Did the US Air Force take out an Amateur Radio balloon for $470,000?

And didn't the professional pilot actually say that balloons COULD be a problem, even if it's unlikely ?

I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near you (actually, very far away from you) if you toss an "amateur Radio payload" into a jet engine...

 

Kind of like Klatu. Comes in peace with a warning we're on the wrong path and what do we do, we shoot him. Might have been better off to let Gort clean house.

 

Or another who came and left his messages of Peace and ways to be saved, and then crucified by the leaders.

 

One of the reasons why these balloons have military and intelligence value, compared to satellites, is that they are a lot cheaper to deploy, slow moving and can be made to hover over a specific area for longer lengths of time, and hard to detect and extremely difficult to take down. The gas inside is near to ambient atmospheric pressure, merely lighter in weight to make it buoyant. Shoot one or more small holes in it, and it won't pop like a party balloon or quickly deflate. It just keeps on going, with a slow leak, kind of like opening one window on a house. The only choice to down it was just what they did, to blast it with the anti-aircraft missile. Reportedly, its communications systems were monitored and jammed from the outset once it was discovered, so it was posing no further threat while it crossed the continent, but softer landing in shallow waters off the coast allowed better recovery of intelligence-bearing debris than would have crash-landing on hard ground.

Starting at 12:35 the video toggles from hard facts, to speculation about the purpose of these balloons. Not primarily for spying purposes, but a data-gathering mission regarding possible exploitation of Arctic resources that are becoming more accessible as polar ice continues to melt.

 

Well driving back to the ranch just now it seems they admitted the balloons were private past the first one. So millions of dollars spent for nothing. Starting to think same guys as the ARRL.

 

It's all for nothing until a Boeing 767 takes a 2 ton balloon to the face, nose dives into a forest, killing everyone aboard and starting a wildfire that destroys dozens of homes. If that happens then there'd be a lot of questions on why the US military had not done something to prevent that collision.

A balloon above 60,000 feet is not an immediate threat to aircraft. But balloons won't stay at 60,000 feet, they will come down slowly into altitudes that aircraft will fly, and eventually reach the ground where it could cause loss of life and/or property.

This is "fog of war" time. I'm not saying it's a war, only that things are unclear so close to the event like that of a battlefield full of gunsmoke. It's only after there's been time to do some investigation and contemplation that we can know what really happened. As expensive it might be to shoot down balloons there's a cost to allowing balloons to wander into places where they can collide with aircraft carrying innocent citizens.

 

Sorry, it hasn't happened except at low altitude. They took it with no issues. Aircraft weight and closing speed makes is no big deal at altitude unlike hail storms. Your fog of war is misplaced. I do think we are in WW3 already but balloons are in the negative numbers in my list of concerns.

Really you need to turn off the TV because it's got you spinning in circles for no good reason as intended. But if you continue try backing your claims with actual numbers and experience.

 

This whole "I know better than all of you and you're all fools" thing you put up in nearly every post is counter productive at best, Mark. How about instead of cryptic bullshit, tell us all how it really is, instead of just smug qrm? Can you even do that for us?

 

It's the pilot's job to look out the window and avoid 2 ton objects. If it's a child's party balloon, it might not be possible to see it in time, but the worst case scenario in that case, it seems to me, would be disabling one engine.

 

I'm not sure what you mean. As I recall the first balloon was shot down at 60,000 feet, the second at about 40,000 feet, and I don't recall the altitude of the third balloon but only that they considered it a threat to navigation. Nothing happened yet at low altitudes because the military acted before the balloons descended into altitudes common for passenger jet flights.

Passenger jets fly above the weather except when coming and going from airports. If there is a threat of hail detected then aircraft stay on the ground or above the storm, if they must then they divert to another airport to avoid hail. The payload on the first balloon was estimated at 7000 pounds, that's going to do more damage than any hailstone.

I don't know what you mean by "spinning in circles". I only pointed out two things. First, we don't know all the facts yet because the government is still picking up the pieces to find out what they shot down. Second, they acted out of an abundance of caution in shooting these balloons down because there is a teeny tiny chance of the worst case scenario where a jet collides with a balloon resulting in considerable loss of life and property. It's only after we learn more that we will know if this was a waste of money or not.

I recall someone in the Pentagon pointing out that winning a war costs a lot of money but it is less expensive than losing a war. So we spend millions of dollars on shooting down balloons because the teeny tiny chance of this not being a lost weather balloon would cost us far more. That's not "spinning in circles" that's just an understanding that NORAD takes their job seriously.

 

The 4th "Barroon" was taken out at 20,000 over Lake Huron. First Sidewinder missed it, had to take a second shot.

No Idea why we didn't just use the "GUNS" on the last 3, I know why we used the missile on the 1st.

Also where it was the WartHogs on the "Thumb" of MI could have zoomed there and "RTRTRTRT" it out

 

It is the pilot's job to look out the window to avoid 2 ton objects but this is something that pilots would not be looking for. These balloons aren't moving all that fast, especially in relation to airspeed. They aren't equipped with IFF, at least the ones from China aren't announcing their location. They are not exactly camouflaged but the balloon envelope is lightly colored like clouds and the payload could easily be mistaken for a flock of birds or mistaken for something on the ground. Human depth perception is very precise out to an arm's length but beyond that we find it difficult to tell something that is yards away from miles away unless there's clues in the proximity to gauge the size. It would be easy for these balloons to "sneak up" on a pilot unless they had some indication from traffic control to look out for it.

Again, I expect a collision with a passenger jet to be highly unlikely but there's that "golden BB" (that one tiny piece of flying debris among the vastness of blue skies that takes down an airplane) that could ruin the day for a lot of people. The people responsible for keeping the skies safe don't want a "golden BB" on their watch so they shoot down balloons that aren't where they should be.

 

There has been higher altitude hail strikes recorded. As far as the first balloon your numbers are estimated and I think you may need to check that, they haven't recovered all of it. Someone figured the rate of descent and figured under 1000# and that is still a lot for a high altitude package. Think 300k pounds of mass at mach 8 hitting a virtual stationary object of low mass. Odds are very good little to no damage past engine ingestion.

Some reference... A319 https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/...-bogota-airport-but-hits-pyrotechnic-balloon/

A321 at FL360 https://simpleflying.com/air-canada-weather-ballon-collision/

Balloons hate Airbus.

As far as your last reference, Tell me about Seymour Hersh, Russia assault, Or even Ohio.

Plenty of reason to keep the unwashed masses in the dark by making a big deal over nothing. Which this was.

 

Depleted Uranium. Might float at sea or the Yukon but anywhere else?

 

Airlines fly IFR so they generally rely on TCAS. No one stands watch.