The Balloon

[Jackalope]

Why weren't the three Chinese balloons that wandered into American airspace during the previous administration shot down if they're so worrisome, I wonder? Actually, I don't wonder.

China Joe ™ wasn't in office then, obviously.

[The Grand Nudger]

Tally sits at three balloons in a week. It's almost as if there are tons of them at any point, if anyone ever wants to shoot at balloons...or something.

[h4ym4n]

Wonder why they choose to use a million dollar missile to shoot down a ballon when one 50cal round would possibly make the payload fall slower with a drone parachute effect from the deflating/deflated ballon?

[The Grand Nudger]

I think they're only a few hundred k - but it's probably an altitude issue/training opportunity. The lower ones it pretty much has to be training. Someone more familiar with the f-22 would know.

[The Grand Nudger]

Update on the first balloon is exactly as expected. Quantico says it was "capable of signals intelligence" which is one way to say that it has an antenna - and that that it didn't have any capabilities above and beyond what china already had through other means.

[Anomalocaris]

Wonder why they choose to use a million dollar missile to shoot down a ballon when one 50cal round would possibly make the payload fall slower with a drone parachute effect from the deflating/deflated ballon?

There are two general types of high altitude balloons, pressure equilibrated and constant volume

Pressure equilibrated balloons expand and contract with ambient air pressure to keep lifting gas at the same pressure as the air outside.   It will be hard to take town with a few pin pricks because the pressure of lifting gas is the same as ambient air pressure outside, so leakage of lifting gas through a few bullet hole would be very slow, and the balloon is very big, probably on the order of a few hundred feet across.

Constant volume balloons uses stronger envelop material that allows it to withstand pressure difference between lifting gas and ambient air to hold the lifting gas at constant pressure amd volume.    Causing these to lose lifting gas is easier because their lifting gas is under pressure.   So they will leak lifting gas faster.   But even so it is a big balloon.   So it would still take a while.

According to the pentagon,  the balloon is not disposable because the Chinese have always recovered this type of balloon at the completion of their missions.   This suggest the paths and destinations of this type of balloon can be targets fairly precisely, to the recovery area at least.    This also suggest to me these balloons are navigable.      Balloons navigate by changing their altitude to take advantage of different wind directions at different altitudes.   This would seem to be something difficult to do with a pressurized constant volume balloon, which can go up easily enough by dropping ballast, but would have trouble coming down unless it release lifting gas and thus lose pressure and volume.   So this suggest the Chinese balloon is a pressure equilibrated balloon that would be very hard to take down by poking some 50 cal or 20mm holes in the envelope.

[Anomalocaris]

Update on the first balloon is exactly as expected.  Quantico says it was "capable of signals intelligence" which is one way to say that it has an antenna - and that that it didn't have any capabilities above and beyond what china already had through other means.

I think the balloon was said to be capable of signal intelligence because of the result of analysis of the intercepted telemetry from the balloon, not because it had an antenna.

[Anomalocaris]

What I am curious about what is this second object that was shot down? What sort of threatening object can it possibly be that flies at 40k feet but is the size of a small car??

That really does sound like an escaped small weather balloon, or even an escaped big party balloon.

[Leonardo17]

[Thumpalumpacus]

Wonder why they choose to use a million dollar missile to shoot down a ballon when one 50cal round would possibly make the payload fall slower with a drone parachute effect from the deflating/deflated ballon?

One .50 cal is not going to take it down before it gets back to China, I bet. Aside from that, we don't have any aircraft capable of flying that high which is armed with an M2, so getting that bullet up there is going to be a trick in and of itself.

I think they're only a few hundred k - but it's probably an altitude issue/training opportunity.  The lower ones it pretty much has to be training.  Someone more familiar with the f-22 would know.

Of the four fighters in USAF inventory, the F-22 has the best high-altitude performance. It's also based at Elmendorf, putting the F-22s in an ideal spot for a quick intercept.