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US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

bbc.com

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Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#111

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #79
marstall wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

article states that it was on Canada's orders. I didn't know that was a thing, Canadian PM having the power to command US jets. Can anyone who knows more about NORAD weigh in with an ELI5?

Authorize US jets you mean? Canada is a close US ally, norad allows both US and Canada to learn about the object at the same time, and US may have offered to shoot it down with Canada’s permission since we probably have some new patrols in the area since Friday’s ballon

A close enough ally that the US was willing to sell nuclear tipped SAMs to Canada during the cold war. The only reason it didn't happen is because the general public flipped shit when they found out about the plan.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#112

Post by Alifatisk »

colechristensen wrote: post #40
none_to_remain wrote: post #22

So how long has the CCP been sending these balloons and what caused the USG to start talking about them?

There was a big one easily observed by ordinary people which got news attention. This is why it’s being talked about now.

So in other words, China have been doing this a long time and it wasn’t up until now when the public noticed it that the US interfered?

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#113

Post by krapp »

dogma1138 wrote: post #102
detrites wrote: post #77

Is there a plausible explanation as to why the US government has not announced objects 2 & 3 are balloons, if they are balloons? They call them "objects", yet must know what they are. They wouldn't randomly missile unknowns. If it's for reasons of secrecy, why announce it at all? The second one was in the middle of nowhere, it could easily have been ignored, or dismissed as a military exercise if anyone had made a fu…

Because at least the 2nd object wasn’t, it was described as a cylinder about the size of a car which is where all the UFO tic-tac victory mark memes came from.

> Because at least the 2nd object wasn’t, it was described as a cylinder about the size of a car

Source?

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#114

Post by dtx1 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #102
detrites wrote: post #77

Is there a plausible explanation as to why the US government has not announced objects 2 & 3 are balloons, if they are balloons? They call them "objects", yet must know what they are. They wouldn't randomly missile unknowns. If it's for reasons of secrecy, why announce it at all? The second one was in the middle of nowhere, it could easily have been ignored, or dismissed as a military exercise if anyone had made a fu…

Because at least the 2nd object wasn’t, it was described as a cylinder about the size of a car which is where all the UFO tic-tac victory mark memes came from.

Yeah, source please, i have not read anything about this and that would be HIGHLY interesting.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#115

Post by dogma1138 »

consumer451 wrote: post #108
dogma1138 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MALE/HALE UAVs have an endurance of 30> hours and a range of nearly 4-5000 (7000km>) nautical miles without aerial refueling.

Thanks, I didn't realize the extent of the range. Although, if launched from mainland China a round-trip to Canada is still pretty darn far, eh? But now I am playing the guessing game a bit too much for my own liking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-altitude_long-endurance...

You assume it was launched from the ground, both air and sea launches are quite possible too.

Also there is the Arctic you can take off and land on ice and use either an icebreaker or a sub for deployment and recovery.

China does have some advanced drones with a substantial range e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou_WZ-7_Soaring_Dragon

Ofc how they perform in reality vs their published specs no one knows.

In the past at least likes of China and Russia tended to inflate the specs that they made public whilst the west tended to keep the real figures hidden and release far more conservative figures especially when it came to things like maximum speed, range and operational ceiling.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#116

Post by [deleted] »

avalys wrote: post #31
marcell wrote: post #14

How much if this is just awareness bias, where the media reports commonplace events that were previously ignored?

The response is certainly novel. The F-22 had zero recorded air-to-air kills a week ago, and as of today has three. Whether these intrusions by unknown objects were commonplace and previously had been ignored, is something I've wondered about myself.

[deleted]

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#117

Post by cma »

anigbrowl wrote: post #35
POiNTx wrote: post #16

I wonder what the cost is of sending such a balloon vs shooting it down. If I was China I would be sending thousands of these. It's not going to cause an all out war, but it does impose some security threat which should be dealt with and can't be ignored.

This is the wrong question. Large militaries spend a fortune anyway on firing ordnance anyway for training purposes. Doing so in actually uncertain conditions is in many ways more valuable than pre-planned exercises. There's also a political attention focusing effect that allows rapid realignment of priorities away from status0quo maintenance towards novel readiness postures. So in strategic terms, it can be a net be…

It might not be the best thing to do our training with complex adversarial information gathering devices rather than more inert target dummies under our control.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#118

Post by BobbyJo »

rgbrenner wrote: post #97
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weather balloons are tiny, enough so they need to attach a specific device to reflect radar signals properly and these massive payloads are not innocent climate collection devices

That's speculation on your part. The DoD has not released any information on what the payload of any of these balloons contains. And going by the size isn't conclusive. The ICESat-2 weather satellite is over 3000lbs, for example. So instruments larger than found on a typical weather balloon clearly do have their place in weather/climate science.

> That's speculation on your part. The DoD has not released any information on what the payload of any of these balloons contains.

Not true: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-carried-antenna...

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#119

Post by bailoon »

rgbrenner wrote: post #38

I think China erred by sending such a large balloon that was visible to the naked eye, causing the American public to demand it be shot down. There's no hard rule about where national airspace ends and space begins.. a lot of times they fly too high for planes to reach, and under certain circumstances balloons are allowed through national airspace.. so if the balloon isn't causing a problem (like being a hazard to ai…

[flagged]

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#120

Post by BobbyJo »

throwaway4good wrote: post #109
rgbrenner wrote: post #38

I think China erred by sending such a large balloon that was visible to the naked eye, causing the American public to demand it be shot down. There's no hard rule about where national airspace ends and space begins.. a lot of times they fly too high for planes to reach, and under certain circumstances balloons are allowed through national airspace.. so if the balloon isn't causing a problem (like being a hazard to ai…

[flagged]

Do you honestly think shooting down a balloon in your own airspace is an aggressive act?
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