
Narrow, crowded corridors for civvies to fly in with the military controlling the rest of their airspace."

Sounds like the UK in the not so distant past...................

Precisely. Left with low plus right with height only works up to around 2,000 feet at best. Remember your met exams and the geostrophic wind ? Plus you need someone to work the burners and keep an eye on the GPS. Johnny Chinaman seemed not to have included either.

In any case, I found it only worked 70% of the time.

Thanks, Stu666, I didn't know that. I imagine there's a speed limit, too, but I don't suppose that was relevant here..

I believe that passive navigation has advanced a great deal in recent years. In particular, look at the (claimed) capabilities of the Aerostar stratospheric balloons. Indeed, they have been awarded a number of DoD contracts in recent years. I'm sure that China has been looking at similar capabilities.

Presumably, Western "spy" satellites are reported to be able to "read" car number plates. This requires optical lens systems to an extreme perfection.

I didn't check, though I can imagine, China's optics quality lags significantly behind Western capabilities. With, the consequence, a significantly lower image resolution for their spy photo's is obtained. (Can be a lot of pixels, though, when the optics aren't delivering a clear image to the optical sensor, all those extra pixels tend to be without value).

Moving the optics+camera to 60-70K feet altitude, will make the resulting resolution significantly higher. Western optics+camera's get to the point, so to say, the photo's show scratch marks on the mounting screws of the car number plates and Chinese stuff is finally able to read the car number plates.

Not to forget, the (near vacuum) atmosphere between 60-70K feet and 300+km gives (how minimal) optic distortion, which is avoided, when the optics+camera are dangling under a balloon.

So, yep, such a spy balloon does have its spy advantages.

Given the size of what is dangling below the balloon (with quite a lot of solar panels, implying significant equipment power consumption), this balloon might be more than just regular weather measurements with a radio for home communication. Data processing for weather measurements is done "at home", not in the air.

Equipment to think about, given the amount of solar panels:
- Operating environment stabilizing equipment (Thermally, humidity, vibration and the like).
- High power transmitting equipment, required for high-volume data transfers.
- (Limited) flight-path-control options, IE electric engines + batteries.

These are items not so often associated with weather balloons.

How does a near vacuum cause optical distortion?

If it is a runaway "Weather Balloon" as we are told that China claims, the surely the Chinese should be thanking the US for removing a potential threat to aviation, which would surely be the case as the balloon's altitude eventually decays !

El Grifo

Besides, it's a great training opportunity/functional test opportunity. Normally you need to pay for the target drone...

A bit more detail is in order.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/202...trump-thought/

Summary: Yes, there were incursions by spy balloons in the prev administration. Yes, they were detected by the US intelligence community incl the armed forces. NO they did NOT advise the prev WH admin or president, for apparent political purposes.

Reading that article made me lose brain cells. I wouldn't trust that site to find itself on Google, never mind any degree of accuracy.

The former US president could have destroyed the balloon simply by thinking about it.

As an aside don’t some folks install ADS-B on high altitude WX balloons? Seems like a safe/friendly thing to do if your intentions are honourable.
Plus if your WX Balloon is blown off course and outside your national boundaries wouldn’t it be a good idea to advise other countries under potential flight paths of such an event?

The Chinese seem to repeat endlessly that the balloon “Went off course”. However, no so called ‘reporter’ I have seen ever asks: “Where was the balloon bound for when it ‘went off course’ and how were you controlling its movements?” It seems to be a very obvious question to ask.

Saturday Night Live take in the balloon:

I'm sure you understand that this site goes the extra mile because people will automatically question them as they don't follow the generic media line. Here is the quote from a US house representative, where there is video of his exchange with a different media source:

"Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL): My office has been briefed by the office of the Secretary of Defense of the current Pentagon that it happened over Florida, it happened over Texas, and that it’s happened before. We have more detailed questions but what is unclear, Stuart, at this point is, did the Pentagon under the Trump Administration brief the Trump White House and give them the option to take action or did they decide not to brief them for whatever reason? And there is some speculation, I talked to Trump administration officials over the weekend, that the Pentagon deliberately did it because they thought Trump would be too provocative and too aggressive. So that’s what we need to get to the bottom of and one person that I’m waiting to hear from that we haven’t heard from that list is former Secretary of Defense, General Mattis who was the secretary during this time period. What did he know and what did he decide to pass on and brief to the president."

So far, Gen Mattis has been incommunicado WRT this official statement of previous incursions. Some perspective is in order, as the named Gen Mattis is also the same poltroon who decided to call the good ole buddy Chinese Chairman Xi after the 2020 election to warn the Chairman that he would interfere with any action taken by the Trump WH directed at China. So, we already know he's a traitor, just at this point if he has always been a traitor. And, if there were overflights by China during the prev administration, given the general hatred by everyone of Trump - wouldn't it have made a huge, massive, giant media splash at the time to discredit the then current prez? So, they didn't publicize if for anti-Trump messaging, and they didn't tell Trump for their own political ends, or they in fact did tell Trump and he did nothing about it. Given his well stated political views on relations with China? hmmmmm.

....Not to forget, the (near vacuum) atmosphere between 60-70K feet and 300+km gives (how minimal) optic distortion, which is avoided, when the optics+camera are dangling under a balloon.....

Surely most distortion will occur in the lower atmosphere where man-made effects (rising heat etc) and natural turbulance exist?

It was probably nearing the end of its shelf life :E

At 58,000’ air density is thin such that the F-22 would need about 220 KEAS to stay airborne and have any maneuvering capability. That equivalent airspeed equals M 1.2 and 260-ish calibrated. All boils down to a true airspeed of around 670 knots. So, a gun attack, if the gun opened, would be closing on the target at about 1200 feet per second and would open fire around 2,000’ range. No room for safe escape, high risk of collision.

the next problem with the gun is projectile dispersion, risk of hitting the payload. 50,000’ is limit for opening the gun door.

The AIM-9X can guide of light contrast in addition to IR, and can be targeted by datalink from the F-22 radar.

The PRC/CCP will seek to be outraged about anything it can and certainly won't thank the US. Most of what its spokespeople say is to please The Big Boss or is for domestic consumption...or to be disingenuous and play the victim card. They knew what could happen with this 'weather balloon, they've certainly done it before and now they are manufacturing outrage to save face and avoid feeling shame. If they think they can get away with it they will keep doing it. There is no concept of 'wrong & right' as you or I may conceive it. The nearest you will get is 'As long as I'm not found out it doesn't matter'.

That's why I was asking about the computer aided targeting - one could set up the target based on radar from several miles back, line up as if to pass the balloon on one side (or below), and then turn (or pull up) so the gun sweeps across the target and the firing solution computer pulls the trigger when the round would pass through the target space. The plane's path would not line up for more than a fraction of a second and would carry off to the side. Collision and a 2000ft approach is clearly a problem if it requires Skywalker to decide when to pull the trigger, but not for HAL. Even better if HAL was told the plan and handled the maneuver from the initial line-up. The balloon, being the target, should offer a large enough margin for the timing to work out.

Yes, of course, distortion in the lower atmosphere is highly relevant, though also above 60-70K feet, there is some distortion due to particles. Don't forget, the camera/optics "views" a kind of cone, so the higher up, the more the same optical details do go through a much smaller "beam" of space. IE the same concentration of particles not relevant for optical distortion near earth will have a much bigger impact higher up, in the smaller sized optical cone.

Edit: Have a look at a Chinese spy expert, explaining the advantages of spy balloons (including better resolutions):

CNN reporter asks Chinese official about suspected spy balloon.

its a balloon creating a lot of hot air!
and isnt USA the main supplier of helium?

Best detailed photo released so far.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5b076b029.jpeg

I'd be thinking more in term of KISS, or in other words, why even think of making it that complicated? I'd also be wondering how much RF associated stuff, especially related to fire control, you'd want to be squirting at a possibly intelligence gathering balloon.

Simpler way would be pilot points the aircraft in the direction of the balloon, designates the target in suitable way, pulls the trigger at a suitable distance. missile launches, senses target (see below), meanwhile pilot rolls aircraft away and heads off home for tea, toast and medals. I'm not sure why guns would enter into the thinking...

And to emphasise the point made by myself earlier and another poster upthread, the likes of Raytheon have moved on from using dumb seeker heads that sense something pushing out a lot of energy at the longer IR wavelengths (e.g. produced by an object at jet pipe temperature). They're now using imaging arrays capable of working in the near visual IR and possibly the visual range ....The balloon would probably be an easy target, especially against a contrasting (in both visual and in the IR ) background.

One defuser tactic might be for the USA to publically state that the status of the wreckage that was recovered was indeterminate regarding providing positive proof of the balloon's function as a reconnaissance or a meteorological platform.



Then behind the scenes give the full story of any documented proof to the appropriste Chinese agency.

Hmm.

What benefit is there to the government, military or security agencies to defuse the situation?

I find it funny that the “media” is reporting that 3 times during the Trump administration, Undetected Chinese ballon’s crossed the U.S. If they were undetected how did they know it happened 3 times.


I love this word “Undetected”. Sounds just like a Who’s On First skit.

“How did you know it even happened if it was undetected?”
-“Because we didn’t see it.”
“Then you detected it.”
-“No, it was undetected because we didn’t see it”
“So how did you know it was there?”
-“Because we didn’t see it.”

Define "woke" for us, please. Is it reassuring to see someone else being racist? Is that a comforting feeling for you?

The envelope itself will be practically transparent in IR. The seeker found the instrument platform and destroyed that.

The reason for trajectory planning for a gun? Because not every problem benefits from an air-to-air missile. To recover the instrument package with the least damage a few shots (they can make multiple passes) would ventilate the balloon to a suitable descent rate.

The descent rate could become unsuitable as the envelope entered the lower atmosphere, Boyle being Boyle and the mass of gas being decreased.