4 ms·
F22 shooting this down is definitely a sign of strength. If this were a James bond movie, a predator drone would have just hooked that balloon and brought it ba
by sumoboy 4y ago
F22 shooting this down is definitely a sign of strength. If this were a James bond movie, a predator drone would have just hooked that balloon and brought it back intact.
What prevents China or anyone else to just launch dozens or hundreds of these?
- bamboozled 4y agoThe fact there would be no point ?
- gharman 4y agoCost differential is an interesting thing to consider if this were done at scale. That single missile cost ~$500K (plus flight time for the F22 isn't cheap). How much would each balloon be, especially if some were decoys without any real payload? That said, drones vs ships seems like a starker cost differential than this.
- bamboozled 4y agoOn the other hand, I’ll ask again, what’s the point ? We have balloons flying around ? Cool ?
- mushbino 4y agoTo get better weather info?
- mlindner 4y agoIt wasn't a weather balloon.
- Tuna-Fish 4y agoA predator drone wouldn't have been able to reach it. It was really flying really high. FL600 is ~roughly at Armstrong limit, or the altitude where you absolutely need a pressurized space suit if you want to go outside, or the water in your eyeballs will boil off. The very high performance jet that intercepted the balloon didn't climb to the same altitude as the balloon, as it was over the publicly stated ceiling for that plane. Instead, it did a zoom climb and fired a missile from below as it maxed out.