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A few of my Navy pilot friends don't think much of Ward Carroll, and he doesn't say where he got his information, so we might want to take that video with a few grains of salt. But it IS interesting.
I want it shot down before it is allowed to traverse the US from NW to SE collecting data and transmitting it for a week. Please tell me that we are capable of using munitions other than a millions of dollars missile.
If not, then our military capability is more messed up than I thought.
Rocky has explained that several times now in this thread.
Some will die in hot pursuit
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Some of my colleagues and I discussed this very thing at work...............it would have been a lot more interesting and a lot cheaper to send up "balloon boy" with a rifle. Just put a redneck in a pressure suit.........a lawn chair and some helium balloons.😁
Sigh... No, a gun would NOT do it. That balloon was big enough to contain an entire football stadium. No amount of holes punched into it would have any serious effect for hours if not days.
I’m telling you. The 6.5 Creedmoor could have done it. Every gun magazine and internet article of the last 5 years assures me of it.
I finally picked one up recently. Planning to hunt New Zealand red stag later this year…….from my porch in Georgia. Just got to line up someone to mail me the meat. Hahaha!
I am not a SME so take this with a grain of salt. Every spy satellite in orbit can and does have the capability of reading a license plate. No need to send a balloon to do that job.
I am wondering if it has been a test of reaction. Launch several, send them over various countries/continents and gauge the fallout. Who shoots, what is sent, how long until noticed, citizen/media hubbub?
ETA: timed just before the State of the Union address being given this evening.
The F22 packs 480 rounds of 20mm ammo. It seems to me that 960, 3/4 inch holes would leak out a lot of helium.
Plus this would allow the balloon to make a soft landing. If they machine gunned it over the wilderness east of Billings, it would have settled to earth the next day in Missouri.
Well, Rocky, you know more about this stuff than I do, but as an interested bystander, it seems like that would have worked.
Saying that each hole is round, and is .8 inches wide, and using pi r squared, I calculate that, with 960 holes, this would be a total hole of 482 sq. inches.
In a balloon envelope several hundred feet in diameter, that's negligible. You'd have to work the math for the total square acreage of such a thing, I can't. Surface area of a globe say 400 feet in diameter.
Most people have no clue what flying at 60,000 feet entails. The air is so thin (less than 10% of sea-level pressure) that you cannot slow down or you will stall. Your engines may also quit. So, moving along at roughly 500 mph, and with a cannon range of 2,000 feet or so, you'd have less than one second to aim, fire, and then maneuver to miss the balloon. Which is also less effective in that thin air.
The Sidewinder has a range of two miles or so, which gave the pilot a few - but not many - seconds to acquire, arm, and fire the missile. Much better than using the gun, but still damn tough. It's the fact that target is stationary that presents all the problems.
Probably the most concerning thing about this whole ordeal is apparently Biden ordered it to be shot down while it was still over Montana, but he was overruled. Now, without getting too political here, just who in our military is overruling the CIC?
Some will die in hot pursuit
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
so Rocky what you are saying is that with todays technology, weapon, missles, ect, we have nothing that will bring down a weather balloon where we want, when we want??????????
Some will die in hot pursuit
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Can't believe this thing is getting so much attention... "Hey kids look at the balloon, pay no attention to whatever else is going on"
I don't care about what size or how many bullets, rockets, etc. it would take, it should have never been allowed to go as far as it did, but why waste a good distraction...
I'm sure tonight we will hear "hey Man I corn-popped that thing to oblivion" well ya'll might I won't be watching the POS give it's state of the union...
Comments
Geez, which way do you want it? Shoot it down or not? And if so, with what if not a missile?
Interesting vid Rocky.
A few of my Navy pilot friends don't think much of Ward Carroll, and he doesn't say where he got his information, so we might want to take that video with a few grains of salt. But it IS interesting.
I want it shot down before it is allowed to traverse the US from NW to SE collecting data and transmitting it for a week. Please tell me that we are capable of using munitions other than a millions of dollars missile.
If not, then our military capability is more messed up than I thought.
Rocky has explained that several times now in this thread.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Some of my colleagues and I discussed this very thing at work...............it would have been a lot more interesting and a lot cheaper to send up "balloon boy" with a rifle. Just put a redneck in a pressure suit.........a lawn chair and some helium balloons.😁
A GUN on a JET would be very sufficient to take down that balloon!
They wanted to use a missile, so they did.
They also shot the part that I would ASSUME has/had all the brains. IF that is the case, then that was either very dumb or very deliberate! SMH
Just sayin'
Sigh... No, a gun would NOT do it. That balloon was big enough to contain an entire football stadium. No amount of holes punched into it would have any serious effect for hours if not days.
I'm not going to explain this again.
I’m telling you. The 6.5 Creedmoor could have done it. Every gun magazine and internet article of the last 5 years assures me of it.
I finally picked one up recently. Planning to hunt New Zealand red stag later this year…….from my porch in Georgia. Just got to line up someone to mail me the meat. Hahaha!
I am not a SME so take this with a grain of salt. Every spy satellite in orbit can and does have the capability of reading a license plate. No need to send a balloon to do that job.
I am wondering if it has been a test of reaction. Launch several, send them over various countries/continents and gauge the fallout. Who shoots, what is sent, how long until noticed, citizen/media hubbub?
ETA: timed just before the State of the Union address being given this evening.
The F22 packs 480 rounds of 20mm ammo. It seems to me that 960, 3/4 inch holes would leak out a lot of helium.
Plus this would allow the balloon to make a soft landing. If they machine gunned it over the wilderness east of Billings, it would have settled to earth the next day in Missouri.
Well, Rocky, you know more about this stuff than I do, but as an interested bystander, it seems like that would have worked.
I will never disagree with @Rocky Raab when it comes to any type of flying object!😁
Someone may think they have a better solution but a lot of the problem has to do with altitude here.
If there was just a way we could get a few of these guys up there safely!
😁
Saying that each hole is round, and is .8 inches wide, and using pi r squared, I calculate that, with 960 holes, this would be a total hole of 482 sq. inches.
3.34 square foot hole total.
In a balloon envelope several hundred feet in diameter, that's negligible. You'd have to work the math for the total square acreage of such a thing, I can't. Surface area of a globe say 400 feet in diameter.
Most people have no clue what flying at 60,000 feet entails. The air is so thin (less than 10% of sea-level pressure) that you cannot slow down or you will stall. Your engines may also quit. So, moving along at roughly 500 mph, and with a cannon range of 2,000 feet or so, you'd have less than one second to aim, fire, and then maneuver to miss the balloon. Which is also less effective in that thin air.
The Sidewinder has a range of two miles or so, which gave the pilot a few - but not many - seconds to acquire, arm, and fire the missile. Much better than using the gun, but still damn tough. It's the fact that target is stationary that presents all the problems.
According to Brandon a mag full of 9mm should have brought it down.
400 feet wide. If it were laying flat, it would be 252,000 sq. ft. Of course it is not flat, so it would exceed 300,000 sq. ft.
vs. a 3 sq. ft. hole.
I see what you mean.
Probably the most concerning thing about this whole ordeal is apparently Biden ordered it to be shot down while it was still over Montana, but he was overruled. Now, without getting too political here, just who in our military is overruling the CIC?
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
😂😜😳🤣😱
"Independence Now, Independence Forever."
John Adams
so Rocky what you are saying is that with todays technology, weapon, missles, ect, we have nothing that will bring down a weather balloon where we want, when we want??????????
It appears that now they are saying the balloon was about 200 feet in diameter.
Change anyone's mind about the size and weight of the payload.......or the ability to "gun" it down??
Perhaps much of everyone's angst could have been avoided........if it was brought down when it was south of Alaska.
Again......just some $0.02 thoughts.
No. We did bring it down when and where we wished. With a single shot.
The issue is with the when and where, not the how.
Search tells me the surface area of a sphere is 4 pi x radius squared.
4 pi = 12.57
A 100-yard radius squared = 10,000
So the surface of a 200-yard diameter balloon (if we assume a near sphere) is 125,700 square yards or 1,131,300 square feet.
Gents, it's gonna take a whole damn buncha little bullet holes to let out much helium.
Is that apple or cherry pie?
And where did they get that much helium?
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Can't believe this thing is getting so much attention... "Hey kids look at the balloon, pay no attention to whatever else is going on"
I don't care about what size or how many bullets, rockets, etc. it would take, it should have never been allowed to go as far as it did, but why waste a good distraction...
I'm sure tonight we will hear "hey Man I corn-popped that thing to oblivion" well ya'll might I won't be watching the POS give it's state of the union...