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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

#51

Post by perihelions »

Hopefully this isn't on that kind of hair-trigger that shoots down civilian airliners by mistake. It's happened literally dozens of times [0], so it's hard to believe any kind of blanket "this can't possibly happen because..." logic.

Seems to be particularly likely to happen in panicky situations, or when someone has something to prove. E.g., the Soviet-American tensions surrounding an American spy plane, a RC-135, were a factor in the Soviets shooting down KAL-007 (they thought it was the RC-135) [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

moose_man wrote: post #27
bmitc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably didn't help that an Air Force general was openly and loudly proclaiming that war is inevitable. I looked up some speeches of his, and he is off the rails, like the German general in All Quiet Along the Western Front .

I mean, it's nothing compared to the internal speeches that China gives its troops. Heck it's nothing compared to the speeches Xi gives internally to troops. Chinese troops are currently training on their missile corp on models of US aircraft carriers. Edit: Chinese propaganda video of attack on Guam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-forc... https://…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by operatingthetan »

post_break wrote: post #40
sammalloy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Kirby of the National Security Council said he would not call it a balloon, according to NBC News. What was it then?

A drone of some sort, something with an engine if they used a heat seeking missile.

"Heat seeking" is a bit of a misnomer. It uses thermal imaging to determine contrast against the background and then heads to the center of the detected object. No engine required. This is the same missile they used last week.

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

#54

Post by themodelplumber »

exabrial wrote: post #34

"Not sure what the object was" "Shot Down using an Aim9x" That actually narrows it down a bit. Heat seeking warhead.

It's considered a "system-guided" missile, not heat-seeking. It's much more advanced than the original heat-seeking concept and integrates additional optical technology in the fuse.

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

#55

Post by flangola7 »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #28
sschueller wrote: post #9

Would be hilarious if they shutdown some high school project with a Go-Pro attached to it.

> The object, which the U.S. learned about on Thursday evening, was described as "roughly the size of a small car," Kirby said.

A high school project could definitely launch a car sized balloon.

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

#56

Post by jollyllama »

snerbles wrote: post #41
exabrial wrote: post #34

"Not sure what the object was" "Shot Down using an Aim9x" That actually narrows it down a bit. Heat seeking warhead.

Unlike previous Sidewinder iterations with a single-sensor thermal seeker, the AIM-9X has a thermal imaging seeker - it was used to shoot down the much larger balloon last week. https://www.navair.navy.mil/product/AIM-9X-Sidewinder

So it doesn't really narrow it down that much, then. Could be a plane, could be a balloon.

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

#57

Post by horsawlarway »

sschueller wrote: post #19
thinking001001 wrote: post #13

I dread to think of all the state-funded technology companies with backdoor-ed firmware/software coming out of China

I don't see much difference between Chinese routers having back-doors and what Cisco has peddled to its customers all these years either willfully or just incompetence.

Yeah... I would say a large part of why I'm skeptical of Chinese made computing devices is because I understand what the US has been doing with ours over the last 50 years.

That said... from a national security perspective - it is still the right call to be wary of devices that are likely compromised by another nation. You should just be assuming that if you didn't make them locally (as in under your own territorial control) they are compromised during production. For everyone. Everyone should be acting with that as the default.

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

#58

Post by 1970-01-01 »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #43
1970-01-01 wrote: post #20

We need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one balloon. Send over the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler (HELIOS) to protect the west coast.

You must be an eve online player.

The laser is real. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373672

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

#60

Post by harles »

themodelplumber wrote: post #21
larrywright wrote: post #14

The F-22 has gone from zero kills to two in under a week.

Indeed. If you charted those it'd be likely show as a breakout event vs. relevant moving averages at this point. So from that POV, one may start to think about a quick buildup of momentum in the general direction of F-22s shooting things down, or air combat, or just combat, etc. Not so much to predict the future, as to ideate and prepare frames of mind for potential changes in circumstance.

Extrapolating from here, expect 2^52 objects shot down by F22s this time next year.
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