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Fire balloon
- Johnny555 10y agoThe Japanese fire balloons pale in comparison to the American fire balloons[1][2] that ostensibly ended the war. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy
- halfdan 10y agoSo here's a weird idea: Could Roswell 1947 simply have been one of these balloons? Maybe the US was trying to improve those balloons with some, at the time, experimental material.
- quanticle 10y agoThe Roswell incident was a balloon, but it's highly unlikely that it was a fire balloon. Most contemporary analysis points to the Roswell incident being caused by one of the Project Mogul balloons [1]. Project Mogul was a top-secret (at the time) project to detect Soviet atomic bomb tests by listening for their shock waves with very sensitive microphones. These microphones were mounted on large hexagonal discs, which, when viewed by an untrained eye, looked like a flying craft of some sort. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul
- redcap 10y ago> On March 10, 1945, one of the last paper balloons descended in the vicinity of the Manhattan Project's production facility at the Hanford Site. This balloon caused a short circuit in the power lines supplying electricity for the nuclear reactor cooling pumps, but backup safety devices restored power almost immediately.
- redwood 10y agoWhat are the chances?!
- jamesdterry 10y agoThis was the test subject for trying to prove any conflict situation could be turned into a wargame: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34117/winds-war https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34117/winds-war
- paulsef11 10y agoThere's a really great Radiolab episode on this topic: http://www.radiolab.org/story/fu-go/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/fu-go/
- smpetrey 10y agoSuch a fantastic episode. This was the first episode I had ever listened to of Radiolab.
- tdeck 10y agoLess well known is Operation Outward, England's cheap, scrappy balloon program that actually got results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outward
- larrydag 10y agoIf you remember the old show Ripley's Believe it Or Not hosted by Jack Palance they did an episode on the Fire balloon. There were cases where unknowing hikers happened upon them in the west coast and some with horrible consequences as mentioned in the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ripley%27s_Believe_It_or_Not!_episodes_(1982%E2%80%9386) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ripley%27s_Believe_It_...
- pttrsmrt 10y agoEventually, an Army fighter managed to push one of the balloons around in the air and force it to ground intact, where it was examined and filmed. Wait, what, how??
- david-given 10y agoWingtip turbulence, most likely. In the UK during WWII, it was discovered that you could flip over a V1 flying bomb by putting the wingtip of your plane just under the wingtip of the bomb, at which point its gyro would get confused and it would flip over and spiral into the ground. This was apparently much safer than shooting them because otherwise you'd get caught in the shockwave when they exploded (they were bombs, after all). Here's a terrible Daily Mail article, but it's got the famous photos of someone actually doing it. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384740/Kate-Middleton-pays-tribute-pilot-knocked-V1-missiles-course-planes-wing.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384740/Kate-Middlet... BTW, wikipedia claims that in at least one case the V1 engine quenched after tipping, at which point it regained controlled flight and came down to a safe landing near Tilburg, where it was captured for examination...
- Tech1 10y agoThese are still (very rarely) found by hikers in the pacific northwest (source: i'm a bomb tech). Other relevant / weird WWII reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb (US program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog (Russian program)
- YeGoblynQueenne 10y agoAnd let's not forget more recent efforts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dolphin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dolphin
- tdeck 10y agoAnother crazy one was pigeon-controlled missiles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
- Hambonetasty 10y agoNew front-end framework?
- unclewaltr 10y agoYeah, one of these landed in Omaha, NE damaging a clock in Dundee neighborhood. Not terribly deadly, but it made press.