By Jo Nova
It’s unconfirmed, but there’s a possibility that the US Commander in Chief used an Air Force F-22 fighter jet that costs $80,000 an hour to launch a $400,000 sidewinder missile to shoot down a $13 hobby balloon.
President Biden has been industriously shooting down balloons, almost as if he is trying to distract everyone from noticing how slow he was to deal with the Communist Party balloon, or the Pfizergate video, and the Nordstream leak, or something else. But no one is quite certain what they’ve shot down.
Meanwhile a hobby group called The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) have sadly reported their K9YO balloon has stopped sending messages. The K9YO picoballoon had been aloft for 123 days and was on its sixth lap of the world. It was last heard from at around 37,928 feet, south of Alaska and headed towards the Yukon. Whatever the mystery object was that got shot down was described as “foil” at 40,000 feet, so it’s in the right ballpark, but it’s still a big sky.
After all the attention starting to grow on this the NIBBB has clarified that even though they expected to hear from the balloon last Saturday it has dropped out of communication before and for as long as thirty days. It may well reappear. It uses a small solar panel to send messages and can’t send messages at night, or in the dark.
Naturally, there’s no official confirmation, but there probably never will be if the US Air force just wasted half a million dollars to destroy a party balloon. This opens a new front in warfare. If an adversary releases enough pico-balloons, the US Airforce could run out of money and missiles…
Whatever it was, the rumour that it might have been a party balloon will surely stop the blitzkrieg. It rather takes the fun out of the PR. Big-man Biden just blew up a helium balloon?
The bigger question is why this bread and circus performance art from Biden and the media was going on in the first place?
The Orbs 32″ helium balloon from Balloons Online.
Bottlecap Balloon Brigade – an Illinois hobby group – claims its $13 weather balloon last pinged near Yukon on February 10 – hours before F-22 brought down UFO in SAME area with $400k missile
The Daily Mail
Modeling shared by NIBBB shows its balloon was headed in the direction of Yukon before it vanished – and opens up the possibility it was one of the suspicious objects down by the U.S. military.
The object shot down by a a U.S. Air Force F-22 fighter jet over Mayo, Yukon, was variously described by officials in Canada and the U.S. as a ‘cylindrical’, metallic balloon with a payload.
Balloons used by hobby groups like NIBBB often fit the same description. They are usually attached with a small, solar-powered payload that transmits location data back to listening posts on the ground. Typically, these payloads are no larger than a credit card.
NIBBB has not said its balloon was definitely the downed object, but an overview of the circumstantial evidence by Aviation Week leaves the possibility wide open.
For those who want the nerdy technical detail on picoballoon flights:
THE US AIRFORCE MAY HAVE SHOT DOWN AN AMATEUR RADIO PICO BALLOON OVER CANADA
However there is also the simpler ‘pico’ ballooning hobby, which involves the use of mylar helium party balloons to launch small solar powered payloads that are only a few grams in weight. They typically transmit low power WSPR at HF frequencies and can only transmit whenever there is sufficient solar power available. Amateur radio or SDR hobbyist stations around the world can pick up these transmissions, and report them on amateur.sondehub.org and/or wsprnet.org. Well built balloons can totally circumnavigate the globe several times over several months before degrading.
While termed ‘pico’, the party balloons used can still be roughly a meter in diameter on the ground, with some latex balloons potentially expanding further at high altitudes due to the low atmospheric pressure. These balloons can be legally launched from almost anywhere in the world. In particular in the USA there is no FAA clearance required to launch them due to their payload being much less than the limit of 4 lbs (1.8kg).
K9YO projected location at the time the object was shot down. https://www.rtl-sdr.com/the-us-airforce-may-have-shot-down-an-amateur-radio-pico-balloon-over-canada/
h/t to David Maddison.
Red faces all round.
‘Justin Trudeau’s public comments on the mysterious UFO shot down over Canada this weekend.
“This is a very serious situation that we are taking incredibly seriously,” Trudeau said, emphasizing “the importance of defending our territorial integrity, our sovereignty”. (Guardian)
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An inflated threat against aspirations to supreme power?
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Talk about shooting yourself in the foot ! !
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Makes a change from blackened face!
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From the WEF globalist who said years ago “Canada no longer exists”.
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“Big man Biden just blew up a helium balloon?”
Why not a hydrogen balloon?
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If it is not happening already we can expect that warfare will soon be conducted by drones hiding in swarms of such balloons in very large numbers.
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“C’mon man, both my doctor and Jill say my mind is sharp as a sidewinder.”
Signed: President Bruce Willis.
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This is all ballooning into a farce with a hobby balloon shot down by the US Air Farce………………
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Next White House excuse: It was a Chinese balloon disguised as a hobby balloon.
To prevent this we will ban all hobby balloons.
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Careful there, they’ll believe you.
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The comments above speak volumes. With hindsight it is very easy to criticise, condemn, jeer and mock but having shot down a Chinese spy balloon on February 4 it would have been negligent not to take three more balloons seriously. The cost of, perhaps a million dollars, as the defence budget is over $800 billion it is negligible.
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Typical far-leftist… not caring one bit about the waste of “other people’s money”.
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When you are spending $800B a year on defence you know very well that you are shooting down a hobby balloon. It was all pure political theatre.
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Nobody has provided evidence that the first one was actually a spy balloon and not just a weather balloon.
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Nope.
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Presumably, the US Air Force carry out regular training flights and target practice. You know, just to keep their hand in. The cost of shooting down this balloon is probably covered by the training budget minimal extra expense, if any.
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The complaints weren’t that they failed to shoot down all balloons. The complaints were that they were not exhibiting the kind of competency we have a right to expect given what we pay for them.
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Big enough to detect- and must have had a radio beacon transmitting data back to those bottle top rogues. I guess they missed blowing up $10 buildings in Afghanistan.
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The Illinois party balloon tracking hobbyists must be using sophisticated countermeasures against the radio transmitter data blocking that the US defence forces claimed to be using against the balloons.
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What is appearing out of the gloom is that NORAD is moving from primitive, high power primary radar to sophisticated stuff designed to pick up and almost instantly give a firing solution on supersonic missiles, and that sounds admirable. Such missiles would be hot and fast so I imagine IR and doppler sensors are included. A toy balloon is cold and slow.
There was a statement that they had “tweaked” their radar which may well have meant that they fired up somer older stuff that simply looked for an echo.
I’m willing to cut them some slack on this.
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I think “tweaking” refers to Doppler radar which can be “tweaked” to only show objects moving above a certain speed. Airports with radars would be receiving signals from cranes, trucks, buildings, birds, bats and anything else within radar coverage otherwise. There’d be a lot of erroneous clutter displayed on the screen potentially distracting the viewer from what matters. Unless the balloons were rocketing along in high winds, the selected settings would mean that they wouldn’t have shown up on a radar display.
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From the BoM: Worldwide, weather balloons are released from approximately 1300 locations each day. The Bureau releases about 56 per day, or about 20,000 per year, from 38 locations within Australia and its offshore territories including Antarctica.
I saw one being released on Norfolk Island.
Balloon-based weather observations provide precise measurements of temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, and can reach an altitude between 16km – 35km in the upper atmosphere.
The Bureau uses hydrogen gas to fill its weather balloons. If you find a weather balloon that is still inflated, even partially, that means hydrogen is present in the balloon and it is HIGHLY FLAMMABLE.
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Interesting conjecture, but… Just a point of significance about “Sidewinder” missiles is that they are a heat seeking missile. That is, they home on a source of heat somewhere near where they’re headed. The heat source is usually an enemy aircraft jet engine tailpipe, which is very very hot. It’s therefore difficult to believe that the toy balloon with a tiny transmitter would have sufficient heat signature for a heat seeking missile to home on. Just saying. Interesting conjecture, but something doesn’t seem right about this report.
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This story does not add up- reminds me of the Pakistani invention- the Sikh heating missile lol
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Powered by gas turbans
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There’s only one way to deal with such a severe threat – send in The Turbinator.
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You are the same kind of partially correct that leads to really bad assumptions (look to the Climatariat for how that can pan out).
Useful infra-red sensors pick up on heat DIFFERENCES (ie temperature CONTRASTS), it’s not worth adding significant computing power to identify the ABSOLUTE (ie specific) temperature e.g that of a turbine exhaust…
From a lower altitude the Sidewinder is looking at the background temperature of space and seeing either the residual heat of the (miniscule really) electronics or the reflection of the sun off the balloon, both a significant contrast to space.
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So, what you’re saying is, they shot doen a temperature anomaly? 😬
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The AIM-9X uses a infra-red image and sophisticated image processing to lock on to a target, it does not need a “hot-spot” target.
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An explosion to shoot down a balloon seems a huge waste! A simple burst of gunfire from the 20mm gattling gun would have done the job. And the F22 has 6 AIM-120C missiles as well but putting a hundred holes in the balloon would make good sense to bring it down for inspection. And the lawyers can argue about the guarantee on the $13 toy.
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A few shots through it might have brought it down nice and gently too, and then we’d all be able to see what it was. Oh, wait…
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Also, the AIM-9X uses a proximity fuse, impact with the target is unnecessary.
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Sidewinders WERE simple heat seeking missiles which needed a jet pipe or exhaust to lock onto. Seems they are now sensing IR, which makes sense. A “stealthy” aircraft has its jet pipes well hidden, but simply flying through the air creates heat by friction so cannot be hidden. Really fast aircraft have titanium to survive that heat.
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The fact that they’re saying they don’t know what they hit, is as bad as it gets.
They launched a military strike WITHOUT target comformation.
Literally shoot first and ask questions later.
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Makes Alec Balwin look like a responsible gun handler.
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At least he was sure he didn’t pull the trigger. Must have been someone else.
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He didn’t pull the trigger, the gun just leapt forward in his hand for no reason
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Wild West !
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A balloon is no threat. It’s the 800gm payload. You would think a pilot would see that. And not waste a missile. The whole story makes no sense. According to the hobbyists there are thousands of these baloons circling the globe. No threat even to birdlike. Windmills will be the next targets.
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Why would the US government want to blow up important energy infrastructure?
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“important energy infrastructure?”
Since when are windmills “important energy infrastructure?” ?
They are a blight/parasite on energy supply systems.
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Tilting at windmills.
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They can take out windmills using their latest tanks, German Sancho Panzers
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Thid Sanco mother’s artillery.
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F-22s can not take pictures of targets. Or, if they can, the pictures are automatically classified.
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Probably blurred, like all UFO pics.
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Couldn’t the F22 pull up and hover for a moment? ..or is that just a Sukhoi thing?
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The U2 “Dragon Lady” can, and did, “loiter” above the balloon, and they have the best of sensors on board. That bit of the tale sounds legit.
This once beautiful plane is now fugly.
The old: https://airlinegeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/u-2-in-flight.jpg.pc-adaptive.1920.medium-1920×1280.jpg
The new: https://images7.alphacoders.com/411/411742.jpg
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Someone needs to pull the plug on the Biden balloon. We could all stand and watch it as it blurted out another inane noise and fishtailed around as it deflated and disappeared into oblivion!
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The question was raised re recognition.
Tradition has it that planes get a decoration for successful encounters – e.g. bombs painted on bombers. So what form of recognition for balloons after these encounters?
One answer was “A used condom”
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A common strategy the Left use is to deliberately make themselves the object of ridicule on one issue in order to divert public attention from other issues that they want to downplay. Unfortunately, far too often they get away with it.
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Pipeline explosion report?
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Biden should have made CornPop cut the balloon.
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I don’t think it’s Biden running the show but General Milley, head of the joint chiefs of Staff. The one who presumed to telephone President Xi of China to inform him that Donald Trump could not launch missiles. Which would have been a wonderful opportunity to have a one sided exchange. That still seems high treason.
And Milley was likely the one who decided not to shoot down President Xi’s nuclear missile surveillance balloon. It was only shot down to save face for the President, after it had finished its surveillance job. So it seems US foreign policy is being set by the head of the armed forces and it is all about neutering Russia on which Milley, not the President, gives updates.
Clearly China are not a threat and the US is running low on munitions and very low on their strategic oil reserve. What a coincidence.
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And of course the other balloons were not Chinese surveillance balloons. The only question was, whose were they? Each balloon must have had an owner. They are not natural unless it’s another Chicken Run movie, Escape by balloon.
Now we know. But it’s not as if no one knew. You can buy an amazing range of balloons which will reach 30,000 metres. The question is whether they have enough sidewinders or much more expensive missiles for 90,000 feet.
Biden’s face was saved, eventually. Avoiding populated areas in desolate badlands of North Dakota was an amazingly bold excuse, as Kamala Harris would say. There is a reason the missiles are there. Now Biden’s face should be bright red. And the worrying question is whether sidewinders will appear over birthday parties.
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Only a few days ago I would have said this marked peak stupid, but now apparently we are also being invaded by little green men from Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tcK3jfvPl0
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Or this:
https://youtu.be/sQmoLgVHggE
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Don’t fighter jets have guns these days? It’s not like a balloon is going to shoot back or dodge!
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Well, a $15 balloon did take out a USD$400,000 missile. But it’s not like the missile was needed for any more important and urgent purpose (helping an ally in distress for instance).
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It does take a while for a balloon to descend even with lots of holes in it. The lifting gas is at the same, or very close to, the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere, so unless you get lots of large holes in the top of the balloon, it will eventually descend, but it will take a long time to do so.
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But it was a MAGA hobby balloon.
And a threat to Our Democracy.
It was also at Jan 6.
Which was the worst humanity since the Hindenburg and Watergate.
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ICBMs may already deploy balloons.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_aid
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I wrote the following on this blog Feb 6.
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I remember David – you are one fart smeller!
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Thank you David. I tried searching for your comment but I didn’t pick the right keywords. H/t added.
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Here’s the NIBB website with, I think, the balloon in question.
Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade
I hope for their sakes none of their members have recently travelled to China.
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The PRC may have been trying to gather data about the advanced Raptor fighter jet or missile technology as they consider an attack on Taiwan. The balloon was too high to shoot down with bullets. The PRC were taken by surprise by the Taiwan Air force many years ago when the top secret heat seeking sidewinder missile was used for the first time in combat. The low ceiling of the Taiwan jets gave the PRC planes a big advantage. The Taiwan Air Force shot down 10 PRC planes in the first battle while losing no planes. The PRC air force ran for their lives and the war was discontinued two weeks later.
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Still think the whole balloon thing was a red herring or decoy to hide other stories. Like the Nordstream pipeline story or even the release of the Epstein list. A couple of weeks ago we had the Pfizer executive video expose and where did that go? Nowhere.
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You are 100% correct, Ross – especially about Nordstream.
It even worked here at Jo’s where we are now apparently being invaded by nuclear missile surveillance balloons.
At this rate I’m half expecting The Second Coming for Easter.
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Seems Russia has called a Security Council meeting on Nord Stream for 22nd Feb.
Expect a pandemic of squirrel sightings coming up
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Russia is within its rights to demand reparations in the billions.
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I am sending an invitation to Biden and Harris to visit the Alaskan border to celebrate that border’s security. I will send them a pair of extra large silver party balloons to take to the celebration. Don’t tell any raptor pilots. 🤞🤞.
Sarc/ obviously.
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I don’t like Biden or Harris so I have launched one of my wind powered, solar steered, slingshot armed kites to shoot down your pair of extra large silver party balloons and thwart your celebration.
Take that, you filthy collaborator! Haha hehe hoho!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4
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…and the demonrats want to disarm the civilian population for putting holes in paper targets for fun on the weekend.
Disarm the government instead.
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Plus, every public official should have a track and trace chip implanted so we can keep an eye on them.
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Only the public officials that vote for chips need get one.
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Cunning Chinese plan! Send over enough balloons , Milley will expend enough Sidewinders to render the US defenceless. Those hobbyists are probably sponsored by the CCP.
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.
The serious saga of the steerable balloon – in living technicolour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGSqq6R5hm8
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LOL – Thx 4 that! Over!
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Any one who believes in anthropogenic global warming or that covid vaccines are fully safe and effective can be made to believe anything.
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Poor bastards- about to be raided by the FBI for terrorism.
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Hey, balloons are scary! Especially if they have clown faces on them.
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Snowden: balloons are engineered panic to distract from everything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgbNzfIazQM
I believe the F22 project cost US$67 billion. This is the first time the things have actually been used to shoot anything down. $80,000 an hour to run, and sidewinder missiles at $400,000 a pop. (No-one knows how to shoot guns any more?)
But worth every penny to get people’s attention away from Nordstream, Covid vaccine injuries, etc.
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Actually showed why we need to keep the f22. It can go high. Much higher then the 35. So the 22 will now be used for ground interdiction targets.
Interestingly, infrared shows water as solid.
News, is in a constant spin over Biden jr’s laptop yet. Just because the first thing to do a repair was not done, and therefore, is unreliable for evidence purposes, so who knows what was added? Or subtracted? Fox news entertainment group, real news or are they the equivalent of the rag the enquirer.
After all the ufo reports, upcoming alien beings, and sundogs, they finally shot one down!!! Hot damn…but no green men, phooey.
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Are we sure it was a Sidewinder? The Sidewinder is a heat seaking missile, not a radar guided missile.
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I think that is the official word. What we don’t know, is what they shot down.
Apparently sidewinders have evolved a lot these days and are sophisticated electronic creatures. I hear they are finely tuned to infra-red, and some have radar too, though I believe the AIM 9X version is not so much the radar type.
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To be fair, 13.33 is the discounted price.
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On the day that the Chinese balloon entered US airspace (Montana) our daughter was flying home to Los Angeles from Europe. I popped in on Flight tracker just about the time she crossed the Canadian/US border, flying over Montana. At 40,000 ft. Obviously all of these balloons, etc., need to be on flight controls radar . . as they are not all flying at 60,000 ft+.
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What I want to know is- why didn’t they fly above the balloon and drop a big net over it with long ropes attached and then tow it in?
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PSA for our ballooning friends…
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2533323-chinese-spy-balloon
Obviously, that will come as a welcome relief to those suffering from “globophobia.”
https://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/kaleb-cooper-phobia-of-balloons-clarksons-farm-300734-20230219
If you, or someone pretending to be your president, suffers from globophobia, $400K a pop is a small price to pay to be rid of the $@#% things. 😁
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All this talk of balloons. Just where will it all end?! And how did it even begin??!!!
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x85vlvq
Enjoy
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