Small target compared to what? The balloon was 75 meters wide and carrying a payload of a couple thousand pounds.

True, didnt think of that

What.... news sources have you been following? And what hobbyist flies 3 bus wide balloons over the ocean and military sites in another country? Just.... what?

Wtf could ever suggest to you this was some "hobbyist"?

This is such a mind-blowing comment on so many levels.

So China can launch a few dozen balloons every month and make USA spend most of the defence budget just shooting them down.

I remember a post saying the most unrealistic part of Top Gun is that they all generally have cool call-signs, the only realistic one was Hang Man for leaving his wing men out to dry.

Usually the call-sign comes about from something embarrassing and is given by your wing mates, some of the examples I can remember:

• Legend - definitely badass sounding. But earned by being the first & only pilot to fail some test in the Air Force.
• Zeus - Zero Effort Unless Supervised. Apparently lied to his commander about a report being done, was asked to pull it up, and then the commander stood over his shoulder for the next half hour until the report was done.
• Bambi - during takeoff or landing a pregnant deer jumped in front of his plane, and he meat crayoned it across the tarmac.
• Obi-2: Ewan McGregor played Obi-Wan Kenobi. And his brother was a pilot in the RAF, hence Obi-2. This is a bit unproven but I like to believe.

So I'd imagine the pilot that missed the balloon might be getting a new call sign.

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Uruguay was a brazilian province for the last like 11 years before independence... you might be giving a bit to much credit to that argument

That's an interesting point. I wonder if the laser technology they're experimenting with for ship defense against missiles would have an application here.

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I thought the cats were swords at first. It took me a second to see the airplane.

True, and it really is the beauty of data that even though it seems 'hard', there is still plenty to interpret and discuss.

I agree 100% that society isn't in a great head space. I personally believe that to be a problem largely of mindset and outlook on the future, which is learned based on experience and what info one is intaking.

The news, for instance, is not a public service. Its eye candy to sell the crap on the commercials, just like cartoons, comedy specials, and sitcoms.

A lot of people are sad because they see 10 of 10 sad stories, and this leads a human to believe all is sad. There's plenty of love in the world.

I know they train every day, I've stood there and had my ears blown out by afterburners daily.

And come up with a better weapon for shooting down balloons.

I don’t think anyone believe that an infrared missile is the best possible option for shooting down a spy balloon, it’s just the best one that we have.

Hell, an airplane with a stall speed of over 200 knots really isn’t a great tool for taking out a slow moving balloon.

NASA has flown propeller drones at that altitude, maybe something like that …

Russia is an europran country, that happend to rule part of asia, were the idea that they are not europeans came from?

No. I'll stay. I'm just as much American as any other I learned it from observation. You know nothing about me.

So you’re admitting that you’re here to cast doubt on the US while hyping Russia. Just that you have not made that overt statement yet. Thanks for clarifying.

They “train” every day they’re not flying real missions. The idea is that they see everything they shoot as an inanimate object. Wouldn’t want them freezing up when they’re shooting things with humans inside.

Please quote directly where I said anything about the Russian military, Igor.

They're a bunch of useless conscripts and Siberian prisoners sent to fertilise the fields of Ukraine, Igor.

I am sure it happens sometimes, but I bet in general the pilots are happy to fly a mission where they get to shoot something, I don't think it's very common outside of training.

Says the guy hyping up the Russian military. Gtfo here Pavel.

Bc of one miss? They’ve been missing thousands of times a day for a year. Targets WITH heat signatures. I’m sure they have better things to worry about right now, Valerie.

Have you seen the pictures?

Those aren’t 10 dollar balloons with a Huawei phone mounted on them, they’re basically spy satellites…

They’re not designed for tracking balloons.

I’m surprised sidewinders can even track balloons, frankly. They’re heat seeking missiles, a balloon has to be pretty close to ambient air temperature, unlike a jet engine.

Sidewinder may have been the best option for the job—there’s a general quotes as saying it was—but I don’t think the military actually has any good weapons for taking down balloons. Not exactly a modern battlefield threat.

Imagine if they had like some sort of flying craft that could carry a gun.