Shoot down over Alaska and Canada

[uhhello]

Last three shootdown targets are suspected to be commercial with no china connections apparently.  As of now. 

[TheNewGazmo]

Last three shootdown targets are suspected to be commercial with no china connections apparently.  As of now. 

All of these commercial contraptions should be required to have an ADS-B out device on them. I'm not sure why this hasn't already been implemented with how cheaply this can be done. If you are going to deploy a device that can enter our NAS, it should be able to be tracked.

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[Buddy Spike]

10 hours ago, TheNewGazmo said:

All of these commercial contraptions should be required to have an ADS-B out device on them. I'm not sure why this hasn't already been implemented with how cheaply this can be done. If you are going to deploy a device that can enter our NAS, it should be able to be tracked.

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You want ADS-B on a kid’s party balloon?  

[Prozac]

50 minutes ago, Buddy Spike said:

You want ADS-B on a kid’s party balloon?  

No, but when Podunk, Nowhere Community College launches an atmospheric study ballon, it should probably have some sort of squawk. 

[TheNewGazmo]

You want ADS-B on a kid’s party balloon?  

I believe I said, "All of these commercial contraptions should be required to have an ADS-B out device on them.". - that would not include a kid's party balloon.

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[Buddy Spike]

1 hour ago, TheNewGazmo said:

I believe I said, "All of these commercial contraptions should be required to have an ADS-B out device on them.". - that would not include a kid's party balloon.

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You’re right, sorry.  What you quoted called the last three “commercial balloons.”  Which, I guess is correct, if you consider a party balloon “commercial.”

We’re chasing ghosts.  

[Clayton Bigsby]

Ghosts big enough to have a heat signature for an IR missile to track on, apparently.  

I don’t think the concept of a transponder or ADS-B out requirement is unreasonable.  At a certain point it’s required for drones, and obviously it’s possible to blur the lines between a balloon and a UAS. 

Just my personal observation, but working ATC all last week there was a bunch of depicted precipitation on my display, while we were 10+SM CLR, that normally isn’t there.  Had to manually turn it off each time I took position, annoying.  Now they run software updates and adjustments all the time, but that idea that the filters all got adjusted across the NAS after senior admin got caught with their pants down with the big spy balloons, and now we’re seeing a bunch of stuff that’s been there the whole time that was previously just filtered out, seems plausible to me. 

[Homestar]

Hobbyist RC planes and UASs larger than a half pound and such are going to require RemoteID starting in 2023 which seems to be a lot like ADS-B-out.

Seems like weather balloons and the like should have the same requirement.

https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/remote_id

[HeyEng]

The powers that be keep insisting that these are not balloons, but also not saying that they are lighter than air vehicles, i.e. dirigible or airship which is what I assume they are. I don’t know why there is such a marble mouthed narrative to these latest shootdowns compared to the first balloon, but maybe because there were photographs of the first balloon out there so it was much harder to control the narrative!

[BashiChuni]

biden administration is understandably inept. i'd say the public deserves answers about 4 "shoot downs" in a month over friendly terriroty.

interesting how loose the ROE was/is if we truly don't know what we shot at.

Edited February 15, 2023 by BashiChuni

[HossHarris]

5 hours ago, Clayton Bigsby said:

Ghosts big enough to have a heat signature for an IR missile to track on, apparently. 

It’s an IMAGING IR missile. 
it doesn’t have to be hot to track…. It just has to be different than the blue sky background. And everything is different than blue sky (generally) even a white balloon with zero additional heat source. 

[TheNewGazmo]

The powers that be keep insisting that these are not balloons, but also not saying that they are lighter than air vehicles, i.e. dirigible or airship which is what I assume they are. I don’t know why there is such a marble mouthed narrative to these latest shootdowns compared to the first balloon, but maybe because there were photographs of the first balloon out there so it was much harder to control the narrative!

Maybe we are embarrassed we got trigger happy and went through over half a million bucks worth of missiles shooting down research projects/part balloons.

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[uhhello]

1 hour ago, TheNewGazmo said:

 

Maybe we are embarrassed we got trigger happy and went through over half a million bucks worth of missiles shooting down research projects/part balloons.

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closer to 2 million easy 🙂

[Clayton Bigsby]

4 hours ago, HossHarris said:

It’s an IMAGING IR missile. 
it doesn’t have to be hot to track…. It just has to be different than the blue sky background. And everything is different than blue sky (generally) even a white balloon with zero additional heat source. 

Huh, I didn’t know that, thanks. 

[brabus]

On 2/14/2023 at 4:57 PM, uhhello said:

Last three shootdown targets are suspected to be commercial with no china connections apparently.  As of now. 

Ha! I’m glad this bullshit is finally getting the attention it deserves.  

[pawnman]

[hindsight2020]

7 hours ago, brabus said:

Ha! I’m glad this bullshit is finally getting the attention it deserves.  

 

Don't be a playa hata. Those air medal commendations aren't gonna write themselves. A kill's a kill homey.  😄

[Lord Ratner]

15 hours ago, HossHarris said:

It’s an IMAGING IR missile. 
it doesn’t have to be hot to track…. It just has to be different than the blue sky background. And everything is different than blue sky (generally) even a white balloon with zero additional heat source. 

Not necessarily depending on what type of balloon it was.

 

If it was a rubber birthday style balloon, then yes, it would have a different IR signature than the sky, but if it was one of the metallic balloons it would depend heavily on what type of paint was on it.

 

Metal is an IR reflector, so if you look at a baking sheet pan through a thermal camera, it looks like you're looking at a perfect mirror, even though in the visible spectrum, you don't see a reflection.

 

With the round surface of a metallic balloon, I suspect it would be incredibly difficult to get some sort of reliable lock on it. Depending on what angle you are coming at it from, it might be reflecting the ground, or the sky, or more likely some sort of distorted combination of both. But again, this depends on the balloon and whether or not the metallic surface was covered by paint, which emits IR predictably.

 

I bought a flir camera a few years back and it's actually pretty neat to see the world in that spectrum. Yeah I got to see it in the military from one of the cameras on the plane for hours and hours and hours, but it's a lot different when you are looking at things within 100 ft versus thousands of feet away.

 

Add to that that thin plastics and rubbers are nearly IR transparent, then even a rubber balloon would be a rather difficult target. If you look at a shower curtain through a flir camera you just see what's behind it. It does dampen the image a little bit, but not enough that I think you would have an easy time getting a lock on something made of very thin rubber from thousands of feet away.

 

As you said, the sky is a very high contrast background (since there is very little heat being emitted from empty space), but that also assumes a clear sky

Edited February 16, 2023 by Lord Ratner

[Sim]

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/the-us-airforce-may-have-shot-down-an-amateur-radio-pico-balloon-over-canada/

Quote

Since the famous takedown of a suspected Chinese spy balloon, US jets have shot down a total of three more unidentified balloon objects, now confirmed to have been 'commercial or benign'. There is speculation that at least one these three objects may have been an amateur radio 'pico' balloon.

 

[brabus]

2 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

 

Don't be a playa hata. Those air medal commendations aren't gonna write themselves. A kill's a kill homey.  😄

Not what I was referring to.

@Lord Ratner incorrect assertions as they apply to the discussion at hand. 

[Blue]

1 hour ago, Sim said:

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/the-us-airforce-may-have-shot-down-an-amateur-radio-pico-balloon-over-canada/

Interesting link, and quite the rabbit hole.  Seems like a fascinating hobby.

Some quotes from the article below.  I'm amazed that these can not only circumnavigate the entire globe, but can do it multiple times.

Well built balloons can totally circumnavigate the globe several times over several months before degrading.

There is speculation that at least one of the objects shot down over Canada, Yukon by a US Air Force jet may have been amateur radio pico balloon K9YO-15 which was launched from Illinois on October 10 2022. It was on it's seventh circumnavigation of the globe after being aloft for 123 days.

The launch blog post indicates that the K9YO-15 balloon was flying a silver mylar 32" sphere SAG balloon which appears to be this one from balloons.online. 

[ClearedHot]

4 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Not necessarily depending on what type of balloon it was.

 

If it was a rubber birthday style balloon, then yes, it would have a different IR signature than the sky, but if it was one of the metallic balloons it would depend heavily on what type of paint was on it.

 

Metal is an IR reflector, so if you look at a baking sheet pan through a thermal camera, it looks like you're looking at a perfect mirror, even though in the visible spectrum, you don't see a reflection.

 

With the round surface of a metallic balloon, I suspect it would be incredibly difficult to get some sort of reliable lock on it. Depending on what angle you are coming at it from, it might be reflecting the ground, or the sky, or more likely some sort of distorted combination of both. But again, this depends on the balloon and whether or not the metallic surface was covered by paint, which emits IR predictably.

 

I bought a flir camera a few years back and it's actually pretty neat to see the world in that spectrum. Yeah I got to see it in the military from one of the cameras on the plane for hours and hours and hours, but it's a lot different when you are looking at things within 100 ft versus thousands of feet away.

 

Add to that that thin plastics and rubbers are nearly IR transparent, then even a rubber balloon would be a rather difficult target. If you look at a shower curtain through a flir camera you just see what's behind it. It does dampen the image a little bit, but not enough that I think you would have an easy time getting a lock on something made of very thin rubber from thousands of feet away.

 

As you said, the sky is a very high contrast background (since there is very little heat being emitted from empty space), but that also assumes a clear sky

Tell me you don't know AIM-9X without telling me you don't know AIM-9X.

[BashiChuni]

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/16/china-spy-balloons-biden-addresses-nation-on-shootdowns-of-aerial-phenomena.html

 

pretty embarrassing all around for this administration. clowns. and higher leadership in the DoD.

[Lord Ratner]

3 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Tell me you don't know AIM-9X without telling me you don't know AIM-9X.

Don't think I said anything about AIM-anything.

 

The physics of light transmission don't change based on the platform.

 

"A white balloon" with zero additional heat source, as quoted, has a particular IR signature. A very, very, very mild one. Looks more like a shadow than an object, depending on the IR sources behind it.

 

Now, the equipment attached to that balloon is a different story, and from the video of the first shoot down, it looks like it was the equipment that was targeted, not the balloon. Wonder why.

 

Looks like the other balloon was mylar, which is yet another signature type, and much brighter than thin rubber

[ClearedHot]

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

Don't think I said anything about AIM-anything.

 

The physics of light transmission don't change based on the platform.

 

"A white balloon" with zero additional heat source, as quoted, has a particular IR signature. A very, very, very mild one. Looks more like a shadow than an object, depending on the IR sources behind it.

 

Now, the equipment attached to that balloon is a different story, and from the video of the first shoot down, it looks like it was the equipment that was targeted, not the balloon. Wonder why.

 

Looks like the other balloon was mylar, which is yet another signature type, and much brighter than thin rubber