I'm sure it is, very nice Bill. But I'll take the 911.
Guys, it was a stupid balloon. If we can't take that down whenever we wanted, we have much worse problems than you think. I agree with Anthony, no way that thing wasn't tracked long before it reached the West Coast. And I'll go with the pros' advice to let it go over what any of these politicians did or didn't want to do.
There are a lot of questions that few seem to be asking - like why? Did they really think they could sneak it over? What is it collecting that they can't get from their satellites? Monitoring goes both ways - I'm guessing we wanted to monitor it too and that's why it was allowed to cross over the coast. And now that it landed in the water, they can probably recover more from it than if it landed in a smoking hole.
There must be way more here than anyone publicly knows.
I thought it was interesting that apparently an F-22 can easily operate at 65,000 feet.
msalvetti wrote:
I'm sure it is, very nice Bill. But I'll take the 911.
Guys, it was a stupid balloon. If we can't take that down whenever we wanted, we have much worse problems than you think. I agree with Anthony, no way that thing wasn't tracked long before it reached the West Coast. And I'll go with the pros' advice to let it go over what any of these politicians did or didn't want to do.
There are a lot of questions that few seem to be asking - like why? Did they really think they could sneak it over? What is it collecting that they can't get from their satellites? Monitoring goes both ways - I'm guessing we wanted to monitor it too and that's why it was allowed to cross over the coast. And now that it landed in the water, they can probably recover more from it than if it landed in a smoking hole.
There must be way more here than anyone publicly knows.
I thought it was interesting that apparently an F-22 can easily operate at 65,000 feet.
The Pentagon said the missile was fired at 58000 feet. Not exactly the kind of target the F-22 was designed for, a fxxxing Chinese Fang Fang balloon! . Is this the first confirmed kill by an F-22? I agree there are a lot of things we don't know. I don't know what to trust, from Saddam Husein's WMD, the Russia collusion, the intelligence heads signing the letter saying Hunter's laptop was planted by Russia, Afghanistan government's ability to fight the Taliban...Our government is more incompetent and corrupt than I could ever imagine.
Douglas L wrote:
The Pentagon said the missile was fired at 58000 feet. Not exactly the kind of target the F-22 was designed for, a fxxxing Chinese Fang Fang balloon! . Is this the first confirmed kill by an F-22? I agree there are a lot of things we don't know. I don't know what to trust, from Saddam Husein's WMD, the Russia collusion, the intelligence heads signing the letter saying Hunter's laptop was planted by Russia, Afghanistan government's ability to fight the Taliban...Our government is more incompetent and corrupt than I could ever imagine.
Wonder if we shall see a "balloon" kill painted on the left inlet of the F-22?
We are far too busy sorting out pronouns to deal with anything like this. Hope that we can at least examine the wreckage to see just how sophisticated this "weather" balloon was. And yes, we should hav taken it out before it got to Alaska, whatever they were after over the US has been captured and transmitted at this point so that is moot. But we need to know what it was and deal with that. If the ballon was nothing more than climatological and it just got blown off course, no harm no foul, everyone is entitled to a mistake, if it was more than that, we need to do more than cancel Blinky's trip to patronize Xi, but we won't.
Anyway, hats off to the F22 jockey that took it out.
Ray Swindle wrote:
Wonder if we shall see a "balloon" kill painted on the left inlet of the F-22?
I wonder if the reason they chose to use the F-22 from Langley instead of the F-15s or F-16s from S. Carolina is because the F-22 can operate at higher altitude?
Douglas L wrote:
I wonder if the reason they chose to use the F-22 from Langley instead of the F-15s or F-16s from S. Carolina is because the F-22 can operate at higher altitude?
And for Sunday morning laugh, !!!!! Our government is more incompetent and corrupt than I could ever imagine..
I saw the above 1st hand for 40 years! With some administrations it was sort of hidden ....others it slapped you in the face daily!
This whole fiasco going on has become laughable! Personally, I doubt anything will be done to anyone IMHO!
anthonysemone wrote:
I’m not expert in aviation interdiction, BUT, there is no way, NO F”G WAY, that balloon wasn’t tracked from lift off in China across the Pacific, into and through our USA (or what’s left of it) Western territorial waters. NO F”G WAY. That damn thing was permitted to overfly the country (deleted)
Was it launched fom China?
How difficult would it be to launch a ballon from a ship (or a sub) located in international waters 200 nautical miles from shore?
I've seen photos of the US Navy launching weather ballons from ships. Are we really so conceited as to believe that no one else could do the same? Underestimating your adversaries intelligence, capabilities, or intentions has been a mistake many (most?) of our political (and some military) leaders have become quite good at in the last few decades, unfortunately.
Ray Swindle wrote:
About fighters and "ceilings"...
"The February/March 2015 issue of "Air & Space" magazine has an article about the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II fighter plane, emphasizing how versatile it was. The article mentions how a Phantom was used in a zoom-climb to chase and photograph the Gemini 2 (unmanned) ascent up to 68,000 feet altitude, 18,000 feet over the Phantom's service ceiling.
For a fleeting moment, his altimeter eclipsed 68,000 feet. "We had virtually no energy left," says Petry. "We weren't flying anymore at that point — just riding. But the F-4 stayed quite stable."
The Titan leaned into its trajectory and barreled downrange. Petry broke away inverted and maneuvered to restore airflow over the wings. He and his backseater kept Gemini II in the F-4's camera sights, he says, "until we fell out of the sky.""
How difficult would it be to launch a ballon from a ship (or a sub) located in international waters 200 nautical miles from shore?
OK, kw, "by" China would have been more correct. Yet, even so, any vessel/aircraft/instrumentality bearing the China Gov flag of Xi is in fact still China. Point is: it's by authorization of the F*****g Commie assed, Chinese government, just as was the Wohooo Fluhoo Indeed, our colleague, DL, has a remarkably accurate photographic depiction of Xi's ass in his reply to this thread.
My point was that "there is no way,(deleted), that balloon wasn’t tracked from lift off in China across the Pacific, into and through our USA", is entirely possible, if the launch occured from a ship located a couple hundred miles from shore. An action I'm quite sure is within the capabilities of the Chinese government (and others).
Not saying it was or wasn't a Chinese ballon, just saying that it's launch point may have been on this side of the Pacific, not the far east.
I while the "balloon" probably had multiple missions, I would suspect the primary mission was to determine what armament the US had for shooting down a high flying target and how high could that weapon system operate. The ground monitoring reconnaissance may have been a secondary or tertiary mission. However, if all they wanted to do was to determine our weapon system capabilities for shooting down a high level target, they should have sent it over with "Men don't menstruate" on the bottom. Our military leaders would have taken that balloon down before it saw any American coast!
Shoulda been taken down the second it crossed in our airspace.
But maybe we knew more about it than anyone knows and we wanted to study it ?
And true, not knowing possibly what it was about to not blow it up over the USA.
There are so many people in the USA that can send all kinda stuff to someone over seas, as much or more than that balloon probably.
Bill Gass wrote:
Shoulda been taken down the second it crossed in our airspace.
But maybe we knew more about it than anyone knows and we wanted to study it ?
And true, not knowing possibly what it was about to not blow it up over the USA.
There are so many people in the USA that can send all kinda stuff to someone over seas, as much or more than that balloon probably.
Exactamundo!
The USA knew the second it was launched and reached a specific altitude. Too much military info is being "leaked", for lack of a better word. A "picture or intelligence" is worth a 1000 words"!
Dan
Danpbphoto wrote:
Exactamundo!
The USA knew the second it was launched and reached a specific altitude. Too much military info is being "leaked", for lack of a better word. A "picture or intelligence" is worth a 1000 words"!
Dan
Bottom line is...We are all safe still and takin pixs...
. Is this the first confirmed kill by an F-22? I agree there are a lot of things we don't know. I don't know what to trust, from Saddam Husein's WMD, the Russia collusion, the intelligence heads signing the letter saying Hunter's laptop was planted by Russia, Afghanistan government's ability to fight the Taliban...Our government is more incompetent and corrupt than I could ever imagine.
