Shoot down over Alaska and Canada

[Inertia17]

6 hours ago, Danger41 said:

mid-20’s and damn near hit a silver party balloon

Just like 90% of OIR these days. Chasing balloons before it was cool.

[FourFans]

3 hours ago, Inertia17 said:

Just like 90% of OIR these days. Chasing balloons before it was cool.

"Attention on guard, all aircraft in the vicinity of Kandahar city.  Untethered aerostat last seen at 2000 feet..."

Edited March 14, 2023 by FourFans

[brabus]

I remember almost hitting a PTIDS tether on a show of force…wouldn’t that have been a bitch if that’s how my story ended.

“So he died fighting valiantly in Afghanistan?”

”No, a balloon took him down”

”….”

[uhhello]

10 minutes ago, brabus said:

I remember almost hitting a PTIDS tether on a show of force…wouldn’t that have been a bitch if that’s how my story ended.

“So he died fighting valiantly in Afghanistan?”

”No, a balloon took him down”

”….”

Many a blade strike on the birthday balloons.  My favorites were the ones anchored near our LZ's in the tiny COPs and smaller FOBs

[tac airlifter]

15 hours ago, Danger41 said:

No shit, there I was. Flying on Sunday down to the panhandle up in the mid-20’s and damn near hit a silver party balloon. I could see the ribbon string hanging down and the silver inflated balloon clear as day. I don’t know the physical properties of helium or anything but it was hanging out up in the mid-20’s and -26°C. I couldn’t believe it didn’t pop. I also didn’t t have the 9x uncaged so I missed my chance at glory.

I can't believe you didn't turn around and get a prop kill. Great way to log one more air medal!

[HeyEng]

DIVADS released video footage (quite quickly I might add) of the collision between the MQ-9 and SU-27.
It appears the Russians were trying to dump fuel over the Reaper, probably to induce a compressor stall rather than deliberately run into the Reapers’s propeller (you can see the bent prop in the video)

And yet video of the shootdown over Lake Huron has yet to be released and probably never will be!

 

[HeyEng]

I’m not the only one to notice the incongruity between the release of the Reaper drone video and the complete lockdown of the three shootdowns. 
The Black Vault attempted to do a FOIA request and was denied due the the events being classified.

 

[SurelySerious]

In instances where the DOD sees an opportunity for strategic messaging, they’ve gotten pretty quick about getting unclass video out. Just only when they want to.

[HeyEng]

4 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

In instances where the DOD sees an opportunity for strategic messaging, they’ve gotten pretty quick about getting unclass video out. Just only when they want to.

And that is where the potential for abuse begins when you cherry pick which information you release. I can understand F-35 and maybe F22 video, but we probably have a decade or more of F-16 cockpit and sniper POD videos from our Punic wars so what’s so secret from shooting down a balloon or some sort of lighter than air vehicle. 
If we are classifying them out of embarrassment because they were commercial balloons then that undermines the whole classification system not to mention denying potential safety of flight information being passed on to aircrews or civilian air traffic. 
Also I wonder if NORAD have returned their radars back to their original settings to avoid detecting these things!

[FLEA]

26 minutes ago, HeyEng said:

And that is where the potential for abuse begins when you cherry pick which information you release. I can understand F-35 and maybe F22 video, but we probably have a decade or more of F-16 cockpit and sniper POD videos from our Punic wars so what’s so secret from shooting down a balloon or some sort of lighter than air vehicle. 
If we are classifying them out of embarrassment because they were commercial balloons then that undermines the whole classification system not to mention denying potential safety of flight information being passed on to aircrews or civilian air traffic. 
Also I wonder if NORAD have returned their radars back to their original settings to avoid detecting these things!

I think the bigger issue is the over or under reactions the video would more or less display would probably be invaluable to China/other competitors on how reactive our national decision making chain is. There is already some holes in that response that are very public now. No reason to widen those holes with additional data. 

[HeyEng]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

I think the bigger issue is the over or under reactions the video would more or less display would probably be invaluable to China/other competitors on how reactive our national decision making chain is. There is already some holes in that response that are very public now. No reason to widen those holes with additional data. 

Well does that mean that all future shoot downs will (or are) done in secret to protect the National decision chain? By that logic a video of a grunt throwing a grenade in a bunker exposes our decision making process in deploying and mobilizing troops to a conflict. 
The shoot down was the end product, the valuable intel is the NORAD, AWACS and other tracking assets that of course should remain secret. 
The AIM-9 were just the bayonet at the end of the whole process. 

[FLEA]

25 minutes ago, HeyEng said:

Well does that mean that all future shoot downs will (or are) done in secret to protect the National decision chain? By that logic a video of a grunt throwing a grenade in a bunker exposes our decision making process in deploying and mobilizing troops to a conflict. 
The shoot down was the end product, the valuable intel is the NORAD, AWACS and other tracking assets that of course should remain secret. 
The AIM-9 were just the bayonet at the end of the whole process. 

Theres a big difference in the decision change for a grunt taking out a bunker in a tactical situation compared to the nervous system response of the entire north American air defense system. But most presumably, none of these shoot downs happened without White House approval, which is a way bigger deal than NORAD/AWACS/etc..... How long from detection until shoot down did that process take? And to put it a different frame: we know publicly that the US detected--late--a balloon of a specific size moving at specific altitudes, specific speeds. Its probably more than public knowledge that most people in the security community view gaps in that recognition, and in response the US made changes to their C2ISR apparatuses to improve response/sensitivity. Then, the US shoots down three more objects...... of what size, speed, altitude, etc.....? How were those apparatuses adjusted for sensitivity and how honed was the accuracy on those adjustments? Was the US close to be successful with their adjustments? Or were they based on poor assumptions? And can I expect the US C2 apparatuses to use similarly successful or poor processes to make decisions in the future. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by FLEA

[TheNewGazmo]

No shit, there I was. Flying on Sunday down to the panhandle up in the mid-20’s and damn near hit a silver party balloon. I could see the ribbon string hanging down and the silver inflated balloon clear as day. I don’t know the physical properties of helium or anything but it was hanging out up in the mid-20’s and -26°C. I couldn’t believe it didn’t pop. I also didn’t t have the 9x uncaged so I missed my chance at glory.

Was flying from PHL to TPA earlier in the week on an airline trip and heard a DAL flight report to ATC about a balloon they passed under by 3-4k feet near FLASK (Virginia area). They must have been in the high 20's or low 30's.

Sent from my SM-F721U using Tapatalk

[FLEA]

1 minute ago, TheNewGazmo said:

Was flying from PHL to TPA earlier in the week on an airline trip and heard a DAL flight report to ATC about a balloon they passed under by 3-4k feet near FLASK (Virginia area). They must have been in the high 20's or low 30's.

Sent from my SM-F721U using Tapatalk
 

I remember flying at 220 or 230 once over NM and I saw a bright red "pennywise" balloon just go right up maybe 100 feet in front of us and I was like..... nope...... not diverting to Albuquerque......

[brabus]

22 minutes ago, FLEA said:

we know publicly that the US detected--late--

Hmmm, we’ll that’s one assumption without supporting evidence. The timeline was politically driven, not capabilities driven.

[HeyEng]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

Theres a big difference in the decision change for a grunt taking out a bunker in a tactical situation compared to the nervous system response of the entire north American air defense system. But most presumably, none of these shoot downs happened without White House approval, which is a way bigger deal than NORAD/AWACS/etc..... How long from detection until shoot down did that process take? And to put it a different frame: we know publicly that the US detected--late--a balloon of a specific size moving at specific altitudes, specific speeds. Its probably more than public knowledge that most people in the security community view gaps in that recognition, and in response the US made changes to their C2ISR apparatuses to improve response/sensitivity. Then, the US shoots down three more objects...... of what size, speed, altitude, etc.....? How were those apparatuses adjusted for sensitivity and how honed was the accuracy on those adjustments? Was the US close to be successful with their adjustments? Or were they based on poor assumptions? And can I expect the US C2 apparatuses to use similarly successful or poor processes to make decisions in the future. 

I guess my analogy of the grunt throwing the grenade was not the best. My point was that a video of a grunt chucking a grenade is the very tail end of a decision tree leading up to a conflict and has zero bearing on what lead up to that decision so classifying said video makes no sense. 
Contrast this to the first balloon where we have cockpit photos of a U-2 orbiting the balloon which demonstrates capabilities and response and probably should have been classified and well as pictures of the speedy recovery of the wreckage at sea.

[FLEA]

4 hours ago, brabus said:

Hmmm, we’ll that’s one assumption without supporting evidence. The timeline was politically driven, not capabilities driven.

Well..... this isnt political: https://abc7news.com/chinese-spy-balloon-donald-trump-balloons-news/12777025/

[FLEA]

3 hours ago, HeyEng said:

I guess my analogy of the grunt throwing the grenade was not the best. My point was that a video of a grunt chucking a grenade is the very tail end of a decision tree leading up to a conflict and has zero bearing on what lead up to that decision so classifying said video makes no sense. 
Contrast this to the first balloon where we have cockpit photos of a U-2 orbiting the balloon which demonstrates capabilities and response and probably should have been classified and well as pictures of the speedy recovery of the wreckage at sea.

I think it should all be weighed but the two competing interest here are 1.) would release help, degrade or do nothing for US interest and 2.) does the public interest in the events outstrip any potential harm. 

My only point is I can see the case can be made that release could be made that criteria for #2 may not be met. 

[brabus]

8 hours ago, FLEA said:

Well..... this isnt political: https://abc7news.com/chinese-spy-balloon-donald-trump-balloons-news/12777025/

That news piece makes me chuckle… Meh, believe what you want. 

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

That news piece makes me chuckle… Meh, believe what you want. 

I mean, there is a narrative that is available to the public and to the Chinese. Whether it's true or not is less important.

[Biff_T]

3 hours ago, brabus said:

That news piece makes me chuckle… Meh, believe what you want. 

I'm glad Biden was there to help discover these spy balloons.  It would have been way worse with someone from a different party in charge.  

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, Biff_T said:

I'm glad Biden was there to help discover these spy balloons.  It would have been way worse with someone from a different party in charge.  

I don't think the implication was that Biden was there to discover the balloons. I don't think the POTUS has anything to do with the whole F2T of any of that. 

That article wasn't posted to throw shade at Trump. It was posted because the Biden admin accused the US public of not caring when Trump let balloons fly over the US but suddenly it was a problem that he's not shooting them down over Montana. The Trump admin and the DoD later released info that said they weren't even aware the overflights were happening while Trump was in office, it didn't become apparent to the DoD until afterwards, and only upon review did they recognize this had been occurring since Trump's presidency. Now, I'm not "in the know" anymore and frankly don't care to be. But that is the public narrative and that is the narrative China is digesting--is that the US didn't recognize immediately that these overflights were happening, then when they did recognize it they tried to keep it hush from the public, and only after the public started seeing the balloons and asking questions, did the government become transparent with more info. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by FLEA

[brabus]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

they tried to keep it hush from the public, and only after the public started seeing the balloons and asking questions, did the government become transparent with more info.

So what is China’s takeaway from this? I’m not sure what they can take away from this that means anything beyond the square root of fuck all. I mean, I guess they can take away that the gov doesn’t want to talk about stuff like this, but then felt pressured to when joe blow posted it. Cool, you caught the Tater China, well done. 

[RASH]

I don't think the implication was that Biden was there to discover the balloons. I don't think the POTUS has anything to do with the whole F2T of any of that. 
That article wasn't posted to throw shade at Trump. It was posted because the Biden admin accused the US public of not caring when Trump let balloons fly over the US but suddenly it was a problem that he's not shooting them down over Montana. The Trump admin and the DoD later released info that said they weren't even aware the overflights were happening while Trump was in office, it didn't become apparent to the DoD until afterwards, and only upon review did they recognize this had been occurring since Trump's presidency. Now, I'm not "in the know" anymore and frankly don't care to be. But that is the public narrative and that is the narrative China is digesting--is that the US didn't recognize immediately that these overflights were happening, then when they did recognize it they tried to keep it hush from the public, and only after the public started seeing the balloons and asking questions, did the government become transparent with more info. 

You’re ing ignorant


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[HeyEng]

Maybe this is what was shot down over Lake Huron!

https://www.festo.com/us/en/e/about-festo/research-and-development/bionic-learning-network/highlights-from-2006-to-2009/airjelly-id_33841/