Chinese Balloon shot down.
 

Planes shot it down over the Atlantic.

US fighter jets shoot down Chinese spy balloon off East Coast | CNN Politics

Why open a whole new Thread when there's one here with a ton of info/comments on same topic??

ThanksTalt, saves me reading through all the stuff on the other thread.

This is old news already on the Chinese surveillance balloon thread.

Endless OPINION in the press. How do we KNOW it is Chinese? How do we know it is a SPY balloon? We regularly spy. Remember the Cuban Missal crisis the evidence was SPY photos.
That was 50 years ago. Our photos etc are far better.

If, spying it is interesting to use a balloon. It is large, relative to the payload and it is slow.
Our press has claimed it is controlled as it dropped in altitude. If, is was controlled, would the controller not have a destruct control?

Shot it down with a missal? We perhaps needed a dramatic end. Bullets into the bag would have brought it down slowly and we could have recovered it.

They did not seem to think the physics through if they wanted to recover anything. Maybe it was a deliberate attempt to placate the Chinese with that much weight hitting the ocean at a high rate of speed.

Ah… the Chinese admitted it was their “weather” balloon, it was established it was being controlled and perhaps a “ missile” was used because the balloon was higher than fighter jets fly.

Believe me, they thought the physics through… thoroughly.

Chinese balloon drone trying to deliver my kungpow chicken. Well, there goes dinner.

It was an F-22 which can operate at 60,000 feet (and above)

Can an F-22 have someone hang out the window and shoot one or two bullets at a balloon? That was the discussion, use just a couple of bullets to bring it down so it would descend slowly.

You probably got lucky.barf

That plane has gatling guns as far as I can tell. https://www.gd-ots.com/armaments/air...nimum%20weight

So it appears the best solution was determined and applied to the problem, after the cat drowned.

Hidden in the Department of Defense's release regarding the balloon which can be found HERE is this little gem... of interest to those who claimed previous CIC would never have allowed a balloon to even enter US airspace...

"The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration. "