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If I had a capable drone, I'd take care of it myself. No more balloons in my side of the sky.
Are we allowed to talk about "The Balloon"
- Thread starter Pablo
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AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
Sightseeing tourist balloons are popular around here and are apparently fairly maneuverable at low altitudes. We stopped counting times the same sight seeing balloon that took off from the same place 10 miles away landed in the field beside our facility. Then one day unanticipated high winds kicked up suddenly and blew it over a mountain and 20 miles away before the pilot crash landed it.
If you had a capable drone for that purpose, you could be a very rich person nearly doubling the current drone altitude capabilities.
It mostly certainly does have propulsion . Something the size of three charter buses with a control center just doesnt float around willy nilly, stay around the same area then exit.
The only legit reason I can think of for NOT shooting it down is to collect frequencies from the package.
Thoughts?
"US and China have long mapped out all missile and other military sites in each other's country more efficiently using satellites at high attitudes. China admits ownership of the wayward weather research balloon, blown out of course by the east-flowing jet stream air current. To think of it as a spy balloon is mindless nonsense. It is slow, uncontrollable and a sitting duck even to a New York policeman's bullet - not a bad thing of the guns can be turned to the sky. US has every right to bring it down if it thinks it contains valuable spying equipment, but leaving it in the sky commands more political value, especially to the likes of Carlo Rubio and all president hopefuls.
The fast flowing west-east jet stream has been known for a long time. During WW2 9000 Fu-Go were released and over 300 landed in US and Canada. These balloon bombs were a gift from Hir o hito."
"US and China have long mapped out all missile and other military sites in each other's country more efficiently using satellites at high attitudes. China admits ownership of the wayward weather research balloon, blown out of course by the east-flowing jet stream air current. To think of it as a spy balloon is mindless nonsense. It is slow, uncontrollable and a sitting duck even to a New York policeman's bullet - not a bad thing of the guns can be turned to the sky. US has every right to bring it down if it thinks it contains valuable spying equipment, but leaving it in the sky commands more political value, especially to the likes of Carlo Rubio and all president hopefuls.
The fast flowing west-east jet stream has been known for a long time. During WW2 9000 Fu-Go were released and over 300 landed in US and Canada. These balloon bombs were a gift from Hir o hito."
+ 1000000 %
Your enemy is always both laughably weak and a powerful existential threat.
Somewhere I just read (WSJ comments??) the thing is losing altitude...............................
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
And they were constantly firing on the SR-71 and it flew well above 80,000ft.
Nothing in that statement is true, especially the last part. It was set on a path here, intentionally, with sufficient design criteria to get it here properly, loiter over critical locations, then move on to the next. The fact that it does not have an active aviation transponder tells us everything we need to know. (just so people understand, even professional quad copters now have transponders)
So this has happend before?
"Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years."
www.foxnews.com
"Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years."
Montana Sen. Daines 'alarmed' at Chinese spy balloon, says 'significant concern' that ICBM fields targeted
Montana GOP Senator Steve Daines sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin regarding the suspected Chinese spy balloon floating over his state and other northern states.
www.foxnews.com
With over 30 years in defense industry I agree, we have capability to collect all RF data by our surveillance aircraft. Just like we’re doing in Ukraine war. I also have a feeling that eventually US is going to down it over the water so that we can study the hardware.
Underestimate a man of action at your peril.
I agree with this - the only reason i can think its being allowed to continue is they are either waiting to collect it intact or trying to figure out how to collect it intact.
I can't help but think its carrying one of these to Washington?
I saw on the news that it would pass over our are here in western Kentucky. There is no way it will survive redneck hostility.
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