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FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

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daifo

daifo

Major
Registered Member
AssassinsMace said:
What's up with a giant balloon being able to evade detection? The US didn't know about this balloon until it was reported visually by civilian aircraft when it was over the US. I read somewhere that Japan asked the US if it flew over their country. And on cable news they have to talk about the backwardness and why need a balloon when satellites can do the same job? I see an answer in there. Something that is cheap and they can't detect it...?

Remember those pictures of various Chinese hypersonic mockup designs hanging from a carriage hanging from a balloon? Have these floating over the Pacific waiting for enemy ships to come into range. You're going to be able to detect radar before they get close enough to read the bounce-back signal. I was watching CNN and they had a former General being interviewed saying the surveillance technology hanging from the balloon must weigh in the tons. How many suicide drones can it carry? Launch the balloon at night and it would be loitering over Taiwan before sun-up. No chance of spotting it. You know how paranoid Taiwan would be if hundreds of balloon decoys were coming at them that that they would have use up missiles shooting them down?
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If the Chinese thinks a slow moving balloon won't be detected, the pentagon also wouldn't want to reveal that they could or could not detect it.

Supposely the balloon part is difficult to detect but the hanging piece of equipment is likely reflective as a aircraft. But I imagine radars at one point were program to scrub out slow moving objects but ML/AI and excess cpu could prob help with categorizing.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
They think they can control the landing of the balloon if they can shoot it down so they can examine the payload or prevent it from going back to China? That's unpredictable. If it was full of super advanced technology, China would probably have a self-destruct so I doubt there's nothing advanced and like they can prevent China for getting its secrets it took when it was probably already transmitted back to China.
 
daifo

daifo

Major
Registered Member
Biscuits said:
I'm just guessing, how likely is that the balloon has the propulsion to go all the way back to China? It'd be a cool surprise if it can do it, but I just wouldn't bet on it.
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It could move back up in altitude to catch a wind stream out of the area. These balloons are mostly drifiting around with the wind currents , moving up and down in altitude to catch or uncatch
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
daifo said:
If the Chinese thinks a slow moving balloon won't be detected, the pentagon also wouldn't want to reveal that they could or could not detect it.

Supposely the balloon part is difficult to detect but the hanging piece of equipment is likely reflective as a aircraft. But I imagine radars at one point were program to scrub out slow moving objects but ML/AI and excess cpu could prob help with categorizing.
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And yet still not detected until it was visually spotted... I read in an article that because the balloon is moving with the winds and the material of a balloon doesn't bounce back like it were metal, it would be interpreted as a natural phenomenon like clouds on radar.
 
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