Taiwan and China thread.

I think they were mostly concerned with not shooting it down over land, now it lands in the ocean and they can pick it up and take a look at what was onboard.

Maybe an innocent weather balloon was blown off course or maybe it has a load of SIGINT and ELINT gear.
 
Grim5 said:
I'm surprised they've now said shoot it down

It makes the US look weak

The best option would have been to shoot it down as soon as it entered US airspace. But since they said they won't shoot it down, they should have just played it cool and acted like it means nothing. To now change tact again and shoot it down just makes the US government look indecisive, inconsistent and weak
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Rubbish.
 
Rroff said:
Maybe we should dig out an English Electric Lightning to lend em.
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Sadly, the Streak Eagle beat the EE Lightning for the climb to altitude records.
The Streak Eagle was a modified pre-production F-15A that was stripped of anything unneeded, including paint and polished. The EE Lightning was a a standard squadron aircraft. :D
 
U.S. Defense Officials:
- Balloon Shot Down About Six Nautical Miles off the U.S. Coast
- Chinese Balloon Was Not a Weather Balloon, It Was a Spy Balloon China Intended to Spy on Sensitive Military Sites
- Chinese Balloon Is Part of a Fleet of Surveillance Balloons That Have Spied Over Five Continents
- F-22 Engaged the Chinese Balloon With One Missile, No Collateral Damage or Harm to Civilians
- Missile Used Against Chinese Balloon Was an AIM-9X
- Balloon Entered U.S. Identification Zone on Jan. 28, Entered Canadian Airspace on Jan 30 and Re-Entered U.S. Airspace on Jan 31
- U.S. Military Took Precautions to Minimize Spying Risk As Balloon Crossed Over Sensitive Sites
- U.S. Military to Seek to Recover Payload From Chinese Surveillance Balloon
- Debris Field From Chinese Balloon Is Seven Miles, Spread out
 
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Flibster said:
Sadly, the Streak Eagle beat the EE Lightning for the climb to altitude records.
The Streak Eagle was a modified pre-production F-15A that was stripped of anything unneeded, including paint and polished. The EE Lightning was a a standard squadron aircraft. :D
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The Lightning was ridiculous. It was just a big engine with a seat screwed onto it.

Always liked that one!
 
Turn said:
U.S. Defense Officials:
- Balloon Shot Down About Six Nautical Miles off the U.S. Coast
- Chinese Balloon Was Not a Weather Balloon, It Was a Spy Balloon China Intended to Spy on Sensitive Military Sites
- Chinese Balloon Is Part of a Fleet of Surveillance Balloons That Have Spied Over Five Continents
- F-22 Engaged the Chinese Balloon With One Missile, No Collateral Damage or Harm to Civilians
- Missile Used Against Chinese Balloon Was an AIM-9X
- Balloon Entered U.S. Identification Zone on Jan. 28, Entered Canadian Airspace on Jan 30 and Re-Entered U.S. Airspace on Jan 31
- U.S. Military Took Precautions to Minimize Spying Risk As Balloon Crossed Over Sensitive Sites
- U.S. Military to Seek to Recover Payload From Chinese Surveillance Balloon
- Debris Field From Chinese Balloon Is Seven Miles, Spread out
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Should provide some interesting info once taken apart and examined.
 
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VincentHanna said:
What's China's game though? Make it really obvious we are spying on important strategic sites over the World?
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Probably just a middle finger to the US about them entering what they see as Chinese territory with Taiwan / South China sea etc.

Send a message but can still hide behind the weather balloon excuse
 
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An AIM-9 was used and it only took one atttempt. The AIM-9 didn't have to travel far, looked like it was launched and then hit the balloon 5 seconds later which means the F-22 was close by at about the same altitude

What's interesting is that the official flight ceiling of an F22 is 65,000 feet but we were told the balloon was chilling anywhere up to 80 thousand feet at time
 
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