A Chinese Spy Balloon?

[MIflyer]

You've got to be kidding me! We used spy balloons in the pre-U-2 days.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM2oMldnsvc

 

[GrauGeist]

That looks like the one spotted over Japan last March.

 

[special ed]

Rather than shoot it down, we should simply capture it.

 

[cvairwerks]

Not much you can use to bring it down, other than an ASAT or maybe an AC-130's 105 mm canon.

 

[GrauGeist]

Not much you can use to bring it down, other than an ASAT or maybe an AC-130's 105 mm canon.

Great chance for the USN to play with test it's laser weapon.

 

[cvairwerks]

Great chance for the USN to play with test it's laser weapon.

A little tough to get the boat into Montana, I would think.......

 

[GrauGeist]

The Army has it's own 50Kw laser system on Strykers, different than the Navy's AN/SEQ-3.

Not sure what the Air Force has going on, though.

This might just come down to the Air Force sending an F-15 up there to kill it - if an F-15 can kill a satellite, a balloon is not a problem.

 

[SaparotRob]

Wouldn't a weather balloon be a tougher adversary than a Po-2?

 

[ThomasP]

The latest Patriot variants have the altitude and FC capability to shoot it down.

 

[MIflyer]

Thing is, we need something that will poke a small hole in it so it descends slow enough that it is in one piece when it hits the ground.

The JCS nixed shooting down, saying the falling debris could do harm. In a heavily populated area like Montana, the pieces could hit a moose or something. And it probably has materials that have been found to cause cancer in the State of California; just about everything does.

 

[ThomasP]

Apparently the balloon is not at a particularly high altitude. It is moving along at 55,000-60,000 ft, depending on the air pressure in the area. An F-15 flying light could probably gun it down if necessary.

It also was just reported by the Pentagon hat it has the ability to slowly change its course to some degree over a period of time.

 

[MIflyer]

In WWII the Japanese launched 15,000 balloon attacks on the US mainland. Here is what I believe to be the definitive work on the subject. This book is one of the Smithsonian Annals of Flight series and is available for free on the Internet: Smithsonian Annals of Flight

 

[MIflyer]

It also was just reported by the Pentagon hat it has the ability to slowly change its course to some degree over a period of time.

I wonder if it has propulsion or uses the hot air balloon technique of changing altitude.

 

[OldGeezer]

Seems likely that the plunging Arctic air mass bringing frigid temperatures far south into the US unexpectedly carried the balloon along. No biggie.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I wouldn't mind us shooting it down, myself.

 

[SaparotRob]

Let's grab a blimp and some shotguns!

 

[ww2restorer]

And the USA has no spy devices over China? I have a bridge to sell ya.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It flew over our house a few hours ago. My buddy about 30 minutes down the road got a pic of it.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

And the USA has no spy devices over China? I have a bridge to sell ya.

Pretty sure ours are in orbit, which isn't really sovereign territory, unlike airspace.

Mind you, we lost a P-3 in disputed airspace while doing ELINT about 20 years ago near the Chinese coast. It got rammed by a Chinese fighter. If you would like an equivalence you may wish to consider that.

Of course we do strategic recon. We have the good sense nowadays to put it in space, where national boundaries don't matter.

 

[MIflyer]

Reports of a smoke trial resembling a missile launch and a massive explosion over Montana. The governor of the state says he does not know what it was yet. But since the China Spy Balloon was last reported over Kansas it must have not been associated with the explosion.

Prior to the U-2 we used balloons to spy on the USSR. When the U-2 was found out it was described as a "civilian weather research flight."

A friend of mine was a Public Affairs Officer in the USAF in the 50's and was supporting a visit by journalists to a USAF base in Turkey and received word that a U-2 was going to be landing. They knew better than to rush the reporters inside so they could not see it and were careful to not call attention to it. But my friend noted that one reporter turned around and took a photo of the U-2 as it landed. A little while later he went up to the reporter and said he was sorry but he just found out that one of the aircraft they had shown them earlier on the other side of the runway had some classified hardware and he was going to have to ask for the film he had. The reporter said he understood and gave him the film that had the U-2 on it, without realizing what the real classified item was.