Chinese Balloon

[krines]

Yesterday was an interesting day. Unfortunately I was working. First I heard they closed down the KBIL airspace due to a UFO. Then the picture came out of the balloon taken by a friend of mine. Then the texts start rolling in that I should stop taking care of patients in the name of national security and get up there and shoot that balloon down. I have plenty of experience shooting coyotes out of the plane so a Chinese balloon would have been a real trophy. Wonder how much that dog would have brought.

[frequent_flyer]

Yesterday was an interesting day. Unfortunately I was working. First I heard they closed down the KBIL airspace due to a UFO. Then the picture came out of the balloon taken by a friend of mine. Then the texts start rolling in that I should stop taking care of patients in the name of national security and get up there and shoot that balloon down. I have plenty of experience shooting coyotes out of the plane so a Chinese balloon would have been a real trophy. Wonder how much that dog would have brought.

Not many have access to an aircraft that will get up to 60k+ ft and have the ability to shoot at something. That may be why it's still up there.

[frequent_flyer]

That may be why it's still up there.

Not up there any more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsQa...LiveNOWfromFOX

[cubdrvr]

Curious as to why it got over MT before the guvmint notified the public of it's presence. A private citizen weather balloon? From China?

[mvivion]

Curious as to why it got over MT before the guvmint notified the public of it's presence. A private citizen weather balloon? From China?

Yeah, that thought occurred to me as well.....all our high powered radars didn't notice the thing till it was well inland? If they noted it before it crossed the coast, why didn't they shoot it down before it made land fall?

MTV

[Brian M]

Not up there any more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsQa...LiveNOWfromFOX

Just saw a longer video on Facebook that shows the contrails of the plane approaching and then the shot. Must have been a damn fun mission for that pilot! Not too often you get to do something like that.

[SJ]

Check out the photo credit in the upper right.... Larry submitted lots of great calendar cover shots over the years, including the Grand Prismatic spring shot!

To think we knew him back when....

sj

[cafi19]

Way to go National Larry.

They claim to have been watching it since the Aleutians in AK. Surprising to me that it didn't get taken out then.

[mvivion]

Well, at least one F-22 and driver now have one “Confirmed Balloon Kill”. I hope that’s stenciled on the canopy rail by now…..

MTV

[cubdriver2]

My cop buddy who lives in Myrtle Beach just sent me a Iphone video he took of it being shot down

Glenn

[BC12D-4-85]

Best believe we learned more about its coms and controls before disposing. AK radar can see all and more

Gary

[180Marty]

How could it loiter so long over the USA----I thought the wind was howling way up there? Do pieces of what was used to shoot it down fall to earth maybe hitting somebody.

[BC12D-4-85]

We have some skin in this game> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...e-u-s-recently. China has been in the balloon and flying lantern business for a long time. Maybe they found a way to use solar derived power to run air thrusters of some sort.

Gary

[mvivion]

How could it loiter so long over the USA----I thought the wind was howling way up there? Do pieces of what was used to shoot it down fall to earth maybe hitting somebody.

Actually, over 60 K is above most of the atmosphere. I doubt winds are high.

a bit lower, yes.

MTV

[skywagon8a]

We have some skin in this game> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...e-u-s-recently. China has been in the balloon and flying lantern business for a long time. Maybe they found a way to use solar derived power to run air thrusters of some sort.

Gary

Leave it to Gary to get to the bottom of this. Reports are out there it was first spotted over the Aleutians. Yet, it didn't make the big news until it was spotted approaching the lower 48. My take is it wasn't Chinese at all. But is actually a CIA balloon which had been spying on China or N Korea and was on it's way home. They waited to shoot it down until it was over a location where our military could more easily recover the payload out of sight of roving eyes.

[NunavutPA-12]

Now the public will be demanding to know what this "surveillance balloon" was actually carrying.

My guess is that the authorities will say that revealing that information is "not in the interest of national security". Classified. It would be a big embarrassment if it turns out to be (wait for it!) a weather balloon.

It's telling that it wasn't shot down over Alaska or Montana, two of the least-populated states. Some Joe Public might have picked up the debris and sold the stuff on eBay.

[Mot]

Here's a Meteorologist's point of view. Cliff Mass is a University of Washington meteorologist.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/...y-mission.html

[kase]

Larry is suppose to be on Fox and Friends tomorrow morning. I think they were looking for new Lycoming cylinders.

[SJ]

Larry is suppose to be on Fox and Friends tomorrow morning. I think they were looking for new Lycoming cylinders.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

[tempdoug]

[Steve Pierce]

Larry is suppose to be on Fox and Friends tomorrow morning. I think they were looking for new Lycoming cylinders.

The question should be asked if they found any?

[JP]

Is this a great nation or what? If the FB memes are any measure we are topping it!

[KevinJ]

[12Geezer2]

Larry is suppose to be on Fox and Friends tomorrow morning. I think they were looking for new Lycoming cylinders.

Speaking of Lycoming---a friend called a couple days ago asking if I knew of an 0-360 for his high time Arrow---he mentioned prices that are staggering

[tempdoug]

Check out the photo credit in the upper right.... Larry submitted lots of great calendar cover shots over the years, including the Grand Prismatic spring shot!

To think we knew him back when....

sj

[cubflier]

Fine way to see the man behind the camera.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6319875140112

Jerry

[cubdriver2]

Glenn

[tempdoug]

im going to wait for the netflix documentary before i come to any conclusions of whats going on.

[courierguy]

Besides the F-22 action, a couple U-2's made flybys of the gasbag, wow, wonder how close?! I'd like to see the video of that.

[mit greb]

There I something fishy about this whole thing.

[Utah-Jay]

There I something fishy about this whole thing.

The “Big Guy” was paid to let it fly across the country before he could shoot it down and act like tough guy