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US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

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Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#411

Post by projectazorian »

gnicholas wrote: post #378
metadat wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than tens of thousands of dollars, military aircraft are incredibly expensive to operate and maintain. Beyond the obvious fuel costs, every hour of flight time is followed up by N hours of service. If I remember correctly, the F-22 Raptor is the champ in terms of highest ratio of service required per hour of flight (40:1). The F-35 clocks in at 4-8 hours of service per hour flown (6:1). One example from the arti…

Does the flight time for these operations reduce the amount of time pilots would otherwise have to spend training and staying current?

Flight hours are flight hours, and it’s very rare to do any type of offensive air-to-air operation outside of an exercise, so I’m sure it was a great training opportunity.

Less thrilled about it as someone who happened to be on a flight transiting nearby airspace last night, and who is familiar with incidents like KAL 007.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#412

Post by ProAm »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #393
r3trohack3r wrote: post #95

There was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently. The general premise is this: U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on spending. So they got creative and loaded the equivalent of Pringles cans up with a bunch of sensors, hooked them up to either a balloons or relatively cheap unmanned aircraft, and sent them through U.S. airspace to collect intelligence. They'd occasionally get caught (perhaps o…

When the US spends on the military, where does the money go?

To the US economy.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#413

Post by flangola7 »

united893 wrote: post #233
nostromo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those UFOs were lens flares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs Turns out we like to spend gobs of money even when we're just chasing our shadow.

That video helps explain one property one of the UFO videos (the rotation) but doesn't explain the rest. Doesn't explain the Tic Tac videos. It does not explain why these were observed on radar as well. While some of the videos have explanation, I would kindly encourage you to look at this with more curiosity.

I wouldn't trust anything that originated on TikTok

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#414

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

cm2187 wrote: post #326
jcrites wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shootdowns did not involve using airplane guns/cannons. Those are less accurate, especially at the engagement range (the aircraft were at 40,000 ft., IIRC, and shooting at 60,000 ft. balloons), and would have likely damaged the payload. The shoot-downs used AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles (per TFA). We also don’t know the ceiling altitude of the F-22 since it’s classified. However, the F-22 can carry the AIM-120 Advanc…

Yeah but none of those things are cheap. A cannon is.

Who says it needs to be cheap? If your budget for X is $Y, there is no benefit to spending less than $Y when you need to do X.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#415

Post by derbOac »

mzs wrote: post #404

latest: https://www.voanews.com/a/us-shoots-down-mysterious-high-alt... >According to the Pentagon, the object first moved into U.S. airspace late Thursday and was tracked by U.S. Northern Command as it moved over the skies of northeastern Alaska, staying consistently at about 12,000 meters (40,000 feet). >Pentagon and White House officials said U.S. planes approached the object, said to be the size of a small car, a…

I'm curious what the definition of an aircraft is, because I'd think anything manmade that is meant to traverse the atmosphere would qualify.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#416

Post by mtnGoat »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #393
r3trohack3r wrote: post #95

There was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently. The general premise is this: U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on spending. So they got creative and loaded the equivalent of Pringles cans up with a bunch of sensors, hooked them up to either a balloons or relatively cheap unmanned aircraft, and sent them through U.S. airspace to collect intelligence. They'd occasionally get caught (perhaps o…

When the US spends on the military, where does the money go?

Contractors mostly, since everything they use must be acquired from a vendor.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#417

Post by ezconnect »

ProAm wrote: post #412
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the US spends on the military, where does the money go?

To the US economy.

That's the reason why US is the biggest arms dealer in the world and wars are a boon to its economy.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#418

Post by meese712 »

jcynix wrote: post #223
pixl97 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure they'd head towards the US too, but I'm not exactly sure of the prevailing winds.

You can check wind conditions with https://www.windy.com to find out …

I checked, looks like they'd probably fly into China right now (maybe Hong Kong) if released from Taiwan

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#419

Post by m3kw9 »

John23832 wrote: post #356
r3trohack3r wrote: post #95

There was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently. The general premise is this: U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on spending. So they got creative and loaded the equivalent of Pringles cans up with a bunch of sensors, hooked them up to either a balloons or relatively cheap unmanned aircraft, and sent them through U.S. airspace to collect intelligence. They'd occasionally get caught (perhaps o…

It’s not theory, it’s actually military practice. Adversaries spend 100k for a military grade drone. What do shoot it down with? A 1M dollar Patriot? Whatever you choose will be orders of magnitude more expensive than the drone. Israel’s Iron Dome has the same issue. It costs massively more for defense than attack.

Ain’t like 100 of ballon’s were shot down. So it doesn’t apply here

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#420

Post by cdash »

LarryMullins wrote: post #314
batch12 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I have read these 3 were just recently 'discovered' and weren't known prior to Biden coming into office. How this can be true, I have no clue. Either way, I don't remember people posting balloon pictures a few years ago. I have a feeling that if they had transited during the previous administration, and people knew, they would have nailed this criticism to Trump too.

> How this can be true, I have no clue. Careful re-analysis of old radar data, perhaps.

Its definitely not true. They absolutely knew these were up in the air the entire time.
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