None, since it was considered a difficult shot to do since the missiles they have are designed to explode when hitting hard targets. Usually a missile would fly right through the balloon without exploding, but they must have set a timer on it or an altitude for it to automatically explode at. The fact they got it on the first shot is amazing.
For me it's a good thing the Raptor has no kills. Speaks volume of the relative peace we live in and that "The best weapon, is the one you never need to use."
yeah the reason they waited IS: shocker joe biden and this admiration are in the pocket of the Chinese.. the paper tails cant be hid and its getting exposed.. and the "general" in charge is "i want to know about white rage", and the same guy that called china and told them hey if we are going to attack you ill be giving you a call to inform you first..... Yeah its obvious why is we let to go all over the us and they even canceled flights till it past.... that's weakness you stopped our who country because you feared a balloon from CHINA... more like they where told to let it go and did as they was told....
I mean Canada couldn't take down a large balloon once because they were using bullets, which wouldn't create a significant enough hole for it to tear or leak enough to collapse... so a large projectile is still the best way to go
@@someoneelse1550 The CF-18s used explosive shells, but of course they weren't fused for balloons, so they didn't explode. But I doubt the small size of the AIM-9X did it, either. It probably had to explode, using a proximity rather than contact/impact fuse, to take out that balloon.
Was Mover joking? I think he was completely serious about the sheer size of this balloon making it very difficult to take down. I'm just glad the AIM-9X worked because, justified or not, it would have been embarrassing if it had failed. And it easily could have in any of several ways.
@@mathgasm8484 The ATF just announced new regulations for balloon purchases and ownership. It covers types of balloons, and quantities of balloons, and includes a comprehensive section covering modifications.
My family member is an Intel Agent he said you can see way more with a Balloon you are all fooling yourselves! Lucky it was not carrying a small Nuke! Mr. Biden is incapable of protecting this Country just look at our Southern Border Now a Spy Balloon!
Hi Mover. I witnessed the engagement from my backyard here in Loris, SC. The hour leading up to the kill was just as interesting as the shot itself. I can send you a video and some still that also haven’t been uploaded. I’m too am a retired Military Aviator and watching the number of fighters tracking and circling the balloon was impressive. I also saw about 4 F-15s at lower altitude, and the 2 F-22s, which clearly were obviously at a much higher altitude. So in my military mind this was very well planned and briefed. Some out there think the F-22s just launched, fired and went home. Hats off to the F-15 and KC-135 crews that were there making this historic event happen.
What is fitting is the Squadron doing the Balloon busting. The call sign they used was a nod to a pilot in the 94th Aero Squadron during WWI who had the reputation for being a balloon buster over 17 Balloon kills to his name.
Thanks for using my video!! I was watching it most of the day. It looked like there were 2 fighters circling it and they left as the 1 f22 came in to take the shot. It was awesome witnessing the first air to air over US soil, maybe since Pearl Harbor?
Hawaii becomes a US State in 1959, so I think that puts Pearl out as a US State. It also would out Alaska out, as it also became a state in 1959. But as US Territories that are now US States, I think Alaska takes it with the Battle of Dutch Harbor, June 3-4, 1943. As for Territories, I imagine it would be Guam, which was in 1944, but it's not now a US State. Anyways, interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing the video Ryan.
@@delta34golf If we are talking any US soil, State or territory, then it most likely would have been one of the Pacific islands or the Philippines that saw the first ever air-to-air combat/kill.
The wet part - after the gritty bits - is called ocean 🙂 Soil is the thing before the gritty bits, mostly recognizable by the green bits sticking out of it 🙃 I'll show myself out
Ryan Sutton - Yeah Buddy!! I'm kinda old as Gramps Henry Ford's 1st Apprentice in '01, but in my cloudy cobwebbed memory, I think there was mention of a take-down of enemy piloted aircraft over...............Pennsylvania, on 9-11?
Sir, thank you for explaining this in military terminology yet didn't get too far that any fan of military aviation wouldn't get too lost by, if at all. Retired USAF guy myself who actually was fortunate enough to make a repair for an F-18 as well. I admit, I was wondering why not guns and you explained it clearly. Great video.
Thanks for your balanced explanation of what was going on. As you say, they probably get more info from our phones than from any balloon, but you don't know until the payload (or what's left of it) has been inspected.
4:06 - The Canadians found out cannons and balloons don't mix back in '98. I think it was 2,000 rounds of ammunition they fired at a balloon and it didn't work. Not an experience the Americans are eager to have their own of, I'm sure.
Also Every single cannon shell that goes through that balloon WILL land somewhere on the floor Last thing you want is to claim you shot down 1 Ballon and 53 civilians down range with the 500 shells you fired
The Australians found that out in the 1950's where they used 2 machine guns against a bunch of emus and the emus are still alive wandering around Western Australia.
Thanks for the video Mover, I have seen a lot of people ask why they didn't use the 20 mm. Also thought the story was cool that the pilots used the call sign 'FRANK01' FRANK02 in an apparent homage to a heroic pilot Frank Luke Jr. an American fighter ace in World War I better known as the 'Arizona Balloon Buster.' He is credited with shooting down 14 German surveillance balloons."
Canada tried to do that with an out of control hot air ballon after firing houndres of 20mm rounds into the ballon it...still kept flying eventually crashing in the atlantic ocean.
I appreicate the breakdown, i sent you the audio of the two pilots via email, thank you for explaining why they didn't use potential guns on the aircraft, that makes sense.... It is why i love listening to you when things happen, you give the REAL position and no bullshit!
99 spy balloons Floating in the winter sky Panic bells, it's red alert There's something here from Somewhere else The war machine springs to life Opens up one eager eye Focusing it on the sky The 99 spy balloons go by
99 washington Street 99 senators meet To worry, worry, never scurry Call the troops out in a hurry This is what we've waited for This is it boys, this is war The President is on the line As 99 spy balloons go by... Need this to be a cover
99 Decision Street Ninety-nine ministers meet To worry, worry, super-scurry Call the troops out in a hurry This is what we've waited for This is it, boys, this is war The president is on the line As ninety-nine spy balloons go by Great song, sadly relevant.
First Air-to-Air kill over the continental US: June 4th 1942 - Battle of Dutch Harbor, over Otter Point. 1 Japanese fighter and 2 Japanese dive bombers were downed by a patrol of 6 US P-40s.
So why do you need 6+ days of intel gathering after you were gathering intel on it over the Pacific, Canada, then Montana…. It makes no sense to let them use this equipment on a complete overflight of the US when you probably had all of the useful data you needed before it even got here and certainly after it transited Minuteman sites in Montana. This was a complete and total failure of leadership. Utter stupidity.
Yup,,, What's the point of a ballon when you can use satellites and Signals Intel? this was china's way of saying F-You for the Pelosi visit to Taiwan.
I dated a chick that had been in both the AF and the navy. RC-135's in the AF, P-3's and P-8's in the Navy. Just the unclassified stuff she told me about what those flying nerds can do, I can assure every American that that balloon sent back nothing but d**k pics and Winne The Pooh memes the entire time it was over US airspace... We didn't wait to shoot it down for safety, we waited because the sparkys were having too much fun with it.
@@jamesbrown5262 There's nothing the balloon could tell them that a satellite couldn't... Except maybe how quickly the US can shoot down a target like a slow-moving balloon. If we just tell China, and the world "Hey, we can see this thing! Look where it is!", we're saying we have the capability to shoot it down, but we don't care to. Then, we shoot it down over water after a massive delay (meaning we've revealed nothing about our capability), and that way it splashes down in a condition where maybe we can recover it and study it to see what it was actually supposed to do. So China has learned nothing, and the US has a cool balloon to study. How did the US lose again?
Outstanding video. In Ward Carroll's vid today, he mentions that they disarmed the missile so that it would just knock the payload off, without exploding it. I don't know if that's true or not. I cracked up at your debrief photo at the end....well played!!! And I truly hope there's an F22 with a balloon kill icon painted on the fuselage!! EDIT: Sorry, I see that a dozen other people have referenced Ward's vid in the comments. I hadn't read down far enough.
@@barrygrant2907 it was a poof not a boom. You had to struggle to identify the impact. Definitely doubt any firepower was involved. It's a bloody balloon lol.
It looks like it hit the tether cable. The payload was falling in-tact. Very precise hit. Good job. No doubt, the NAVY recovered it, and the DARPA gang can analyze it.
@@tonyv8925 As a maintainer of AIM-9X's... they don't get delivered to the Air Craft as a Live AUR(All Up Round) without a Warhead. No such thing as an "Igniter Charge". No one in Ops orders a Live missile with a CAP warhead on a live Motor when that AC is assigned to Alert status. Ever. The Warhead is armed on the ground. The Pilot's Master Arm switch controls the Fuse arming and rocket motor arming. They(fuse and rocket motor) cannot be armed separately. There is literally a T-handle that has to be lifted and rotated on the body to arm the Warhead and Rocket motor(they're on the same electrical circuit). That task is completed by ground crew on the EOR(end of runway) pad. Civ's call it a Run up area. Either way, that AIM-9 was a 100% live round and used to it's designed ability.
The first aircraft shot down over the United States was by Squadron Leader Ken Boomer, Royal Canadian Air Force on September 25, 1942 over Kiska Island, against a Nakajima Rufe (a Zero floatplane). A second Rufe was shot down shortly thereafter by Major John Chennault, USAAF, who was flying in the same fomation of P40s.
a lot of people appreciate your insight in this manner. People in my state comment on how they would have shot it down if it came over their county....Again, if this was used to gather intelligence, thats why they didnt fly over my state. Thanks again.
In all my looks into the history of intelligence gathering u don't think I've ever seen a situation were if a source of intelligence gathering has been found they didn't take advantage of feeding it false info. This is apparently the fifth balloon in several years. I'd expect they've discovered a lot about how to fuck with them
yeah the reason they waited IS: shocker joe biden and this admiration are in the pocket of the Chinese.. the paper tails cant be hid and its getting exposed.. and the "general" in charge is "i want to know about white rage", and the same guy that called china and told them hey if we are going to attack you ill be giving you a call to inform you first..... Yeah its obvious why is we let to go all over the us and they even canceled flights till it past.... that's weakness you stopped our who country because you feared a balloon from CHINA... more like they where told to let it go and did as they was told....
You do us and this whole country a service. Thanks for all of it. Another great summary of events which are unfortunately plastered with misinformation [from other sources] flying everywhere.
Thanks Mover, excellent video and commentary on this incident. The only thing that would’ve been an improvement is if you’d been interviewed on a major news network. Your insights and thoughts are leaps and bounds better than anything I’ve heard out there so far.
Thanks for explaining on how they attacked it that it will be easy for the Aim-9X to track. I though it wasn't useful as the target did not have an engine. Still impressive how this missile has improved. I remember reading that the early versions can be confused by the sun.
there's been a massive host of improvements modern AIM-9X is one helluva beast original AIM-9A/Bs had a very specific flight envolope they could be fired in, pulled less than 15gs, and had to be fired specifically at the enemy jet's exhaust in order to track, and then the track was easily lost or evaded modern AIM-9X can pull around 50gs from memory, has all aspect lock, can ignore flares, possesses airburst capability, and with a 5th gen helmet mounted display can lock and engage targets from 270 degrees pilot vision
They don’t tell you have advanced their missiles are. This one’s might be older than the version using for the future 6th gen fighter jets. We normal people would never know what kind of weapons the government is making.
The USAF will award the pilot an Air Force Cross for his/her brave engagement with the balloon. I wonder if they painted a balloon on the side of the jet. This is how the pilot described the encounter, "There I was closing at 500 kts when I spotted the balloon, I went to max burner and pulled hard up and right, I kept my eyes on the balloon as it increased speed to 30 kts. I thought to myself it's now or never and I rolled in with my fangs out knowing I was risking everything. When the radar locked on, I felt bad for the balloon because its death was moments away. I suppressed those thoughts and let my training take over and I fired. I felt a thrill as the missile streaked toward the doomed balloon. Seconds later I had my first kill, like many firsts in my life I'll never forget this one." Of course, being a pilot, he used his hands to show the maneuvers as his described them. Thrilling story wouldn't you agree.
@@anonypersona3189 Yep, just read about that as well. I assume they went w/ a kinetic warhead like the Hellfire R9X in order to bring down the balloon, but not cause too much damage such that there would be no intel left in the wreckage.
Thanks for the video. A lot of great information. I was confused about the use of the Aim-9x until I saw your explanation. I did not know a fox-2 was able to track a balloon before your explanation
Thank you for your honest assessment of a situation that has so much misinformation, and memes, around it. I have always appreciated your honest takes, humor, and respect for your profession. Your video on this subject is a master class.
Laugh all you want about the target being a balloon and stuff. The crazy part is that the intercept happened near the edge of jet fighter's ceiling, yet debris fell within 12 miles off shore. That's surgical coordination and intercept imho. Heard that the warhead in that AIM9X was removed/deactivated to make sure that debris of the spy balloon could be as intact as possible for analysis after retrieval. Kudos to that Raptor driver and everyone involved.
Great vid, i was watching it from my fire station in NMB. I was not expectingthe shoot so i have the after vid and i was alot more excited than the guy who took this vid. Mines more explicit in language lol. There seemed to be 2 flights (4 aircraft) circling, then they seemed to move to a staging area to the north. One fighter broke off and bee lined to the balloon and thats when the shoot happened. The explosion could be heard shortly after. The initial shoot aircraft immediately moved off to the soutwest and a sonic boom could be heard. Im guessing to escape debris because there was a metric shit ton falling, and im assuming that was mainly the solar panels. Looked like a bunch of flashes from the sun flickering off of the falling chunks. One aircraft stayed with the balloon and circled it as it fell. The other 3 departed shortly after. The sense of pride was overwelming honestly. Truely Awesome.
Balloons have been a problem for fighters' guns ever since World War 1. Observation blimps were some of the hardest targets to bring down, because bullets just make holes which are barely an inconvenience to the blimp, and those blimps were even filled with hydrogen! (Because they were completely *full* of hydrogen, there wasn't any oxygen inside, so the hydrogen couldn't burn until the blimps had lots and lots of holes perforated in them, and thus even incendiary rounds had hard time bringing them down.)
Thank you, Sir for the explanation. I find it interesting, that the AIM-9X can track a balloon, with a much smaller heat signature than that of a normal jet would have (a much wider object but much cooler than a jet engine).
The AIM-9X doesn't track the heat of the engine. Modern imaging infrared missiles can see the actual image of the target against the background, and can engage from any aspect (i.e. head on, tail, side, etc.....)
@Xarifa Zee That's not how it works, unless you put your launch aircraft at a dangerous distance from the target. The missile seeker was absolutely used.
The thing was stationary against a very dark sky (in IR ) so plenty of contrast . The histeria it's embarassing , us is madhouse . It's a baloon you cannot use it for spying because you cannot point it towards any target .And everybody can see it's over there and stop doing things you want to spy on . US uses the same things for weather and other scientific studies but none for spying on china . Because is stupid and useless . Satellites , oh yes , plenty and a dozen more ...
Because our Russian friends would have smoked that thing 2 minutes after it launched, without saying a word, ever. "Hey.....what just happened to our "civilian weather information gathering" balloon? It was doing fine.... where'd it go?"
What i was thinking that this balloon might have been used for sensor intelligence. Imagine all the EWR, search radars, track radars and fighter radars they might have triggered. One of the applications could be data for an RWR for their fighters and bombers. And probably way more applications. I'm just thinking out loud now. It might be silly.
Which is also a plausible reason for not shooting it down, the images it could have collected weren't beyond satellite capabilities the Chinese likely already have. the US were taking the opportunity to spy on and observe the balloon. Something that slow and obvious would have given every military base enough warning to hide sensitive information and equipment before the balloon was within range.
@@VeeAreSixed1 SIGINT takes backseat to eliminating a clear and present danger to the US. Lord only knows what could have been on that balloon. Not shooting it down as soon as we found it was plain incompetence.
I think it likely they just wanted to see how slow we were to react to a stunt no one has pulled since the Japanese floated Incendiaries transcontinentally in 1944. And if nothing else, they possess mystical (and shameless) Kung Fu powers for spinning literally anything into propaganda, no matter how laughable. They'll use this.
If you want to read a good story about shooting down a drone . There's an old story called The Battle of Palmdale and you can find out what happens when you're shooting at things and things don't go the way you planned them to go
So the man who gets into a lot of fights is America and the collective west and the man everyone is afraid to fight is Russia and the collective Beijing-Moscow axis, right?
A kill is a kill. Sitting around KMMT listening to Generals ask if we could hit it with flechettes. Not at that altitude sir, lol. Thought the guys at Shaw would get the call.
@@classicgalactica5879 I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon that you only have to fire once. That's how dad did it. That's how America does it. And it worked out pretty good so far
Also just to add, I don’t know if you said but per what I’ve heard they said with the aim 9x sidewinder is that it has no warhead on it, so that way it would do less damage to anything attached to the ballon.
Hey Mover! Did you feel the AIM9 coming off the rail at all? Former Viper crew chief at Nellis aggressor unit. We were the first VIper unit to become aggressors when the F5's were retired. :)
I'd already guessed that they were gathering information themselves from the path of the balloon and potentially from data recovery. I didn't think about tipping our hand on our methods to respond to threats.
Tipping our hand on our methods??? You mean like detecting it? Heck, I could see it from my back yard. You mean like shooting it down with a fighter jet? I guess now they know we have fighter jets with rockets. .
The level of spin in your statement would have been passable if the morons at the pentagon weren't also propagating and losing a proxy war against an opponent they are admittedly too cowardly and incompetent to fight directly. An opponent also tied at the hip with the squinty eyes. So no, stick you're 'the spooks had good reason not to immediately blow that up when they had the chance. Trust me bro' and shove it. Like a normal functioning human being, most people are just going to rightly assume that this whole debacle is just more incompetence and cowardice.
I think our military was actually listening to the balloon and what it was transmitting back to China since well before it entered our airspace. If it was transmitting anything very sensitive, we certainly have the ability to jam the transmissions. Heck, we might have even hacked it and were sending the Chinese FAKE intel on it!
Ward Carroll said a few things differently. 1st, he said the aim9x used had no warhead, he also said it was the ballon that was shot, and most importantly, it’s not actually a heater as it detects differences in light instead of heat. Not saying who is wrong or right, or that it even matters. More curiosity than anything. Enjoy your videos!
I am wondering if one reason for The delay in shooting it down was perhaps. They did a modification to the Aim9x. Would probably adjust the tracking sensors to the lower heat signature of the ball on and decrease the warhead explosive force so that the payload would receive less damage!
Also, just to chime in, radiant heat is light; infrared is just another wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. light), and radiant heat is transmitted by the electromagnetic spectrum (primarily in the infrared for most phenomena you’d observe on earth). They are the same thing!
@@michaelmartin3936 Perhaps they did some modifications, but that's not the reason for the delay. It was delayed because it presented no threat, was an intelligence gathering opportunity, and if shot down over land could have turned into a risk.
One of the biggest reasons they didn't shoot it down over the main land that very few people have mentioned is because the equipment could have been powered by an RTG which contains plutonium. There was also the possibility that some of the maneuvering thrusters used hydrazine which is highly toxic and China uses a lot in their aerospace projects. In either case, its not something you want raining down from the sky on people and cities. That's not even considering the more basic threat of debris falling from miles up in the atmosphere. Waiting for it to go over the ocean was the right call.
Could have also been packing a biological weapon. There are some who think the COVID-19 virus was deliberately Chinese man-made. I don't believe that, but this still could have been a "trial balloon" (so to speak) for the Chinese to see what the USA would do, and maybe send a "dirty" balloon in the future.
@@thedausthed Because having more than 1 power system would be completely crazy on a military vehicle. 🙄 More over the point was we did not know what was on board the balloon and if it was dangerous.
@@INOD-2 There are far easier and cheaper ways to spread a bio weapon than a balloon. Most pathogens would not survive the wild changes in temperature, pressure, and humidity being dropped from a balloon at that height while also being exposed to UV and cosmic radiation. Its much easier just to fly a few agents in on a commercial airline flight and have them release it in a large city.
And, not the first time a balloon was used against the U.S. nor the first shot down. The Japanese, late in WW2, conducted a balloon bomb campaign against the U.S. Some were shot down by defending fighters. One landed in Oregon and blew up a curious family which discovered it. All of this was given little publicity at the time.
I don't see why it was not shot down over Alaska. The USAF is once again a great source of pride for pulling this off with one shot. I just had to cheer when I saw the footage. Let's be ready for the next one.
Recovery would have been a lot more difficult. Over the sea and it would have been impossible to insert divers due to the extreme cold and rough waters. Over the land and the falling remnants of the payload would have likely been smashed to pieces. As much as I was extremely frustrated this thing crossed the US, I now suspect the plan to shoot it down over the Atlantic coast was less about reducing undue risks to the public or dithering, but more about increasing the odds of a successful recovery of the debris. It obviously took time to position all the recovery assets, which would not be possible if they had targeted it over the Aleutian Islands or even mainland Alaska. Doing it in a well-planned and coordinated manner after days of studying its flightpath, not only allowed for the coordination of resources, but also allowed for the recovery to occur in a location closed off to any prying eyes of the media or civilians. While this last aspect might seem secretive and shadowy, it's also important from an intelligence gathering perspective. If you look at a website like Skyvector.com, you can see that the government has closed off a 100 square mile area off the coast to civilian aircraft or vessels to allow for unimpeded recovery operations. This would not be possible (certainly not practical) if it landed on or near someone's property or a town over land. Preventing public access to the crash scene, or even access to the general area near it is important and would not be very feasible if it happened over land. And as I touched on earlier, the calm and shallow coastal waters off the coast of the Carolina's are a lot more friendly to a recovery operation than the waters off the coast of Alaska.
Well, there's always the possibility that it was carrying a biological and/or chemical weapon and shooting it down over land could have unleashed the next viral pandemic. Hopefully, the Navy personnel recovering it will be wearing HAZMAT suits, just in case.
@@skyhawk_4526 I have to question the wisdom of prioritizing the recovery of a bunch of used electronics over giving away days of sensitive data that the balloon captured flying over military bases across the country. Surely, CIA should be able to intercept enough transmission within the first hour or so when it flew over Alaska.
Great analysis. Thanks for your insight. I witnessed the balloon getting shot down from my back yard in Myrtle Beach a mile from the ocean. Two loud booms occurred moments apart as the balloon was engaged. Can you explain what they were? Were they related to the F-22 going supersonic and then the A9X detonation?
Unfortunately, only one of those booms was made by the US missile, the other one was made by the Chinese balloon's self destructive devices. It destroyed itself seconds after the balloon was shot.
Excellent video Mover! Is there any intel on if they discovered this balloon the instant it flew into US airspace or only well after that? In the latter case it could be a serious threat if equipped with any kind of weaponry...
That's cool! Of course observation balloons in WW-1 were surrounded by machine guns and you had to fly low to get to them. More than a few pilots were lost "Balloon Busting". Still cool though. Tom Boyte GySgt USMC, retired Vietnam 1965-66/1970-71 Infantry, 0331 Machine guns Bronze Star, Purple Heart
Thanks Mover, I was one of them who were saying they should have just went after it sooner and shot it with the 20mm also. You put it in very good perspective. I was also overflown by the two F15s heading from MA to the kill zone I was wondering where they were going…
This was a great take on the situation. Really helped clarify things. Every other breakdown is wrapped head to toe in politics and finding the truth within is basically impossible. Which is the new way of our country.
Balloon busting was a quite regular sortie, for fighter pilots, during World War One. This is probably the first balloon busting sortie in over 100 years.
The Japanese sent bomb balloons over our west coast in WWII, and I believe our planes shot some of those down. That wasn't widely publicized at the time, though. I believe some people in Oregon(?) were actually l killed by one.
They've been running intel for age, but I do like how people hadn't realized high altitude baloons are still viable intel assets in this day and age. Chinese psyops online have been trying to portray anyone pointing this out as idiocy to try and deflect, but this was a valuable lesson to the public as to what different types of tools PRC uses (not just Tiktok). It's obvious they was to run a Pearl Harbor when they eventually try to grab at Taiwan.
The Chinese use huge balloons instead of satellites to spy on the United States. Is it because China's technology is too backward to launch satellites ，or they think the United States is too backward to detect and capture balloons?🤣
@@jack99889988 I genuinely thought this was a 4D psyop of some prisoner in guandong or a PLA kid on a keyboard. Yeah, I know the NSA and GCHQ have already put me on a list, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel with that since you still have some freedom of movement. Getting away from a metropolitan city was the first cure I found. Second was limiting my traffic, getting rid of my social media and toring my way around (even then, be careful of fed hosts trying to honeypot). The only thing to do right now is limit and be smart. Ignore the wife when she asks for that new fancy thingamajig she pretends is useful, don't buy your kids smart phones, don't put a smart fridge in your kitchen. Until we hit WWIII, that's as far as a normal person can go.
Fortunately they did a visual orbit to be sure of the target...imagine it was the house of the old guy of "UP":-) but in a serious note, great job from the raptors, engage at 65000ft is no joke ...and is also concerning about what are they gathering with those ballons....here in Colombia our air force detected yesterday a simillar object...
Amateur radio operator captured and recorded the intercept audio and its all over UA-cam. Would you consider doing a reaction or commentary video to the audio? One interesting thing is that they got a seeker tone over 30nm away. Pretty crazy
Some WW1 pilots would be like “good job! You got a balloon, that’s a big win!” (Artillery spotter balloons were heavily defended against aerial attack and getting a kill meant basically charge of the light brigade directly at the guns.) The more things change…
Maybe this F-22 will find its way to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum after its retirement ! It became a piece of military history as of yesterday! ❤
Can’t help but wonder if they used an aim-9 with a deactivated warhead or a bladed hellfire AGM-114R9X we used in Syria recently that has the big ginsu knives that pop out the sides to preserve the digital intelligence for recovery. Also wondering if we shadowed it the whole time with one of our many electronic warfare platforms like the Growler or EC-37 that jam/disrupt/steal radio/radar/EM signals
The biggest concern I have with this situation is China seeing the U.S. reluctance to defend its airspace as a sign of weakness. If they truly intend to take Taiwan they will definitely try to gauge whether or not they believe the U.S. will intervene. Actions will always speak louder than words.
Sometimes patience is a better decision than speed. I don’t know what the right answer was here, but just like how waiting has it’s risks (CCP could have collected information, US might look weak), the US aggressively defending it’s airspace also had risks (there is a 7 mile debris field over the water… which town would’ve been best to have that fall on?). Not trying to be argumentative, I just wish that sometimes we would just trust those in charge. Maybe they have more information than we do and made the best decision with that information. Once again, not saying that it’s the right decision, but at least they made one. Hindsight is always 20/20, in the moment it’s different. Let’s focus on the fact that someone sent a balloon for a reason and hope that we accurately learn what that reason was. The CCP says it was for weather data, do you believe that?
@@deenalos18 it definitely wasn’t a weather balloon. There are risks and costs to action but they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. The U.S. had plenty of opportunities to shoot the balloon down before it reached our airspace and while it was over vast swaths of empty land. That hesitation and refusal to act sends a message that we are weak. If we don’t defend ourselves then why should China believe we will defend Taiwan. That weakness invites challenge and that challenge could very well lead to conflict.
@@mikelee7318 we all know the “one China” bs is clever political maneuvering to avoid unnecessary conflict. Last time I checked the ROC flag was flying in Taipei and not that ugly ass commie flag. The U.S. will act to ensure that Taiwan maintains its self governance by any means necessary. If the PRC decides to change the status quo than the west will be forced to reunify China under the ROC as it should have always been. It would be an opportunity to right a great historical mistake.
@@mikelee7318 The Taiwan Relations Act (Pub. L. 96-8, H.R. 2479, 93 Stat. 14) supersedes any policy statements from the State Department. But whether or not Taiwan is part of West Taiwan is merely a matter of de facto ambivalence.
2 questions 1) Why a fighter and not a ground/sea based missile (or drone for that matter? 2) How long is the fighter pilot going to get razzed about shooting down a balloon from his squad? Edit: I forgot to say thank you for covering this Mover.
1: Because it would have required the use of anti-ballistic missile defense at that altitude. The capabilities of the F-22 and AIM-9X are both fairly well known at this point, its better to use a cat that's already been let out of the bag than to reveal the capabilities of a THAAD or something similar. Especially since one of the only logical reasons for the existence of the balloon in the first place would be to provoke us into using a THAAD to shoot it down and gather data on its capabilities. 2: Probably not very long, since he can just remind them that at least actually HAS an air to air kill XD.
the US army doesn't have ground based missiles to bring down this ballon without destroying its electronic components. Capturing the sensors and communication components was the US army's primary goal. That's also the real reason why they chose to shoot it down over the shallow ocean. And the balloon was too high for drones to reach. In fact the balloon lowered its altitude significantly for f22 to reach. I believe it was done on purpose by the Chinese, as a gesture of goodwill, although they did blow up the devices themselves to humiliate the US army and keep their communication technology secret at the same time.
Great recap. Got a lot more from this than anything else I’ve found. I had wondered why they didn’t use the gun and the “what if” factor makes sense. I wondered if the balloon was above the rated ceiling for the F-22 and if the jet isn’t stable enough in thin air to use the gun. Also wondered if this shoot effectively confirms the jet can fly higher than has been disclosed?
Great information you supplied us! At the 6:09 mark of the video, you mentioned this event possibly being the highest air-air kill at around 58,000 feet! However, just looking up some past history, I remembered an F-15 launching an ASM-135 ASAT missile at the P78-1 Solwind satellite and destroying it at 326 miles up in orbit, as recorded on September 13, 1985! Wouldn't the F-15's satellite kill be the highest air-air kill ever? What are your thoughts? Thanks for your video!
@@matthewdavidjarvis6039 Thanks Mr. Jarvis for your comment! I was fully aware that the Solwind destruction was a test on a US satellite! However, I was referring to ALL air-air kills regardless of whether they were hostiles, friendlies, tests or otherwise! And, if you think about it, imagine launching a missile from an aircraft that can hit a target moving over 17 THOUSAND MPH at an orbital altitude of over 17 MILLION feet (326 statute miles up)! I think this fete, that occurred over 37 years ago by the F-15, has to be one of the most phenomenal & remarkable accomplishments made by a military jet EVER! The satellite shootdown also should not be so easily dismissed, regardless of little to no fanfare ever being made about this 1985 accomplishment, in the first place! I might add that no AIM-9X or AIM-120 could have hit that satellite! So, as far as I'm concerned, it does indeed "count as an actual military "kill"! As for the F-22 shooting down the balloon, from what I've read, that was not an easy target to accomplish the surgical-like strike he made! My hat goes off to the F-22 pilot's exceptional skills!
Depends where the satellite was, because if it's high enough that's it's classified as Space then it's not an air to air kill And satellites can't orbit if they aren't in space so if an F15 did shoot a satellite the satellite was either in space or the F15 was shooting at an out of control payload from a failed rocket launch
@@ms3862 No, it hit a satellite, if I remember right they were testing the missile on a defunct satellite. I think Dark Skies did a video on it a couple of years ago.
@@logicplague I do remember hearing about this when it happened. I don't know what the logistics were, and I definitely don't understand how a guided missile (with aerodynamic fins for maneuvering) could maneuver in the vacuum of space. I suppose you could get it on a ballistic trajectory prior to it leaving the atmosphere and assuming it got close enough the debris from the warhead's detonation could still take out the satellite. Now I'm actually very curious how they pulled that off.
@@skyhawk_4526 I remember that the missile was designed specifically for this, however that worked, and the whole thing was basically just a test to see if they could even do it. It also sent a hell of a political message at the time, "Hey, we can tag your satellites with F-15's"
The A-10 has more Air to Air kills than the Raptor...
I am pretty sure most top soil on this earth is younger than the warthog, nothing but love for that unkillable airframe lol
Yeah, but I'd like to see an A-10 at 60,000ft.
Service ceiling for the Hog is 35000. No worries, just glad we took out the balloon!
Hawgs gone wild.
The Blackhawk (I think) has more air to air kills than the Raptor.
Imagine the grief the F-22 Pilot would have received if he missed this target.
bro 😂😂
he probably has missed the first shot we just didn't see it filmed 😀
The grief would've been more for the Weapons manufacturers... Lockheed Martin and Raytheon company...
Talk about pressure!!!
None, since it was considered a difficult shot to do since the missiles they have are designed to explode when hitting hard targets. Usually a missile would fly right through the balloon without exploding, but they must have set a timer on it or an altitude for it to automatically explode at. The fact they got it on the first shot is amazing.
For me it's a good thing the Raptor has no kills. Speaks volume of the relative peace we live in and that "The best weapon, is the one you never need to use."
Perhaps I'm a bit pessimistic, but I suspect this will be a very temporary condition.
Really mean while we drone strike in all kinds of countries
They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once ;)
yes, neither does the minuteman missile, best weapon is the one that you don't have to use
@@skyhawk_4526 Yeah, America is headed for a war with China
Anyone using Tik Tok and complaining about Chinese espionage has serious cognitive dissonance issues.
Yep
agreed
Facts...
And typing comments on a Chinese phone 😆
yeah the reason they waited IS: shocker
joe biden and this admiration are in the pocket of the Chinese.. the paper tails cant be hid and its getting exposed.. and the "general" in charge is "i want to know about white rage", and the same guy that called china and told them hey if we are going to attack you ill be giving you a call to inform you first.....
Yeah its obvious why is we let to go all over the us and they even canceled flights till it past.... that's weakness you stopped our who country because you feared a balloon from CHINA... more like they where told to let it go and did as they was told....
"A balloon of this caliber is not something that you can just pop." man the seriousness on your face when you said this had me dying on the floor
5th gen balloon needs to be taken down by a 5th gen plane.
I mean Canada couldn't take down a large balloon once because they were using bullets, which wouldn't create a significant enough hole for it to tear or leak enough to collapse... so a large projectile is still the best way to go
@@someoneelse1550 The CF-18s used explosive shells, but of course they weren't fused for balloons, so they didn't explode. But I doubt the small size of the AIM-9X did it, either. It probably had to explode, using a proximity rather than contact/impact fuse, to take out that balloon.
Was Mover joking? I think he was completely serious about the sheer size of this balloon making it very difficult to take down. I'm just glad the AIM-9X worked because, justified or not, it would have been embarrassing if it had failed. And it easily could have in any of several ways.
The spy balloon marking on the Raptor is both awesome and funny as hell.
4 more, and he's an ace!! Get sum!
@@austinado16 ace balloon killer. We are all safe except for birthday parties.
@@mathgasm8484 ace balloon killer was a real deal back in WW1. Only the best of the best could claim that title.
It sucks that it's not real 😭
@@mathgasm8484 The ATF just announced new regulations for balloon purchases and ownership. It covers types of balloons, and quantities of balloons, and includes a comprehensive section covering modifications.
Might be the first and only well-balanced, informative take I’ve seen or care to see. More than enough said. Thanks always, Mover.
Check out Ward Carroll's video on it.
@@Axemantitan yes ward Carol had a good video on it... Great channel
Joe Biden is a Coward after all he has Transexuals dancing on the Whitehouse Oval Office Desk that's why!
My family member is an Intel Agent he said you can see way more with a Balloon you are all fooling yourselves! Lucky it was not carrying a small Nuke! Mr. Biden is incapable of protecting this Country just look at our Southern Border Now a Spy Balloon!
Yeah any of those youtube short videos are cancer
Hi Mover. I witnessed the engagement from my backyard here in Loris, SC. The hour leading up to the kill was just as interesting as the shot itself. I can send you a video and some still that also haven’t been uploaded. I’m too am a retired Military Aviator and watching the number of fighters tracking and circling the balloon was impressive. I also saw about 4 F-15s at lower altitude, and the 2 F-22s, which clearly were obviously at a much higher altitude. So in my military mind this was very well planned and briefed. Some out there think the F-22s just launched, fired and went home. Hats off to the F-15 and KC-135 crews that were there making this historic event happen.
Love my F15s!!
Only cost a couple hundred million to shoot down a balloon :D
@@Fatbat3000bro it’s not that big of a deal. Think of it like training.
@@humperdinckoglethorpe4180 For what? More balloons? 6 fighters is just ridiculous for shooting down an off-course weather balloon.
@@Fatbat3000Actually, no. The missile, plus some gas that would have been used for a training mission anyway. It didn't cost much.
The first F-22 kill being a balloon is oddly fitting.
hahahahahha
Was it 35 million dollars EA.?
@@40yeartrucker25 It is your tax dollars at work . Here in Canada we have the new F-35 with the question " does it start in cold weather"
What is fitting is the Squadron doing the Balloon busting. The call sign they used was a nod to a pilot in the 94th Aero Squadron during WWI who had the reputation for being a balloon buster over 17 Balloon kills to his name.
If that's all it ever has to kill that suits me fine. Seeing the little baloon silhouette on the nose is amusing.
Thanks for using my video!! I was watching it most of the day. It looked like there were 2 fighters circling it and they left as the 1 f22 came in to take the shot. It was awesome witnessing the first air to air over US soil, maybe since Pearl Harbor?
Hawaii becomes a US State in 1959, so I think that puts Pearl out as a US State. It also would out Alaska out, as it also became a state in 1959. But as US Territories that are now US States, I think Alaska takes it with the Battle of Dutch Harbor, June 3-4, 1943. As for Territories, I imagine it would be Guam, which was in 1944, but it's not now a US State. Anyways, interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing the video Ryan.
@@delta34golf If we are talking any US soil, State or territory, then it most likely would have been one of the Pacific islands or the Philippines that saw the first ever air-to-air combat/kill.
Shooting balloon could be so exciting? Anyway it could be a weather balloon at the end of the day.
The wet part - after the gritty bits - is called ocean 🙂
Soil is the thing before the gritty bits, mostly recognizable by the green bits sticking out of it 🙃
I'll show myself out
Ryan Sutton - Yeah Buddy!! I'm kinda old as Gramps Henry Ford's 1st Apprentice in '01, but in my cloudy cobwebbed memory, I think there was mention of a take-down of enemy piloted aircraft over...............Pennsylvania, on 9-11?
Sir, thank you for explaining this in military terminology yet didn't get too far that any fan of military aviation wouldn't get too lost by, if at all. Retired USAF guy myself who actually was fortunate enough to make a repair for an F-18 as well. I admit, I was wondering why not guns and you explained it clearly. Great video.
The USAF had F/A-18s?
Since when?
@@fastwing3295 isn't there a US law that punishes people for lying about being in the military? I am not from the US so i don't know
USAF & F-18 = SUS
@@fastwing3295 It's highly likely that this person is making this up because the F-18 never served in the US Air Force.
@@davidtsiangwy Yeah. I know. Hence the 'since when'.
Thanks for your balanced explanation of what was going on.
As you say, they probably get more info from our phones than from any balloon, but you don't know until the payload (or what's left of it) has been inspected.
4:06 - The Canadians found out cannons and balloons don't mix back in '98. I think it was 2,000 rounds of ammunition they fired at a balloon and it didn't work.
Not an experience the Americans are eager to have their own of, I'm sure.
Also Every single cannon shell that goes through that balloon WILL land somewhere on the floor
Last thing you want is to claim you shot down 1 Ballon and 53 civilians down range with the 500 shells you fired
That is classic bull-shite. 2000 rounds thru a balloon will turn it to swiss cheese and down it goes
@@hansgruber2509 anything capable of shooting so many bullets will not be as accurate at a distance
The Australians found that out in the 1950's where they used 2 machine guns against a bunch of emus and the emus are still alive wandering around Western Australia.
@@FlukeyLuke But shooting a missile is perfectly safe?
Thanks for the video Mover, I have seen a lot of people ask why they didn't use the 20 mm. Also thought the story was cool that the pilots used the call sign 'FRANK01' FRANK02 in an apparent homage to a heroic pilot Frank Luke Jr. an American fighter ace in World War I better known as the 'Arizona Balloon Buster.' He is credited with shooting down 14 German surveillance balloons."
Did you know that Frank Luke was a member of Eddie RickenBacher's 94th Aero Squadron.
@@michaelbenjmitchell1 I didn't but I am enjoying reading about now, Thanks!
Oh that's neat!
Canada tried to do that with an out of control hot air ballon after firing houndres of 20mm rounds into the ballon it...still kept flying eventually crashing in the atlantic ocean.
So there is USA history of fighting balloons, hahahahahah
I appreicate the breakdown, i sent you the audio of the two pilots via email, thank you for explaining why they didn't use potential guns on the aircraft, that makes sense.... It is why i love listening to you when things happen, you give the REAL position and no bullshit!
Where can we find the audio. Do you know if it's posted anywhere?
Where can the audio be found
@@Zephyrion__ ua-cam.com/video/sMqRgAbPGMI/v-deo.html&ab_channel=Jabbers
"Balloons don't shoot back."
- Bruce Lee
Be balloons my friend
4:40 my man casually takes a 20mm round out of his pocket lol
Really appreciate the professional explanation of this event, thanks!
99 spy balloons
Floating in the winter sky
Panic bells, it's red alert
There's something here from Somewhere else
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky
The 99 spy balloons go by
I'm glad to see someone else thought of "99 Red Balloons" (Neunundneunzig rote Luftballons) in regards to this. Thanks for the new lyrics.
🤣🏆🏆🏆
99 washington Street
99 senators meet
To worry, worry, never scurry
Call the troops out in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it boys, this is war
The President is on the line
As 99 spy balloons go by...
Need this to be a cover
99 Decision Street
Ninety-nine ministers meet
To worry, worry, super-scurry
Call the troops out in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it, boys, this is war
The president is on the line
As ninety-nine spy balloons go by
Great song, sadly relevant.
hey i know this song! LOL
First Air-to-Air kill over the continental US:
June 4th 1942 - Battle of Dutch Harbor, over Otter Point.
1 Japanese fighter and 2 Japanese dive bombers were downed by a patrol of 6 US P-40s.
What about Japanese explosive balloons? Pretty sure some got shot down.
Maybe. It depends on how 'continental US' was definition before 1959 :)
As a former SIGINT analyst, I think your assessment on the delay is correct.
So why do you need 6+ days of intel gathering after you were gathering intel on it over the Pacific, Canada, then Montana…. It makes no sense to let them use this equipment on a complete overflight of the US when you probably had all of the useful data you needed before it even got here and certainly after it transited Minuteman sites in Montana. This was a complete and total failure of leadership. Utter stupidity.
Yup,,, What's the point of a ballon when you can use satellites and Signals Intel? this was china's way of saying F-You for the Pelosi visit to Taiwan.
I dated a chick that had been in both the AF and the navy. RC-135's in the AF, P-3's and P-8's in the Navy.
Just the unclassified stuff she told me about what those flying nerds can do, I can assure every American that that balloon sent back nothing but d**k pics and Winne The Pooh memes the entire time it was over US airspace...
We didn't wait to shoot it down for safety, we waited because the sparkys were having too much fun with it.
Drama free and unbiased, as usual, thank you!
Everyone is so glad this "air battle" went in our favor ! We were all on the edge of our seats !
US lost this battle, China was allowed to accomplished their mission.
@@jamesbrown5262 I get the feeling Biden was waiting for the ok from China once they got what they needed.
@@jamesbrown5262 and you know what the mission was do you? Chinese spy much... lol
@@jamesbrown5262 how the hell do you know
@@jamesbrown5262 There's nothing the balloon could tell them that a satellite couldn't... Except maybe how quickly the US can shoot down a target like a slow-moving balloon.
If we just tell China, and the world "Hey, we can see this thing! Look where it is!", we're saying we have the capability to shoot it down, but we don't care to.
Then, we shoot it down over water after a massive delay (meaning we've revealed nothing about our capability), and that way it splashes down in a condition where maybe we can recover it and study it to see what it was actually supposed to do.
So China has learned nothing, and the US has a cool balloon to study.
How did the US lose again?
Thanks
That was an excellent breakdown of events, just the facts with little hype or drama; very refreshing!
Outstanding video. In Ward Carroll's vid today, he mentions that they disarmed the missile so that it would just knock the payload off, without exploding it. I don't know if that's true or not. I cracked up at your debrief photo at the end....well played!!! And I truly hope there's an F22 with a balloon kill icon painted on the fuselage!!
EDIT: Sorry, I see that a dozen other people have referenced Ward's vid in the comments. I hadn't read down far enough.
@@barrygrant2907 it was a poof not a boom. You had to struggle to identify the impact. Definitely doubt any firepower was involved. It's a bloody balloon lol.
@@barrygrant2907 It could have been just the igniter charge instead of an operational warhead.
It looks like it hit the tether cable. The payload was falling in-tact. Very precise hit. Good job. No doubt, the NAVY recovered it, and the DARPA gang can analyze it.
@@tonyv8925 As a maintainer of AIM-9X's... they don't get delivered to the Air Craft as a Live AUR(All Up Round) without a Warhead. No such thing as an "Igniter Charge". No one in Ops orders a Live missile with a CAP warhead on a live Motor when that AC is assigned to Alert status. Ever. The Warhead is armed on the ground. The Pilot's Master Arm switch controls the Fuse arming and rocket motor arming. They(fuse and rocket motor) cannot be armed separately. There is literally a T-handle that has to be lifted and rotated on the body to arm the Warhead and Rocket motor(they're on the same electrical circuit). That task is completed by ground crew on the EOR(end of runway) pad. Civ's call it a Run up area. Either way, that AIM-9 was a 100% live round and used to it's designed ability.
@@TheCyberMantis Is it possible to shoot a cable from 5,000 ft away? Also, what do you think caused the balloon to explode then?
The pilot is now immortalized!
TopGun 3 : Baloon Popper
Balloon buster !
Wonder if they will change his callsign to Carnival or Popper etc...lol
Yeah right . He been immortalized by both sides . You stupid if you think BIG RED is going to let a political insult like that be forgotten easily .
Thanks for the update!
The first aircraft shot down over the United States was by Squadron Leader Ken Boomer, Royal Canadian Air Force on September 25, 1942 over Kiska Island, against a Nakajima Rufe (a Zero floatplane). A second Rufe was shot down shortly thereafter by Major John Chennault, USAAF, who was flying in the same fomation of P40s.
Is this the first air-to-air kill over the continental United States?
Alaska was not a state until 1959.
Wouldn't the first have been over Pearl Harbor? Makes this the first kill over Continental US.
@@toddtheiste5068 Neither Alaska nor Hawaii were actually part of the US during WWII.
@@zipz4777 "Alaska was not a state until 1959."
Nor was Hawaii, yet that seemed like enough to have the US declare war.
a lot of people appreciate your insight in this manner. People in my state comment on how they would have shot it down if it came over their county....Again, if this was used to gather intelligence, thats why they didnt fly over my state. Thanks again.
😂😂😂😂 Thank you for the laugh.
In all my looks into the history of intelligence gathering u don't think I've ever seen a situation were if a source of intelligence gathering has been found they didn't take advantage of feeding it false info. This is apparently the fifth balloon in several years. I'd expect they've discovered a lot about how to fuck with them
@@austinado16 anytime
Lol
a burn for the ages, that one.
Such a great breakdown of this balloon event. Thanks!
Liked the close up views! Best seen yet. Thanks for the F-16 pilot perspective.
Thank you for this video. Great explanations of questions we all had 👍
👍
yeah the reason they waited IS: shocker
joe biden and this admiration are in the pocket of the Chinese.. the paper tails cant be hid and its getting exposed.. and the "general" in charge is "i want to know about white rage", and the same guy that called china and told them hey if we are going to attack you ill be giving you a call to inform you first.....
Yeah its obvious why is we let to go all over the us and they even canceled flights till it past.... that's weakness you stopped our who country because you feared a balloon from CHINA... more like they where told to let it go and did as they was told....
You do us and this whole country a service. Thanks for all of it. Another great summary of events which are unfortunately plastered with misinformation [from other sources] flying everywhere.
as always a solid objective analysis good job mate
Thanks for the clarification on the bullets vs missiles, I was wondering why they did that
Thanks Mover, excellent video and commentary on this incident.
The only thing that would’ve been an improvement is if you’d been interviewed on a major news network. Your insights and thoughts are leaps and bounds better than anything I’ve heard out there so far.
The F-22 is the only fighter in history to never suffer an air to air loss from a ballon any ballon.
Thanks for explaining on how they attacked it that it will be easy for the Aim-9X to track. I though it wasn't useful as the target did not have an engine. Still impressive how this missile has improved. I remember reading that the early versions can be confused by the sun.
Even modern versions can be confused by the sun. Hard to counteract that if its going off pure IR
there's been a massive host of improvements
modern AIM-9X is one helluva beast
original AIM-9A/Bs had a very specific flight envolope they could be fired in, pulled less than 15gs, and had to be fired specifically at the enemy jet's exhaust in order to track, and then the track was easily lost or evaded
modern AIM-9X can pull around 50gs from memory, has all aspect lock, can ignore flares, possesses airburst capability, and with a 5th gen helmet mounted display can lock and engage targets from 270 degrees pilot vision
They don’t tell you have advanced their missiles are. This one’s might be older than the version using for the future 6th gen fighter jets. We normal people would never know what kind of weapons the government is making.
The USAF will award the pilot an Air Force Cross for his/her brave engagement with the balloon. I wonder if they painted a balloon on the side of the jet. This is how the pilot described the encounter, "There I was closing at 500 kts when I spotted the balloon, I went to max burner and pulled hard up and right, I kept my eyes on the balloon as it increased speed to 30 kts. I thought to myself it's now or never and I rolled in with my fangs out knowing I was risking everything. When the radar locked on, I felt bad for the balloon because its death was moments away. I suppressed those thoughts and let my training take over and I fired. I felt a thrill as the missile streaked toward the doomed balloon. Seconds later I had my first kill, like many firsts in my life I'll never forget this one." Of course, being a pilot, he used his hands to show the maneuvers as his described them. Thrilling story wouldn't you agree.
There is a killmark already lol
will the pilot an award?
🤣
"...with my fangs out knowing I was risking everything. [ b/c that's how aggressive I am] When the radar..."
Don't forget about, his "Wingman" , you see a "Balloon" can a 'CLOWN" 🤡, be far away ? Waiting to "Pounce" ? "Scratch, "ONE" Balloon !🎈
Got tired of the non-technical/BS coverage in the news, so came to hear from an expert; wasn't disappointed. Great job as always, Mooover!
I heard it wasn't a prox fuse and only a dummy warhead used for the AIM-9X. Not sure I'd believe they would risk such a thing if true.
@@anonypersona3189 Yep, just read about that as well. I assume they went w/ a kinetic warhead like the Hellfire R9X in order to bring down the balloon, but not cause too much damage such that there would be no intel left in the wreckage.
Thanks for the video. A lot of great information. I was confused about the use of the Aim-9x until I saw your explanation. I did not know a fox-2 was able to track a balloon before your explanation
Any heat source greater than the background I’d imagine it would be able to see
Thank you for your honest assessment of a situation that has so much misinformation, and memes, around it. I have always appreciated your honest takes, humor, and respect for your profession.
Your video on this subject is a master class.
Should of sent up another balloon with the Red Bull guy,he jumps on the China balloon,sets a world record for transfer of balloons!
Somebody call Tom Cruise!
Or those idiots who changed planes mid air , it could have been there sentence .
We should have captured it alive and put it in next years Macys parade.
They were fined for loss of control I believe.
@@CWLemoine He does his own stunts, don't you know :P
Thanks for the clear/concise/technical explanation. Much appreciated.
Laugh all you want about the target being a balloon and stuff. The crazy part is that the intercept happened near the edge of jet fighter's ceiling, yet debris fell within 12 miles off shore. That's surgical coordination and intercept imho. Heard that the warhead in that AIM9X was removed/deactivated to make sure that debris of the spy balloon could be as intact as possible for analysis after retrieval. Kudos to that Raptor driver and everyone involved.
Well said Sir.
Hard for most of society to see and comprehend the importance of any subject matter as a whole these days.
I laugh about allowing the "spy baloon" to complete it's mission . A farce
"Raptor Driver" ah yes the driver is so talented as a pilot of toyota prius i can confirm.
Lol surgical, as if they weren't shooting a sitting duck.
Great vid, i was watching it from my fire station in NMB. I was not expectingthe shoot so i have the after vid and i was alot more excited than the guy who took this vid. Mines more explicit in language lol. There seemed to be 2 flights (4 aircraft) circling, then they seemed to move to a staging area to the north. One fighter broke off and bee lined to the balloon and thats when the shoot happened. The explosion could be heard shortly after. The initial shoot aircraft immediately moved off to the soutwest and a sonic boom could be heard. Im guessing to escape debris because there was a metric shit ton falling, and im assuming that was mainly the solar panels. Looked like a bunch of flashes from the sun flickering off of the falling chunks. One aircraft stayed with the balloon and circled it as it fell. The other 3 departed shortly after. The sense of pride was overwelming honestly. Truely Awesome.
excellent, balanced, informative take on this. I learned a lot and you answered my "why not use the gun" question. Subbed!
Balloons have been a problem for fighters' guns ever since World War 1. Observation blimps were some of the hardest targets to bring down, because bullets just make holes which are barely an inconvenience to the blimp, and those blimps were even filled with hydrogen! (Because they were completely *full* of hydrogen, there wasn't any oxygen inside, so the hydrogen couldn't burn until the blimps had lots and lots of holes perforated in them, and thus even incendiary rounds had hard time bringing them down.)
Solar panels have a very strong IR signature. That is probably what the AIM-9 locked onto, and it looks like it smacked right into them
the Pilot is now in counselling for PTSE 🤣🛩
My concern, right or wrong, is that it was a dry run for a EMP delivery system. And, of course, I am not alone in that thought. Good video.
Thank you, Sir for the explanation. I find it interesting, that the AIM-9X can track a balloon, with a much smaller heat signature than that of a normal jet would have (a much wider object but much cooler than a jet engine).
The AIM-9X doesn't track the heat of the engine. Modern imaging infrared missiles can see the actual image of the target against the background, and can engage from any aspect (i.e. head on, tail, side, etc.....)
It has radar slaving.
@Xarifa Zee That's not how it works, unless you put your launch aircraft at a dangerous distance from the target. The missile seeker was absolutely used.
The thing was stationary against a very dark sky (in IR ) so plenty of contrast . The histeria it's embarassing , us is madhouse . It's a baloon you cannot use it for spying because you cannot point it towards any target .And everybody can see it's over there and stop doing things you want to spy on . US uses the same things for weather and other scientific studies but none for spying on china . Because is stupid and useless . Satellites , oh yes , plenty and a dozen more ...
@@rogerbiggerstaff3293 Thanks for the explanation. I did not know until now that they have an 128x128 pixel IR-image in that missile type.
Good vid! The F22 is invincible! You don't hear stories of SU57 shooting down balloons haha!
Because our Russian friends would have smoked that thing 2 minutes after it launched, without saying a word, ever.
"Hey.....what just happened to our "civilian weather information gathering" balloon? It was doing fine.... where'd it go?"
You barely hear of an Su-57 even flying, to say nothing of firing weapons.
Great breakdown Mover!
What i was thinking that this balloon might have been used for sensor intelligence. Imagine all the EWR, search radars, track radars and fighter radars they might have triggered. One of the applications could be data for an RWR for their fighters and bombers. And probably way more applications. I'm just thinking out loud now. It might be silly.
This was exactly my reaction
Which is also a plausible reason for not shooting it down, the images it could have collected weren't beyond satellite capabilities the Chinese likely already have. the US were taking the opportunity to spy on and observe the balloon. Something that slow and obvious would have given every military base enough warning to hide sensitive information and equipment before the balloon was within range.
I would say it was definitely a signals reconnaissance effort, but I might also be crazy.
@@VeeAreSixed1 SIGINT takes backseat to eliminating a clear and present danger to the US. Lord only knows what could have been on that balloon. Not shooting it down as soon as we found it was plain incompetence.
I think it likely they just wanted to see how slow we were to react to a stunt no one has pulled since the Japanese floated Incendiaries transcontinentally in 1944. And if nothing else, they possess mystical (and shameless) Kung Fu powers for spinning literally anything into propaganda, no matter how laughable. They'll use this.
If you want to read a good story about shooting down a drone . There's an old story called The Battle of Palmdale and you can find out what happens when you're shooting at things and things don't go the way you planned them to go
“Respect the man who gets into a lot of fights and wins, but fear the man everyone is afraid to fight.”
So the man who gets into a lot of fights is America and the collective west and the man everyone is afraid to fight is Russia and the collective Beijing-Moscow axis, right?
@@VunderGuy uhh…no.
But good try. 👍
The f22 is amazing because that baloon is fast and agile and the baloon has scary air to air combat capabilities of it's own
A kill is a kill. Sitting around KMMT listening to Generals ask if we could hit it with flechettes. Not at that altitude sir, lol. Thought the guys at Shaw would get the call.
That balloon was a fearsome opponent, put up a hell of a fight.
Yeah... almost made it to the merge with Raptor. Gotta respec the baloons.
Yeah, the balloon should have poped flares...🇨🇳🎈
A US pilot in his parachute with a 1911 has more air to air kills than the raptor.
The best weapon is the one you never have to use.
😂
@@classicgalactica5879 Listen the best weapon is the one you only have to use ONCE!!!! Katee Sackhoff is a better Starbuck!
@@classicgalactica5879 I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon that you only have to fire once. That's how dad did it. That's how America does it. And it worked out pretty good so far
@@GOD719 DEADPOOL TO SAVE STARK!!!!
really appreciate the concise clarity
Also just to add, I don’t know if you said but per what I’ve heard they said with the aim 9x sidewinder is that it has no warhead on it, so that way it would do less damage to anything attached to the ballon.
That's what Ward Carroll reported on his channel.
People forget that the warhead on a sidewinder isn't there to damage the target. Instead it disperses the fragments for a kinetic kill.
Hey Mover! Did you feel the AIM9 coming off the rail at all? Former Viper crew chief at Nellis aggressor unit. We were the first VIper unit to become aggressors when the F5's were retired. :)
I'd already guessed that they were gathering information themselves from the path of the balloon and potentially from data recovery. I didn't think about tipping our hand on our methods to respond to threats.
Tipping our hand on our methods??? You mean like detecting it? Heck, I could see it from my back yard. You mean like shooting it down with a fighter jet? I guess now they know we have fighter jets with rockets. .
@@paulclarke3132 You good?
The level of spin in your statement would have been passable if the morons at the pentagon weren't also propagating and losing a proxy war against an opponent they are admittedly too cowardly and incompetent to fight directly. An opponent also tied at the hip with the squinty eyes. So no, stick you're 'the spooks had good reason not to immediately blow that up when they had the chance. Trust me bro' and shove it. Like a normal functioning human being, most people are just going to rightly assume that this whole debacle is just more incompetence and cowardice.
I think our military was actually listening to the balloon and what it was transmitting back to China since well before it entered our airspace. If it was transmitting anything very sensitive, we certainly have the ability to jam the transmissions. Heck, we might have even hacked it and were sending the Chinese FAKE intel on it!
I can’t wait for the DCS Spy Balloon update!
Ward Carroll said a few things differently. 1st, he said the aim9x used had no warhead, he also said it was the ballon that was shot, and most importantly, it’s not actually a heater as it detects differences in light instead of heat. Not saying who is wrong or right, or that it even matters. More curiosity than anything. Enjoy your videos!
He corrected himself somewhere in these comments. The AIM-9X warhead is small.
I am wondering if one reason for The delay in shooting it down was perhaps. They did a modification to the Aim9x. Would probably adjust the tracking sensors to the lower heat signature of the ball on and decrease the warhead explosive force so that the payload would receive less damage!
Also, just to chime in, radiant heat is light; infrared is just another wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. light), and radiant heat is transmitted by the electromagnetic spectrum (primarily in the infrared for most phenomena you’d observe on earth). They are the same thing!
@@michaelmartin3936 Perhaps they did some modifications, but that's not the reason for the delay. It was delayed because it presented no threat, was an intelligence gathering opportunity, and if shot down over land could have turned into a risk.
One of the biggest reasons they didn't shoot it down over the main land that very few people have mentioned is because the equipment could have been powered by an RTG which contains plutonium. There was also the possibility that some of the maneuvering thrusters used hydrazine which is highly toxic and China uses a lot in their aerospace projects. In either case, its not something you want raining down from the sky on people and cities. That's not even considering the more basic threat of debris falling from miles up in the atmosphere. Waiting for it to go over the ocean was the right call.
Ahh yes, a solar powered RTG...
Could have also been packing a biological weapon. There are some who think the COVID-19 virus was deliberately Chinese man-made. I don't believe that, but this still could have been a "trial balloon" (so to speak) for the Chinese to see what the USA would do, and maybe send a "dirty" balloon in the future.
@@thedausthed Because having more than 1 power system would be completely crazy on a military vehicle. 🙄 More over the point was we did not know what was on board the balloon and if it was dangerous.
@@INOD-2 There are far easier and cheaper ways to spread a bio weapon than a balloon. Most pathogens would not survive the wild changes in temperature, pressure, and humidity being dropped from a balloon at that height while also being exposed to UV and cosmic radiation. Its much easier just to fly a few agents in on a commercial airline flight and have them release it in a large city.
The balloon couldn’t outrate the Raptor.😂
Good points made.. thanks for explaining
And, not the first time a balloon was used against the U.S. nor the first shot down.
The Japanese, late in WW2, conducted a balloon bomb campaign against the U.S.
Some were shot down by defending fighters. One landed in Oregon and blew up a curious family which discovered it.
All of this was given little publicity at the time.
Baloons go boom
@@CountingStars333 Balloons are babooms from now on.
I don't see why it was not shot down over Alaska. The USAF is once again a great source of pride for pulling this off with one shot. I just had to cheer when I saw the footage. Let's be ready for the next one.
Recovery would have been a lot more difficult. Over the sea and it would have been impossible to insert divers due to the extreme cold and rough waters. Over the land and the falling remnants of the payload would have likely been smashed to pieces. As much as I was extremely frustrated this thing crossed the US, I now suspect the plan to shoot it down over the Atlantic coast was less about reducing undue risks to the public or dithering, but more about increasing the odds of a successful recovery of the debris. It obviously took time to position all the recovery assets, which would not be possible if they had targeted it over the Aleutian Islands or even mainland Alaska. Doing it in a well-planned and coordinated manner after days of studying its flightpath, not only allowed for the coordination of resources, but also allowed for the recovery to occur in a location closed off to any prying eyes of the media or civilians. While this last aspect might seem secretive and shadowy, it's also important from an intelligence gathering perspective. If you look at a website like Skyvector.com, you can see that the government has closed off a 100 square mile area off the coast to civilian aircraft or vessels to allow for unimpeded recovery operations. This would not be possible (certainly not practical) if it landed on or near someone's property or a town over land. Preventing public access to the crash scene, or even access to the general area near it is important and would not be very feasible if it happened over land. And as I touched on earlier, the calm and shallow coastal waters off the coast of the Carolina's are a lot more friendly to a recovery operation than the waters off the coast of Alaska.
Well, there's always the possibility that it was carrying a biological and/or chemical weapon and shooting it down over land could have unleashed the next viral pandemic. Hopefully, the Navy personnel recovering it will be wearing HAZMAT suits, just in case.
@@INOD-2 True
@@skyhawk_4526 I have to question the wisdom of prioritizing the recovery of a bunch of used electronics over giving away days of sensitive data that the balloon captured flying over military bases across the country. Surely, CIA should be able to intercept enough transmission within the first hour or so when it flew over Alaska.
Same . A Sharpshooter ! Woohoo .
Great analysis. Thanks for your insight. I witnessed the balloon getting shot down from my back yard in Myrtle Beach a mile from the ocean. Two loud booms occurred moments apart as the balloon was engaged. Can you explain what they were? Were they related to the F-22 going supersonic and then the A9X detonation?
Unfortunately, only one of those booms was made by the US missile, the other one was made by the Chinese balloon's self destructive devices. It destroyed itself seconds after the balloon was shot.
@@ypl6209 Negative on your comments. Pls stop spreading CCP propaganda.
@@ypl6209 I had not heard the theory of a self destructive capability.
I know one pilot who shot down a balloon in the line of duty and he can explain. (long ago)
@@TheMontauk17 There's a reason why nobody is talking about it. Both Chinese and Americans avoid this topic on purpose.
Thank you for the explanation!
Excellent video Mover! Is there any intel on if they discovered this balloon the instant it flew into US airspace or only well after that? In the latter case it could be a serious threat if equipped with any kind of weaponry...
NORAD knew the balloon was headed into U.S. when it came over the Aleutian Islands. They knew in advance.
@@SpecJack15 Now that's good news.
That's cool! Of course observation balloons in WW-1 were surrounded by machine guns and you had to fly low to get to them. More than a few pilots were lost "Balloon Busting". Still cool though.
Tom Boyte
GySgt USMC, retired
Vietnam 1965-66/1970-71
Infantry, 0331 Machine guns
Bronze Star, Purple Heart
that pilot has to get a new call sign xD
Popper?
@@YorkshirePirate or bubbles
Balloon Boy (not my idea)
I like floater, or Casper. 😁
Thanks for summarizing this for us.
Thanks Mover, I was one of them who were saying they should have just went after it sooner and shot it with the 20mm also. You put it in very good perspective. I was also overflown by the two F15s heading from MA to the kill zone I was wondering where they were going…
This was a great take on the situation. Really helped clarify things. Every other breakdown is wrapped head to toe in politics and finding the truth within is basically impossible. Which is the new way of our country.
Balloon busting was a quite regular sortie, for fighter pilots, during World War One. This is probably the first balloon busting sortie in over 100 years.
The Japanese sent bomb balloons over our west coast in WWII, and I believe our planes shot some of those down. That wasn't widely publicized at the time, though. I believe some people in Oregon(?) were actually l killed by one.
Wow...a 200 million dollar fighter shot down a balloon.
It took a 100 million dollar US stealth fighter jet to intercept a 100 dollar Chinese balloon. The power of the Chinese balloon is STAGGERING!
They've been running intel for age, but I do like how people hadn't realized high altitude baloons are still viable intel assets in this day and age. Chinese psyops online have been trying to portray anyone pointing this out as idiocy to try and deflect, but this was a valuable lesson to the public as to what different types of tools PRC uses (not just Tiktok).
It's obvious they was to run a Pearl Harbor when they eventually try to grab at Taiwan.
The Chinese use huge balloons instead of satellites to spy on the United States. Is it because China's technology is too backward to launch satellites ，or they think the United States is too backward to detect and capture balloons?🤣
@@jack99889988 I genuinely thought this was a 4D psyop of some prisoner in guandong or a PLA kid on a keyboard.
Yeah, I know the NSA and GCHQ have already put me on a list, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel with that since you still have some freedom of movement.
Getting away from a metropolitan city was the first cure I found. Second was limiting my traffic, getting rid of my social media and toring my way around (even then, be careful of fed hosts trying to honeypot).
The only thing to do right now is limit and be smart. Ignore the wife when she asks for that new fancy thingamajig she pretends is useful, don't buy your kids smart phones, don't put a smart fridge in your kitchen. Until we hit WWIII, that's as far as a normal person can go.
Fortunately they did a visual orbit to be sure of the target...imagine it was the house of the old guy of "UP":-) but in a serious note, great job from the raptors, engage at 65000ft is no joke ...and is also concerning about what are they gathering with those ballons....here in Colombia our air force detected yesterday a simillar object...
@2:58
Thank U for pointing out (what should be) obvious scenarios that armchair warriors and political pundits are glossing over or ignoring. 👍
Sensible review of the event. Thanks Mover.
Amateur radio operator captured and recorded the intercept audio and its all over UA-cam. Would you consider doing a reaction or commentary video to the audio? One interesting thing is that they got a seeker tone over 30nm away. Pretty crazy
Source?
Some WW1 pilots would be like “good job! You got a balloon, that’s a big win!”
(Artillery spotter balloons were heavily defended against aerial attack and getting a kill meant basically charge of the light brigade directly at the guns.)
The more things change…
Was thinking the same thing. Probably the last time they splashed a balloon.
Maybe this F-22 will find its way to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum after its retirement ! It became a piece of military history as of yesterday! ❤
Thanks Mover for the great and simple explanation.
Can’t help but wonder if they used an aim-9 with a deactivated warhead or a bladed hellfire AGM-114R9X we used in Syria recently that has the big ginsu knives that pop out the sides to preserve the digital intelligence for recovery.
Also wondering if we shadowed it the whole time with one of our many electronic warfare platforms like the Growler or EC-37 that jam/disrupt/steal radio/radar/EM signals
They used an AIM-9X. The Raptor can't carry Hellfire, nor would it be of any use at 60,000 feet.
@@rogerbiggerstaff3293 interesting! didn’t know that! I’m not pretending to be an expert, I just know enough to ask dumb questions 👍
They did have a couple RC-135 Combat Sent. Flying near the balloon
The biggest concern I have with this situation is China seeing the U.S. reluctance to defend its airspace as a sign of weakness. If they truly intend to take Taiwan they will definitely try to gauge whether or not they believe the U.S. will intervene. Actions will always speak louder than words.
Sometimes patience is a better decision than speed. I don’t know what the right answer was here, but just like how waiting has it’s risks (CCP could have collected information, US might look weak), the US aggressively defending it’s airspace also had risks (there is a 7 mile debris field over the water… which town would’ve been best to have that fall on?). Not trying to be argumentative, I just wish that sometimes we would just trust those in charge. Maybe they have more information than we do and made the best decision with that information. Once again, not saying that it’s the right decision, but at least they made one. Hindsight is always 20/20, in the moment it’s different. Let’s focus on the fact that someone sent a balloon for a reason and hope that we accurately learn what that reason was. The CCP says it was for weather data, do you believe that?
@@deenalos18 it definitely wasn’t a weather balloon. There are risks and costs to action but they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. The U.S. had plenty of opportunities to shoot the balloon down before it reached our airspace and while it was over vast swaths of empty land. That hesitation and refusal to act sends a message that we are weak. If we don’t defend ourselves then why should China believe we will defend Taiwan. That weakness invites challenge and that challenge could very well lead to conflict.
It has been noted that there have been 4 prior similar balloon crossing since 2017 as well
@@mikelee7318 we all know the “one China” bs is clever political maneuvering to avoid unnecessary conflict. Last time I checked the ROC flag was flying in Taipei and not that ugly ass commie flag. The U.S. will act to ensure that Taiwan maintains its self governance by any means necessary. If the PRC decides to change the status quo than the west will be forced to reunify China under the ROC as it should have always been. It would be an opportunity to right a great historical mistake.
@@mikelee7318 The Taiwan Relations Act (Pub. L. 96-8, H.R. 2479, 93 Stat. 14) supersedes any policy statements from the State Department. But whether or not Taiwan is part of West Taiwan is merely a matter of de facto ambivalence.
I don’t have Tic Toc I never seen the use of it. I think people that use it don’t make use of their free time.
2 questions
1) Why a fighter and not a ground/sea based missile (or drone for that matter?
2) How long is the fighter pilot going to get razzed about shooting down a balloon from his squad?
Edit: I forgot to say thank you for covering this Mover.
1: Because it would have required the use of anti-ballistic missile defense at that altitude. The capabilities of the F-22 and AIM-9X are both fairly well known at this point, its better to use a cat that's already been let out of the bag than to reveal the capabilities of a THAAD or something similar. Especially since one of the only logical reasons for the existence of the balloon in the first place would be to provoke us into using a THAAD to shoot it down and gather data on its capabilities.
2: Probably not very long, since he can just remind them that at least actually HAS an air to air kill XD.
the US army doesn't have ground based missiles to bring down this ballon without destroying its electronic components. Capturing the sensors and communication components was the US army's primary goal. That's also the real reason why they chose to shoot it down over the shallow ocean.
And the balloon was too high for drones to reach. In fact the balloon lowered its altitude significantly for f22 to reach. I believe it was done on purpose by the Chinese, as a gesture of goodwill, although they did blow up the devices themselves to humiliate the US army and keep their communication technology secret at the same time.
@@McCheese-xc9ig Why not bullet?? would be cool tho
@@McCheese-xc9ig My question would be why the f22 is leaving cons. At angels 60 thats normally not the case.
I was hoping they’d send up the Baby Trump balloon to fight the Chinese spy balloon. It would have been epic.
But this was okay too.
Bruh 😂
Great recap. Got a lot more from this than anything else I’ve found. I had wondered why they didn’t use the gun and the “what if” factor makes sense. I wondered if the balloon was above the rated ceiling for the F-22 and if the jet isn’t stable enough in thin air to use the gun. Also wondered if this shoot effectively confirms the jet can fly higher than has been disclosed?
Love seeing the "Altitude, Airspeed, Brains" sign on the wall. Immediately took me back to the Spectre book series where I first read that saying.
Great information you supplied us! At the 6:09 mark of the video, you mentioned this event possibly being the highest air-air kill at around 58,000 feet! However, just looking up some past history, I remembered an F-15 launching an ASM-135 ASAT missile at the P78-1 Solwind satellite and destroying it at 326 miles up in orbit, as recorded on September 13, 1985! Wouldn't the F-15's satellite kill be the highest air-air kill ever? What are your thoughts? Thanks for your video!
@@matthewdavidjarvis6039 Thanks Mr. Jarvis for your comment! I was fully aware that the Solwind destruction was a test on a US satellite! However, I was referring to ALL air-air kills regardless of whether they were hostiles, friendlies, tests or otherwise! And, if you think about it, imagine launching a missile from an aircraft that can hit a target moving over 17 THOUSAND MPH at an orbital altitude of over 17 MILLION feet (326 statute miles up)! I think this fete, that occurred over 37 years ago by the F-15, has to be one of the most phenomenal & remarkable accomplishments made by a military jet EVER! The satellite shootdown also should not be so easily dismissed, regardless of little to no fanfare ever being made about this 1985 accomplishment, in the first place! I might add that no AIM-9X or AIM-120 could have hit that satellite! So, as far as I'm concerned, it does indeed "count as an actual military "kill"! As for the F-22 shooting down the balloon, from what I've read, that was not an easy target to accomplish the surgical-like strike he made! My hat goes off to the F-22 pilot's exceptional skills!
The highest air to air kill I believe is the satelite shot down by an F15.
Depends where the satellite was, because if it's high enough that's it's classified as Space then it's not an air to air kill
And satellites can't orbit if they aren't in space so if an F15 did shoot a satellite the satellite was either in space or the F15 was shooting at an out of control payload from a failed rocket launch
@@ms3862 No, it hit a satellite, if I remember right they were testing the missile on a defunct satellite. I think Dark Skies did a video on it a couple of years ago.
Isn't that more of an air to space kill?
@@logicplague I do remember hearing about this when it happened. I don't know what the logistics were, and I definitely don't understand how a guided missile (with aerodynamic fins for maneuvering) could maneuver in the vacuum of space. I suppose you could get it on a ballistic trajectory prior to it leaving the atmosphere and assuming it got close enough the debris from the warhead's detonation could still take out the satellite. Now I'm actually very curious how they pulled that off.
@@skyhawk_4526 I remember that the missile was designed specifically for this, however that worked, and the whole thing was basically just a test to see if they could even do it. It also sent a hell of a political message at the time, "Hey, we can tag your satellites with F-15's"