Welp, they FINALLY shot the balloon down… off the coast of South Carolina.
Talk about a day late and a dollar short, and they used an AIM-9. So $400,000 to take out a balloon, BUT the missile actually hit the ‘package’ rather than the balloon. Those ‘sparkles’ you see falling are the remnants of the solar arrays and surveillance package.
Moment the #ChineseSpyBalloon was shot down. #Balloon pic.twitter.com/H9skbByLUs
— Michael Steinberg (@MichaelWX18) February 4, 2023
Go Air Force, yay you… sigh…
And the Navy and Coast Guard got sent out to clean up their mess, which will include NO equipment or anything worth recovering, IF they find anything…
Nor will they be able to recover any evidence of what/where photos were actually taken, nor how much data was transmitted back to China.
Supper table talk was about the fact that China is in the process of building out their nuclear bunkers and the probability that they would use the ‘close up’ pictures for spacing and external equipment WE use.
But supper was good, and a good time was had by all. Shrimp and grits with Tasso gravy!
Now it’s back to writing… Y’all have a good day!
I watched a video that was taken over Billings, Montana yesterday morning of something blowing up in the sky after a fighter jet was seen streaking toward the balloon. Now the liar in the White House and the traitors in the Pentagon say they shot the balloon down over the Atlantic later in the day Somebody is lying and my guess is that the Pentagon released a weather balloon of their own and put on a false aerial show to save face. As my sources told me it was the Montana Air National Guard that shot it down over Billings at the direction of the Montana Governor. Another question I have is how long would it have taken for that so-called Chi-Com balloon to be moved across the country and over the Atlantic only drifting on the wind? Even civilian jets riding the jet stream powered by jet engines usually take 4 to 5 hours to fly that distance. Do I believe the liar in the White House or those in the Pentagon? Not on your life!
Doing exactly what Beijing wanted. AFTER allowing this package to travel unmolested across the country gathering data and relaying it back via satellite THEN permission was granted to DESTROY THE EVIDENCE. We don’t need to worry about enemies of the country in other places. We have a countless thousands of them WORKING FOR THE GOVERNMENT.
Good one over at Tam’s place. Frank Luke indeed.
https://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2023/02/lulzy.html
But yeah, the best part for the Chicoms was our clown show response.
A separate senior official told ABC News the balloon is the size of three buses and complete with a technology bay, which the defense official said they “wouldn’t characterize” as “revolutionary.”
*snip* The defense official said they “are confident” the balloon was sent by China.
“Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration,” the official said, noting that “it’s happened a handful of other times over the past few years … It is appearing to hang out for a longer period of time this time around.” *snip*
It’s not the first one, but it’s the first one to be reported in the news? If so, this appears to be the first one that was allowed to cross the entire continent.
Yay, Air Force. Way to be quick and responsive. Well done, destroying the payload over salt water so nothing useful can be recovered. (Even odds over whose fault this cascade of failures was: USAF or FJB.)
>>> “China regrets that the airship strayed into the United States due to force majeure. China will continue to maintain communication with the United States to properly deal with this unexpected situation caused by force majeure.”
“Force majeure” refers to something that is done beyond the control of the government. <<<
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/chinese-spy-balloon-surveilling-us-senior-official/story?id=96860718/
That's not what "force majeur" means. Are the journos illiterate or lying? Both, usually. ("Force majeur" = superior force. From a government, it is equivalent to "Because we can. What are you going to do about it?")
When clowns are elected, expect circuses.
Sure was stupid to shoot it down over salt water but it is not like any branch of the military just goes off and does something, or not do something without orders. Orders to delay shooting the thing down came from somewhere in Biden’s office. Same thing goes with where it was hit; probably came from orders from higher up. Heck, if they had wanted to they could have taken it down with the shockwave from a close flyby and saved a AIM 9.
Once again showing we citizens are held in contempt by the deep state and our “elected” leaders. Nothing they say can be taken at face value.
Newsies reported the Pentagon was afraid a shootdown over Montana would result in a large debris field. The overwater debris field was reported to cover seven miles (straight line? square miles? jeez). Poke some holes in a balloon and it goes down- debris in one hole in the ground. Blow it up and oh, look, large debris field under salt water. I’m gonna assume the military had a good reason for this apparent fiasco. Silly me.
Sadly, I think one of the things that took so long regarding the balloon shoot was getting permission to take munitions out of storage lockers, actually hang and load said munitions and then get final permission to actually use the munitions.
Remember, on 9/11, the planes sent to intercept the last airliner were unarmed. There was no armed combat patrol sitting pad alert. Nope, the brave men and women who chased after the final airliner were going to have to ram the aircraft in order to bring it down.
As to shooting down the balloon, there were issues between the relatively slow airspeed of the early Zeppelins and propeller aircraft in WWI. Trying to shoot a very slow-moving free-floating balloon from a high-speed aircraft would have been very difficult, very very difficult.
As to the use of a missile, the only thing that would generate the radar return on the balloon would have been the platform. So, again, very hard to shoot down the beast without damaging the platform.
Of course, one could try to burn the balloon envelope with afterburner, but then what if the balloon had defensive measures like a proximity explosive warhead.
This stuff should have been taken care of over the West Coast or over the plains. But dithering and outright illegal acts by the current administration are at fault. Wonder how much the 10% the ‘Big Guy’ got was?
Probably 20 %
Beans:
My first thought was an F-14 with wheels down and wings forward for putting bullets into the envelope of a balloon. Imagine the bragging rights a pilot would have for snagging the envelope with the tail hook!
Well, what did happen over Montana?
Since only 1 person posted video, and questionable video at that, looks like we have another faker out there.
All- Interesting comments, and NO idea what happened over Montana. Re the F-14, its service ceiling was 53,000+ feet… It could have gotten there and done a gun run without any issues. Sigh…
The only F-14s still flying belong to Iran. I don’t think they would be willing to loan us any.
I’m hoping we were gathering mucho intelligence from signals transmitted from the thing.
The rest of it is just… frustrating to us old Vets.
EMP? Prep for Taiwan invasion?
“Weak leadership leads to hard times.”
I’ve been wondering how you shoot down a non-metalized mylar balloon without destroying the electronics package. Apparently, you don’t, at least with an AIM-9.
” Accidently” hit the package?
SNORT!
Accident my left elbow.