Post your jokes and humor here.

NPeteN said:
Variety of reasons.
At that height a fighter needs to be supersonic to maintain altitude. Depending on when a bullet is fired a jet could very well overtake it.
Difficulty of firing on a stationary object at that speed.

More importantly, pressure differential. You could put 1k holes in it. Helium won't escape quickly at that altitude. Balloon would just drift off...
Click to expand...

The gas not escaping quickly is the whole idea, a slow descent.
At least from my pragmatic point of view.
Are you saying the US Air Force does not have the capability to hit a helium balloon with a bullet or shooting a balloon full of bullet holes at 60K feet wouldn't begin to deflate it?
 
Last edited:
Lineslinger said:
The gas not escaping quickly is the whole idea, a slow descent.
At least from my pragmatic point of view.
Are you saying the US Air Force does not have the capability to hit a helium balloon with a bullet or shooting a balloon full of bullet holes at 60K feet wouldn't begin to deflate it?
Click to expand...
I'm not saying anything for sure.
I provided a variety of considerations that may have contributed to the decision to utilize a missile in this instance.

I do not pretend to know better than the professionals whose job it is to deal with downing airborne objects.

But yes, at that height even 100 bullet holes wouldn't bring it down neatly. It could stay airborne for days, drifting unpredictably.

Not to mention the physics of shooting up at a stationary object, within target range, while traveling close to 700 mph.
 
Last edited:
When I first heard of the balloon like most people I thought it should have been shot down as it entered Alaskan, US, air space. After listening to military leaders, not cable news commentators, explain that they had mitigated the balloons ability to gather and transmit information and we learned a lot by observing it during flight made sense to me. Dropping it in shallow water for easy recovery also a good call. Not everything that happens is an evil government conspiracy..IMO.
 
Post your jokes and humor here.
 
I'm wondering what's happened to the wreckage of the 4 UFOs shot down in the last month?
 
NPeteN said:
I'm not saying anything for sure.
I provided a variety of considerations that may have contributed to the decision to utilize a missile in this instance.

I do not pretend to know better than the professionals whose job it is to deal with downing airborne objects.

But yes, at that height even 100 bullet holes wouldn't bring it down neatly. It could stay airborne for days, drifting unpredictably.

Not to mention the physics of shooting up at a stationary object, within target range, while traveling close to 700 mph.
Click to expand...
in 1998, a Canadian weather balloon went rogue, and 2 RCAF CF18 jets tried to down it with gunfire. Thy put over 1000 rounds of 20mm into it with no visible results. It ended up crossing the Atlantic, causing problems over the UK, and eventually came down in Finland a week later.
The guberment is not always quite so foolish as it may appear.
 
They only using their use by date old missiles what else are they going to do with them or send them to Ukraine, everything has a use by date, send our tanks over but we have to remove all the good stuff first.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top