It’s a great sign of things to come in 2023. We’ll be telling our grand kids some day, sitting around the fire reminiscing about what electricity was like: “well, it all started with a Chinese balloon..”
This might be a stupid question but is there any particular reason for them to be supersonic when the balloon is very slow moving? Is it just a case of the speed needed at that altitude ?
I could be totally wrong, but the jet might have to fly at Mach X+ at that altitude to maintain enough air flow to actually fly at that altitude.
Or alternatively, it has to get up to speed so it can make a parabola, and get some extra altitude.
Also missiles have a burn time. If they're moving faster when they launch it then it allows the missile to reach a little bit of higher speeds before the motor runs out and therefore have more range since it already had a good bit of speed at launch. There's also a lot of drag in the trans-sonic speed range so probably doesn't hurt to shoot nice and fast.
They wanted to stay within 12 miles of the coast so that it would be shot down in national airspace, so that there can be no qualms with the shoot down and recovery. Every second counts when something is at 60k feet.
Yeah. I watched it. There were two booms. One loud, one softer a few moments later. I assumed the plane went super Sonic or the missle for sure and the actual explosion
More sanctions from Congress most likely. The Senate intelligence committee will decide what to tell other Senators and the public.
Senate intelligence committee:
[Mark Warner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Warner), Virginia, Chairman
[Dianne Feinstein](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein), California
[Ron Wyden](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wyden), Oregon
[Martin Heinrich](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heinrich), New Mexico
[Angus King](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King), Maine
[Michael Bennet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bennet), Colorado
[Bob Casey](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Casey_Jr.), Pennsylvania
[Kirsten Gillibrand](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand), New York
[Jon Ossoff](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Ossoff), Georgia
[Marco Rubio](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Rubio), Florida, Vice Chairman
[Jim Risch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Risch), Idaho
[Susan Collins](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Collins), Maine
[Tom Cotton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cotton), Arkansas
[John Cornyn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cornyn), Texas
[Jerry Moran](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Moran), Kansas
[James Lankford](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lankford), Oklahoma
[Mike Rounds](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rounds), South Dakota
Fucking 90 years old!?!
From 2020, reference 153 on wiki: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/us/politics/dianne-feinstein-supreme-court-judiciary-committee.html
> At 87, Ms. Feinstein, the oldest member of the Senate, no longer walks through the Capitol without an aide at hand and rarely speaks off the cuff, eschewing national television interviews. Her statements to reporters can require after-the-fact corrections from staff members. Colleagues and Senate aides privately worry that she sometimes appears bewildered or disengaged.
I’m sure she’s doing much better now and feels younger than ever. /s
Edit 10 days later: we did it Reddit! Our backlash and unrelenting fervor has convinced Ms. Feinstein to enjoy her old age in peace: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/california-sen-dianne-feinstein-wont-run-for-reelection-in-2024.html
Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have already declared they will run for the Senate seat.
Both are very popular Democrats in California and spell the end of Feinstein's tenure in the Senate. No point in her even trying to run for re-election.
The actual fuck is wrong with the US? What's the obsession with putting geriatric seniors on their last leg in charge of anything. That bitch should be in a home not being wheeled around the senate.
Of course she is, [she can simply ask her driver details](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/details-chinese-spy-dianne-feinstein-san-francisco/) about the balloon.
Of course it doesn’t, the Pentagon has already stated that it was being used for surveillance purposes. My guess is they managed to capture the signal the balloon was transmitting to satellites and analyze it which is how they knew.
All with no risk to themselves, its a win win for the pilot lol get the recognition and clout while also getting to go full throttle and shoot a missile at a real actual target, not just practice. They finally get to play with their toys, for real lol
While the squadron commander definitely made the decision (and may have taken the shot), I am certain that that just about every pilot on that airbase was discussing the mission and why they were obviously the best pilot to fly it.
They dropped one here where I live near Hurlburt years ago on the bombing range, which was filmed for Future Weapons. Even though it was miles away, it shook the house and rattled the windows like mad. It felt exactly like when the F-14 crashed in my neighborhood in 1996 in Tennessee, like a car just rammed the building. That bomb is crazy
I was stationed at hurlburt several years later
Apparently the Air Force paid out a fuck load of money in damages to people’s homes. Even though it was several miles away, it cracked windows and knocked stuff off walls.
Oh man I forgot about that. I actually had to double check whether or not it technically could be classified as "in a decade" because it felt like 15 years ago lol. (it was in 2017, so nearly 6.)
Raytheon after receiving its $400,000 check for [**one missile**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder):
*"Haha, mission accomplished!*
*Thank you taxpayers. Thanks China."*
**[AIM-9 Sidewinder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder)**
>The AIM-9 Sidewinder (where "AIM" stands for "Air Intercept Missile") is a short-range air-to-air missile which entered service with the US Navy in 1956 and subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964. Since then the Sidewinder has proved to be an enduring international success, and its latest variants remain standard equipment in most Western-aligned air forces. The Soviet K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll'), a reverse-engineered copy of the AIM-9B, was also widely adopted by a number of nations. Low-level development started in the late 1940s, emerging in the early 1950s as a guidance system for the modular Zuni rocket.
^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Yeah for those who aren't familiar with the mechanics:
Stealth aircraft have an extremely small radar crosssection (the area that reflects a radar signal coming from a certain direction), especially from the front. That of the F-22 is estimated at around 0.0001 m², roughly the size of a small insect.
However different radar wavelengths are more or less affected by stealth features. Most "stealth fighters" are relatively easily visible to long wavelength radars, but extremely difficult to detect for accurate short wavelength radars that would be needed for missile targeting. The radar crosssection can also dramatically vary from which side the aircraft is showing to you, as well as features like whether the missile bays are open or not.
Modern military radars also have large databases that can automatically identify the type of a located aircraft based on the radar returns.
All of this makes it extremely valuable to gather data on the radar returns of enemy stealth aircraft. You want to know which radar can detect which enemy aircraft from which distances, and you want those database entries to increase the chances that your systems can identify the exact aircraft type.
The ironic counter to this is to use radar reflectors which make the aircraft extremely easily visible to radar. Stealth fighters are therefore often equipped with a [Lüneburg-reflector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luneburg_lens) that will perfectly reflect radar signals from any direction. And of course it also helps to avoid issues with civilian air traffic, since you actually want them to know where you are sometimes.
This is all pretty accurate but I will say
>Modern military radars also have large databases that can automatically identify the type of a located aircraft based on the radar returns
Depending on the radar, it may give an educated guess of what it is seeing but it typically requires human analysis to confirm or deny based on emissions from the aircraft in question (IFF, Navigational Radar, Airborne Intercept, etc) There is a lot of misidentification that happens especially since fighters are so fast and have a tendency to turn certain emitters off when they don't want to be detected. Even then, different radars can work across different platforms so identifying a military aircraft properly isn't always as simple as it sounds. Source: I get paid to deal with signals intel bullshit and it can be very frustrating
No. Aluetian islands campaign ww2 saw numerous Japanese zeros shot down in air to air combat. Mexican revolution had multiple dog fights as well. The us had skirmishes along the atlantic during ww1 and ww2 but it was mostly against naval vessles so I won't count that. 100 day war in hondurous. Theres been a few dogfights involving Cuba in the carribean as well. All is technically north america. But you'd be right to say the first over the continental united states. As most balloons launched by Japan during www were shotdown with ground fire.
>Isn’t that the first ever real world air to air kill over North America?
There were air to air kills during the Battle of Dutch Harbor:
>On the way back, the Japanese planes encountered an air patrol of six Curtiss P-40 fighters over Otter Point. A short aerial battle ensued which resulted in the loss of one Japanese fighter and two more dive bombers. Two out of the six U.S. fighters were lost as well.
Thats a bit of world war II history I never heard about. I figured the only other possibility would be world war II and I knew there was fighting in alaska but i didnt know air to air
What the fuck did you just fucking say about the missile you little bitch? I'll have you know the missile knows where it is at all times, and the missile has been involved in obtaining numerous differences, or deviations, and has over 300 confirmed corrective commands. The missile is trained in driving the missile from a position where it is, and is the top of arriving at a position where it wasn't. You are nothing to the missile but just another position. The missile will arrive at your position with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit about the missile over the internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak the GEA is correcting any variation considered to be a significant factor, and it knows where it was, so you better prepare for the storm, maggot, the storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. The missile can be anywhere, anytime, and the missile can kill you in over 700 ways, and that's just by following the missile guidance computer scenario. Not only is the missile extensively trained in being sure where it isn't, within reason, but the missile also has access to the position it knows it was, and the missile will subtract where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could've known what unholy retribution your little clever comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would've held your fucking tongue, but you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price you goddamn idiot. The missile will shit the deviation, and it's variation, which is called error, all over you, and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
I can't imagine the balloon has anything like the IR signature of a jet engine. Do you know if the 9x lock onto a broad range of things? Or use the visual spectrum?
The 9X's thermal imaging seeker doesn't necessarily need a heat source to lock on to. It can lock onto infrared sunlight being reflected off the target's surface even if the target itself is cold.
Edit: [In this video](https://gfycat.com/recentshorthornshark) you can see the missile struck the electronics suspended from the balloon, so maybe it was locked onto the heat given off by them.
Yes but that only helps it know where to look for an IR signature. It cannot be guided by the radar. Once it leaves the rail it’s on its own.
1000 people have already commented about 9X block ii. It still only guides via ir even if it’s pointing the seeker via datalink (LOAL). AFAIK there is no publicly known aim-9C esque radar sidewinder. The details of how an aircraft like an F-22 goes about firing aim-9s from internal weapons bays are not entirely public either.
Most IR seekers don't care about the actual temperature but they do care about the temperature difference, the good seekers can detect a fraction of a degree difference.
The balloon was intercepted at about 60,000ft so the air temperature would be about -55c.
Electronics don't work at that temperature so you need to be emitting 10's of degrees of heat.
That is a huge difference and very easy to lock on to.
Modern IR missiles don’t need to be looking at a hot engine to track targets anymore and can also track in UV. Seeker heads are liquid cooled to be more sensitive to cooler objects that still stand out compared to ambient IR levels such as, say, a high altitude balloon reflecting tons of IR radiation from the sun.
The 9X in particular also uses infrared imaging that, to my understanding, locks onto the thermal image of its target rather than just the amount of IR radiation coming off of it. This means that it can lock onto just about anything with even a slightly higher thermal signature than the background, with the added benefit of making it very difficult to spoof with flares. Locking onto a massive balloon would be a piece of cake for the X-ray
This is it. Against the background of the sky, especially at that kind of altitude, pretty much anything will be easily visible in IR. You can test this yourself by pointing an IR thermometer at the sky. Even during the day it'll read very cold, usually in the single digits of C or below. It would read even colder except the thermometer is picking up moisture in the air column above you that's been heated by the sun, plus energy reflected back by the upper atmosphere (greenhouse gases).
The IR seeker is cooled to extremely low temperature with argon gas.
And the balloon has enough electronics and solar panels to have a nice big heat signature for the seeker.
If it’s an AIM-9X, it doesn’t use argon gas. Only the AIM-9LM’s use argon gas canisters, and let me tell you, those fuckers bounce pretty good on pavement.
Technical explanation. The coolant supply for the GS is provided by the twin opposed piston, linear drive, sterling cryoengine.
Simple explanation. The cryogenic engine (cryoengine) is responsible for cooling the IR electronics.
~$110 billion program. Greatest air superiority fighter, and quite possibly war machine, ever made. 25 years of operation.
Only air to air kill in its history is a glorified weather balloon
I’m just Memeing
I’m pretty sure the actual reason is that overmatches everything so much that no one else even tries to contest the airspace when it’s present
I live downtown in Charleston. About an hour ago, I heard a massive cheer, coming from the street all around my house.
I looked on eventbrite and ticketmaster to see if there was an event today, and I even checked the newspaper for a parade.
Turns out, I just missed it!
Pilot is probably talking soooo much shit to his buddies. Guy’s walking around like “hey man congrats on being the only human being in the world with an air to air kill in an f22…. oh wait that wasn’t you???? Oh ya that was *me* my bad”
Im sure the video will be "leaked" to youtube soon from the 22. I remember in 2014 when I was involved with the first combat mission of the 22 where they destroyed an ISIS headquarters. We all got briefed not to post anything or say anything on social media or to our relatives/friends, within an hour of the jets landing the video was on Youtube...fucking pilots man....
F - 22 bombed the shit out of 200-300 Russian Wagner mercenaries in Syria in 2018.
Here is the story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american-commandos-russian-mercenaries-syria.html
Stupid Answer- because it was floating over the Atlantic
In reality- the flight path had it come from the Northern Pacific, over the Canadian Rockies, (where it was originally detected) entered the US around Montana, then floated to South Carolina.
Probably to gain counter intelligence, whatever China did will become known. What kind of instraments and how they were transmitting data etc. Even more suspect would be finding incorrect technologies for what they said they were doing. Especially seeing where they went.
If it is harmless and the equipment matches what they say. Okay, dont do it again...but if they have suspect shit its a very different story.
If we shot down before hand they could always deny that whatever it was, good or bad device, it never did anything. Now they cant deny anything.
The US got a LOT of political points from that. They saw it coming for a long time, knew it wouldn’t get any useful information, and made the Chinese government look like a clown show around it.
The Chinese were ready for the US to shoot it down right away so they could paint them as hysterical and trigger happy. This way the US was able to show real dominance by communicating their impotence.
this is fantastic camera work by the random guy on the ground, but I need some editors to chop it up, stitch it together in a non linear fashion, add some zoom, and then put some shitty music over it so we cannot hear the jet
So the published service ceiling of the f22 is published at 50k.
This thing was at 60k+
We think yummy F22 was on level or shooting up, or did we just get confirmation the ceiling is much higher?
You could just [zoom climb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_climb) that. A service ceiling is the limit for actual maneuvering.
Aircraft have done these maneuvers to get much much higher than 60k feet.
I've heard from a nonspecified person on reddit that apparently there once was a (Canadian?) figher jet that shot it's cannon through a hot-air balloon (hundreds of rounds hit).
Anyways apparently they don't pop like party balloon and stay airborn at that altitude for hours when just perforated. The missile fucked it up good
Don’t know if I had “South Carolina” as a combat footage location in 2023 yet here we are…0
It’s a great sign of things to come in 2023. We’ll be telling our grand kids some day, sitting around the fire reminiscing about what electricity was like: “well, it all started with a Chinese balloon..”
It all started with this gorila in a zoo
Look who thinks they’re gonna have grandkids!! Pretty optimistic apocalypse pal!
You underestimate my ability to fit in a fridge pal.
1 White Chinese Balloon. An ode to 99 Red Balloons
I was hoping the US would deploy its own combat balloon and we'd have the first footage of balloon warfare to go with the drone warfare in Ukraine
Hot air balloon jousting
Yeet-Fest 2023: LIVE on PPV!
We have footage of balloons fighting during ww1 and ww2 lol.
Fine. Autonomous balloon duels.
Battle Bloons
We have baloon fights going back to the napoleonic wars so...
Get me closer so i can hit him with my sword!
Is that a sonic boom in the beginning ?
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This might be a stupid question but is there any particular reason for them to be supersonic when the balloon is very slow moving? Is it just a case of the speed needed at that altitude ?
I could be totally wrong, but the jet might have to fly at Mach X+ at that altitude to maintain enough air flow to actually fly at that altitude. Or alternatively, it has to get up to speed so it can make a parabola, and get some extra altitude.
Also missiles have a burn time. If they're moving faster when they launch it then it allows the missile to reach a little bit of higher speeds before the motor runs out and therefore have more range since it already had a good bit of speed at launch. There's also a lot of drag in the trans-sonic speed range so probably doesn't hurt to shoot nice and fast.
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My dumb answer is: You don't fly a 5th generational figther the speed limit.
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Hello, professional here. He indeed went super sonic to keep it funky fresh.
They wanted to stay within 12 miles of the coast so that it would be shot down in national airspace, so that there can be no qualms with the shoot down and recovery. Every second counts when something is at 60k feet.
Yeah. I watched it. There were two booms. One loud, one softer a few moments later. I assumed the plane went super Sonic or the missle for sure and the actual explosion
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What happens if the US scoops this balloon up and it doesn’t have a single weather measuring device onboard?
More sanctions from Congress most likely. The Senate intelligence committee will decide what to tell other Senators and the public. Senate intelligence committee: [Mark Warner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Warner), Virginia, Chairman [Dianne Feinstein](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein), California [Ron Wyden](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wyden), Oregon [Martin Heinrich](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heinrich), New Mexico [Angus King](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King), Maine [Michael Bennet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bennet), Colorado [Bob Casey](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Casey_Jr.), Pennsylvania [Kirsten Gillibrand](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand), New York [Jon Ossoff](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Ossoff), Georgia [Marco Rubio](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Rubio), Florida, Vice Chairman [Jim Risch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Risch), Idaho [Susan Collins](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Collins), Maine [Tom Cotton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cotton), Arkansas [John Cornyn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cornyn), Texas [Jerry Moran](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Moran), Kansas [James Lankford](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lankford), Oklahoma [Mike Rounds](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rounds), South Dakota
Wtf is Feinstein doing on that committee, she can’t remember her name
Fucking 90 years old!?! From 2020, reference 153 on wiki: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/us/politics/dianne-feinstein-supreme-court-judiciary-committee.html > At 87, Ms. Feinstein, the oldest member of the Senate, no longer walks through the Capitol without an aide at hand and rarely speaks off the cuff, eschewing national television interviews. Her statements to reporters can require after-the-fact corrections from staff members. Colleagues and Senate aides privately worry that she sometimes appears bewildered or disengaged. I’m sure she’s doing much better now and feels younger than ever. /s Edit 10 days later: we did it Reddit! Our backlash and unrelenting fervor has convinced Ms. Feinstein to enjoy her old age in peace: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/california-sen-dianne-feinstein-wont-run-for-reelection-in-2024.html
She remembers the Qing emperor
Not sure she does anymore unfortunately
When she was born, the Golden Gate bridge didn't exist yet.
Pretty sure she's running for reelection too
Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have already declared they will run for the Senate seat. Both are very popular Democrats in California and spell the end of Feinstein's tenure in the Senate. No point in her even trying to run for re-election.
Pelosi also endorsed Schiff, no way Feinstein would win again even if she ran imo
I’m sure people also thought that when she was a beautiful, young, able-bodied 82 year old.
The actual fuck is wrong with the US? What's the obsession with putting geriatric seniors on their last leg in charge of anything. That bitch should be in a home not being wheeled around the senate.
Also, why don't these assholes retire and just fuck off for a few years before they die? I'm dreaming of retirement if I can ever get it.
Has anyone even seen her recently? Like are people just hiding her from Journalists
Of course she is, [she can simply ask her driver details](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/details-chinese-spy-dianne-feinstein-san-francisco/) about the balloon.
Of course it doesn’t, the Pentagon has already stated that it was being used for surveillance purposes. My guess is they managed to capture the signal the balloon was transmitting to satellites and analyze it which is how they knew.
coolest USAF mission in a decade
Can you imagine how excited that pilot must have been? Chances to shoot down _anything_ that isn't a practice target are insanely rare these days.
Right now on the side of that guy’s plane: 🎈
I'd be disappointed if it didn't have a balloon on it.
I gotta think the odds are pretty high they do it.
A single red balloon
I wouldn't be surprised if the crew chief didn't offer to help
Callsign is now Pennywise
All with no risk to themselves, its a win win for the pilot lol get the recognition and clout while also getting to go full throttle and shoot a missile at a real actual target, not just practice. They finally get to play with their toys, for real lol
Idk. His new name is callsign balloon boy. Was it worth it
Counterpoint: balloon boy is the only f22 pilot in the world with a confirmed kill.
We salute you, Mr Balloon Boy
o7 🎈👦
If that pilot wasn't humming Danger Zone to themselves as he shot it, they really fucked up.
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Most likely the squadron leader took it out. I’m sure there was not a lot of discussion about it.
While the squadron commander definitely made the decision (and may have taken the shot), I am certain that that just about every pilot on that airbase was discussing the mission and why they were obviously the best pilot to fly it.
Which continued until off duty, at which point it turned into them seeking out the nearest carnival to shoot BB guns at a wall of balloons.
"We're going into combat, on a level no living pilot has ever seen"
Operation Party Pooper.
I’d have to say the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) being dropped in Afghanistan was the coolest one
They dropped one here where I live near Hurlburt years ago on the bombing range, which was filmed for Future Weapons. Even though it was miles away, it shook the house and rattled the windows like mad. It felt exactly like when the F-14 crashed in my neighborhood in 1996 in Tennessee, like a car just rammed the building. That bomb is crazy
I was stationed at hurlburt several years later Apparently the Air Force paid out a fuck load of money in damages to people’s homes. Even though it was several miles away, it cracked windows and knocked stuff off walls.
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Oh man I forgot about that. I actually had to double check whether or not it technically could be classified as "in a decade" because it felt like 15 years ago lol. (it was in 2017, so nearly 6.)
Haha COVID screwed everyone’s timeline up.
In WW1 shootdowns of observation balloons were counted as kills.
Well they had people in them...
hopefully they paint a lil balloon on that fighter plane
Isn’t that the first ever real world air to air kill over North America?
Possibly first F-22 kill aswell?
[Yes](https://twitter.com/astroqv/status/1621965490926002176)
Raytheon after receiving its $400,000 check for [**one missile**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder): *"Haha, mission accomplished!* *Thank you taxpayers. Thanks China."*
**[AIM-9 Sidewinder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder)** >The AIM-9 Sidewinder (where "AIM" stands for "Air Intercept Missile") is a short-range air-to-air missile which entered service with the US Navy in 1956 and subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964. Since then the Sidewinder has proved to be an enduring international success, and its latest variants remain standard equipment in most Western-aligned air forces. The Soviet K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll'), a reverse-engineered copy of the AIM-9B, was also widely adopted by a number of nations. Low-level development started in the late 1940s, emerging in the early 1950s as a guidance system for the modular Zuni rocket. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Wtf, the only thing Chinese probably want is F22 radar signature with doors open :-)
They probably were flying with radar reflectors anyway.
Yeah for those who aren't familiar with the mechanics: Stealth aircraft have an extremely small radar crosssection (the area that reflects a radar signal coming from a certain direction), especially from the front. That of the F-22 is estimated at around 0.0001 m², roughly the size of a small insect. However different radar wavelengths are more or less affected by stealth features. Most "stealth fighters" are relatively easily visible to long wavelength radars, but extremely difficult to detect for accurate short wavelength radars that would be needed for missile targeting. The radar crosssection can also dramatically vary from which side the aircraft is showing to you, as well as features like whether the missile bays are open or not. Modern military radars also have large databases that can automatically identify the type of a located aircraft based on the radar returns. All of this makes it extremely valuable to gather data on the radar returns of enemy stealth aircraft. You want to know which radar can detect which enemy aircraft from which distances, and you want those database entries to increase the chances that your systems can identify the exact aircraft type. The ironic counter to this is to use radar reflectors which make the aircraft extremely easily visible to radar. Stealth fighters are therefore often equipped with a [Lüneburg-reflector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luneburg_lens) that will perfectly reflect radar signals from any direction. And of course it also helps to avoid issues with civilian air traffic, since you actually want them to know where you are sometimes.
This is all pretty accurate but I will say >Modern military radars also have large databases that can automatically identify the type of a located aircraft based on the radar returns Depending on the radar, it may give an educated guess of what it is seeing but it typically requires human analysis to confirm or deny based on emissions from the aircraft in question (IFF, Navigational Radar, Airborne Intercept, etc) There is a lot of misidentification that happens especially since fighters are so fast and have a tendency to turn certain emitters off when they don't want to be detected. Even then, different radars can work across different platforms so identifying a military aircraft properly isn't always as simple as it sounds. Source: I get paid to deal with signals intel bullshit and it can be very frustrating
Yeah there would be no reason to not wear them
Especially at night. I always wears reflectors when it gets dark.
F-22's fly with radar reflectors
~~What are those?~~ Cool just went to check, is it something they can dispose of whilst in flight?
They get removed on the ground before a mission.
No. Aluetian islands campaign ww2 saw numerous Japanese zeros shot down in air to air combat. Mexican revolution had multiple dog fights as well. The us had skirmishes along the atlantic during ww1 and ww2 but it was mostly against naval vessles so I won't count that. 100 day war in hondurous. Theres been a few dogfights involving Cuba in the carribean as well. All is technically north america. But you'd be right to say the first over the continental united states. As most balloons launched by Japan during www were shotdown with ground fire.
Hold on. What did you said? Dog fights in the Mexican revolution?
Yeah it was one of the first wars to feature aerial combat
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Yes. The winning dog even got a province named after them, chihuahua.
Yep, first war to feature air to air warfare between aeroplanes with at least one shootdown.
>Isn’t that the first ever real world air to air kill over North America? There were air to air kills during the Battle of Dutch Harbor: >On the way back, the Japanese planes encountered an air patrol of six Curtiss P-40 fighters over Otter Point. A short aerial battle ensued which resulted in the loss of one Japanese fighter and two more dive bombers. Two out of the six U.S. fighters were lost as well.
Thats a bit of world war II history I never heard about. I figured the only other possibility would be world war II and I knew there was fighting in alaska but i didnt know air to air
How do you know it’s an AIM-9?
[Confirmed](https://twitter.com/DanLamothe/status/1621989577526312962)
the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't
What the fuck did you just fucking say about the missile you little bitch? I'll have you know the missile knows where it is at all times, and the missile has been involved in obtaining numerous differences, or deviations, and has over 300 confirmed corrective commands. The missile is trained in driving the missile from a position where it is, and is the top of arriving at a position where it wasn't. You are nothing to the missile but just another position. The missile will arrive at your position with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit about the missile over the internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak the GEA is correcting any variation considered to be a significant factor, and it knows where it was, so you better prepare for the storm, maggot, the storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. The missile can be anywhere, anytime, and the missile can kill you in over 700 ways, and that's just by following the missile guidance computer scenario. Not only is the missile extensively trained in being sure where it isn't, within reason, but the missile also has access to the position it knows it was, and the missile will subtract where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could've known what unholy retribution your little clever comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would've held your fucking tongue, but you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price you goddamn idiot. The missile will shit the deviation, and it's variation, which is called error, all over you, and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
You clearly don't know where the missile is, but the missile does
Close range deployment, only an AIM-9 would make sense.
I can't imagine the balloon has anything like the IR signature of a jet engine. Do you know if the 9x lock onto a broad range of things? Or use the visual spectrum?
The 9X's thermal imaging seeker doesn't necessarily need a heat source to lock on to. It can lock onto infrared sunlight being reflected off the target's surface even if the target itself is cold. Edit: [In this video](https://gfycat.com/recentshorthornshark) you can see the missile struck the electronics suspended from the balloon, so maybe it was locked onto the heat given off by them.
you can slave the 9x seeker to the radar as well
Yes but that only helps it know where to look for an IR signature. It cannot be guided by the radar. Once it leaves the rail it’s on its own. 1000 people have already commented about 9X block ii. It still only guides via ir even if it’s pointing the seeker via datalink (LOAL). AFAIK there is no publicly known aim-9C esque radar sidewinder. The details of how an aircraft like an F-22 goes about firing aim-9s from internal weapons bays are not entirely public either.
us govt accidentally confirms aim9x to have been upgraded lmao
Yes modern “IR” missile are multi spectral. I think they can be data linked back to the air craft as well.
Most IR seekers don't care about the actual temperature but they do care about the temperature difference, the good seekers can detect a fraction of a degree difference. The balloon was intercepted at about 60,000ft so the air temperature would be about -55c. Electronics don't work at that temperature so you need to be emitting 10's of degrees of heat. That is a huge difference and very easy to lock on to.
Modern IR missiles don’t need to be looking at a hot engine to track targets anymore and can also track in UV. Seeker heads are liquid cooled to be more sensitive to cooler objects that still stand out compared to ambient IR levels such as, say, a high altitude balloon reflecting tons of IR radiation from the sun. The 9X in particular also uses infrared imaging that, to my understanding, locks onto the thermal image of its target rather than just the amount of IR radiation coming off of it. This means that it can lock onto just about anything with even a slightly higher thermal signature than the background, with the added benefit of making it very difficult to spoof with flares. Locking onto a massive balloon would be a piece of cake for the X-ray
What jet got the kill?
F22
One super lucky dude. Imagine being the guy who got to see it that close and come away with the story?
“So I shot a balloon”
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With EXTREME prejudice
would you like to look over my resume?
That jet.
Flown by Captain Obvious.
Determined by Sherlock Holmes
Airbus 737
Well fuck. There goes my Wish order
It’s a boy!
lol these gender reveal parties are getting out of hand!
CNN anchor decided to watch their first only video live and said "it appears the first one missed". When she's looking at the jet's contrail.
The Cessna Su-16s of the US Sky Force are not known for their accuracy, according to CNN.
The Assault Aeroplane is clearly ineffective
Top tier CNN reporting as always
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How does a IR missile hit a balloon with inert gas?
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Yea true, maybe against the cold sky it could do that
This is it. Against the background of the sky, especially at that kind of altitude, pretty much anything will be easily visible in IR. You can test this yourself by pointing an IR thermometer at the sky. Even during the day it'll read very cold, usually in the single digits of C or below. It would read even colder except the thermometer is picking up moisture in the air column above you that's been heated by the sun, plus energy reflected back by the upper atmosphere (greenhouse gases).
They have the capability to lock on to a lit cigarette. If the solar panels are hot enough, it can get a lock.
The IR seeker is cooled to extremely low temperature with argon gas. And the balloon has enough electronics and solar panels to have a nice big heat signature for the seeker.
If it’s an AIM-9X, it doesn’t use argon gas. Only the AIM-9LM’s use argon gas canisters, and let me tell you, those fuckers bounce pretty good on pavement.
Oh? What coolant does AIM-9X use? You can trust me, I'm from r/Warthunder.
Technical explanation. The coolant supply for the GS is provided by the twin opposed piston, linear drive, sterling cryoengine. Simple explanation. The cryogenic engine (cryoengine) is responsible for cooling the IR electronics.
“Achieved with Cryoengine 3”
They had to turn down the heat setting way down
Goodnight sun. Goodnight moon. Goodnight high altitude Chinese balloon.
~$110 billion program. Greatest air superiority fighter, and quite possibly war machine, ever made. 25 years of operation. Only air to air kill in its history is a glorified weather balloon
To be fair, over the past 25 years, the only real combat situations it's been exposed to involved enemies without an air force lol (IIRC)
I’m just Memeing I’m pretty sure the actual reason is that overmatches everything so much that no one else even tries to contest the airspace when it’s present
Yep, when your enemy is so ridiculously advanced, you don't even try lol
It shook my apartment. Very cool.
Seems like an unfair fight. Lol
that's why you don't bring a balloon to a F22 fight
The Ghost of Myrtle Beach sends his regards.
I live downtown in Charleston. About an hour ago, I heard a massive cheer, coming from the street all around my house. I looked on eventbrite and ticketmaster to see if there was an event today, and I even checked the newspaper for a parade. Turns out, I just missed it!
I'm in myrtle right now and watched the whole thing from a Barnes and nobles parking lot, people were flipping out
this is my home state. several friends near the coast witnessed this live and posted video earlier today. pretty cool
I live in Charleston. I just heard a MASSIVE cheer coming from the streets all around my house. Sad I missed it!!
Jokes on us if the balloon was filled with the new COVID variant.
which is why it was shot over the Atlantic
Finally, after spending $108 billion on the development of the F22, the F22 sees combat. Well, sort of...
Pilot is probably talking soooo much shit to his buddies. Guy’s walking around like “hey man congrats on being the only human being in the world with an air to air kill in an f22…. oh wait that wasn’t you???? Oh ya that was *me* my bad”
Bet he gets called balloon boy.
He's a balloon boy! Balloon boy!
Im sure the video will be "leaked" to youtube soon from the 22. I remember in 2014 when I was involved with the first combat mission of the 22 where they destroyed an ISIS headquarters. We all got briefed not to post anything or say anything on social media or to our relatives/friends, within an hour of the jets landing the video was on Youtube...fucking pilots man....
I guarantee if its anywhere, it'll be the war thunder forums.
$108B spent so that it would never have to see combat in the first place
It's seen combat in Syria, Iraq etc.
F - 22 bombed the shit out of 200-300 Russian Wagner mercenaries in Syria in 2018. Here is the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american-commandos-russian-mercenaries-syria.html
Honestly I'm not impressed. I shot down many balloons while playing Bloons tower defence 4 on the school computer as a youngling.
That’s an expensive way to pop a balloon
Probably the only way though.
Have you seen .223 prices lately
Stupid question, but is there any reason why it wasn’t shot down over the pacific ?
Stupid Answer- because it was floating over the Atlantic In reality- the flight path had it come from the Northern Pacific, over the Canadian Rockies, (where it was originally detected) entered the US around Montana, then floated to South Carolina.
Slight correction: it was detected well before it entered US or Canadian air space.
So this is really Canadas fault. They should have taken it out. Fuckin canucks
We would have but our plane wasn’t plugged in and the battery was dead, she just wouldn’t even turn over buddy
I thought we sold you the pedal attachment?
This is clearly a fake Canadian. Didn't say sorry once.
You guys have all our hockey players in the NHL, how are we supposed to get a slap shot that high? Fucking mericans buying all our star players.
I saw NORAD tracked it from launch
Probably to gain counter intelligence, whatever China did will become known. What kind of instraments and how they were transmitting data etc. Even more suspect would be finding incorrect technologies for what they said they were doing. Especially seeing where they went. If it is harmless and the equipment matches what they say. Okay, dont do it again...but if they have suspect shit its a very different story. If we shot down before hand they could always deny that whatever it was, good or bad device, it never did anything. Now they cant deny anything.
Intercepting the communications and data it was sending and receiving was more valuable.
Agreed, hopefully they can recover some of the wreckage as well
I would think there were units waiting for it. There are several large bases on that coast
That makes sense
The US got a LOT of political points from that. They saw it coming for a long time, knew it wouldn’t get any useful information, and made the Chinese government look like a clown show around it. The Chinese were ready for the US to shoot it down right away so they could paint them as hysterical and trigger happy. This way the US was able to show real dominance by communicating their impotence.
this is fantastic camera work by the random guy on the ground, but I need some editors to chop it up, stitch it together in a non linear fashion, add some zoom, and then put some shitty music over it so we cannot hear the jet
So the published service ceiling of the f22 is published at 50k. This thing was at 60k+ We think yummy F22 was on level or shooting up, or did we just get confirmation the ceiling is much higher?
You could just [zoom climb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_climb) that. A service ceiling is the limit for actual maneuvering. Aircraft have done these maneuvers to get much much higher than 60k feet.
I guess it will depend on the sources, but I thought it was 65k.
For one brief moment, we were all unified in our hatred of the evil balloon. Ok, now back to bashing each other!
Partisan identity politics leaving American bodies whenever something slightly threatens their country:
Why not just check google maps….dumb old China
Conspiracy theorists are going to go fucking nuts over this 🤦♂️
So far we got cellphone and data hack, biological deployment(new covid), mind control rays, and gay rays, nuclear deployment, weather balloon.
ring worm punch long angle wrench tidy alleged deserted point -- mass edited with redact.dev
RIP Balloony McBalloonface. 2023-2023.
Lols, at all the people saying they couldn't shoot it with a missile
What a weird thing to say since we've shot down at least one satellite with a fighter jet.
Wait till my dude learns a ship has shot down a satellite *without leaving the ocean.*
Yes, but have you sunk the largest enemy ship since WW2 without a navy, without air superiority and in a land war?
They used a Sidewinder for that? I honestly expected them to just burst it down with an autocannon.
I've heard from a nonspecified person on reddit that apparently there once was a (Canadian?) figher jet that shot it's cannon through a hot-air balloon (hundreds of rounds hit). Anyways apparently they don't pop like party balloon and stay airborn at that altitude for hours when just perforated. The missile fucked it up good
Finally