The Balloon!!!!
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- Опубліковано 3 лют 2023
- Okay - some comedy and some science - something for everyone!
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There's a kind of hilarious irony to be had in people tiktoking about being afraid of the chinese spy balloon.
Maybe they thought it was the "rover" from the series "the Prisoner". (showing my age here...)
@@kaasmeester5903 Actually... Rover was downright scary in it's non-scariness somehow.
Yes…..
Someone should write a song about this
in German
Nena !
Ein Luftballon?
When I was a kid back in the early 70s, some friends and I used to fill 3 ft diameter weather balloons with hydrogen - they'd provide plenty of lift to hoist some lightsticks or other light sources at night. This was in a well populated area (San Francisco bay area)so it was easily seen and often commented upon. Occasionally we'd add a pyrotechnic of some kind and the sparks and loud report would definitely attract attention. It was dumb (even though we only did it after a rain to eliminate fire hazard) but hey, 1970s, right?
When I was kid, we would do lots of fun things that would get us arrested. Not that you can do it much anymore because of global warming, but the once popular winter pastime of skating on the Washington DC reflecting pool will get you charged with a crime today. Also, sledding on golf courses.
lol btdt, even WAY up there that hydrogen pop was loud!
Where did you get weather balloons and hydrogen from in the early 1970s?
children or teenagers plus pyrotechnics or flammable gases equals action and adventure.
Where does a “kid” get hydrogen?
Sounds like BS to me.
Amazing, they still have printed newspapers in the US. And now they've got the balloon!
Every phone with TikTok is a spy balloon
Unless you've taken steps, your phone is spying on you.
Every phone is a spy device for the US gov, don't kid yourself.
Honestly, FB and Instagram are way more spy balloony than TT
LOL, that is the balloon I let go of when I was at Disneyland.
you of course mean Disney China.
Probably the one I lost at Taco Bell when I was 5
Giggling uncontrollably at ThE BaLLoOn! I'm curious about what systems were onboard this one.
I mean... it's a weather balloon lol
It's a weather balloon.
@@DarthVader1977 Well, not an ordinary standard radiosonde weather balloon of the sort that which go up in hundreds of places around the world every day at 0Z and 12Z and provide the data for forecasting models, but it may have been some kind of upper atmosphere research balloon. The problem is, we will never know. The Pentagon and CIA never admit to ever being wrong about anything. If nation-states were humans, they would be criminal psychopaths.
@@kristoffer3000 No it's not as weather balloons don't have their own maneuvering ability like this one has shown to have as it maneuvered over missile silos also it is far larger then any weather balloon as a normal weather balloon is around 20 feet wide at max size while the Chinese one is 90 feet wide. On top of this the large gondola (the device attached to the balloon) is nothing like anything that a weather balloon would have carried.
Point is that the balloon was obviously a surveillance device of some sort.
My mom running around the house at 5:30 in the morning with her excitement of hot air balloons going over or past our house as we kids slept. Sometimes I'd have to get up and take a look to share in her enthusiasm. And then go peacefully back to bed. Love you mom!!
It got away from ‘The Village’, chasing Number 6
a: Not confirmed that it is Chinese. They have denied it.
b: It is not maneuvering. Its just drifting on the jet stream.
c: A satellite can carry infinitely better optics than the limited capability of a balloon.
Please don't contribute to the mindless Sinophobia hysteria.
20yrs ago, an entire Space Shuttle disintegrated into a jillion pieces over Texas and not one person on the ground got hit.
But the risk was certainly there for it to happen. Just because it didn't happen, doesn't mean it won't happen the next time.
you can just imagine what kind of chaos would ensue if aliens actually attempted to land on earth...
I love the shadow on the background (bottom left) from Co. Edwards's arm as he raises it to signal "fire the missles!"...hahah.
Fran you were absolutely correct. They waited until it was over the ocean.
They waited until it was over the ocean (to avoid anyone getting hurt). Then they shot it down with one of their missiles, from their location farther out over the ocean. Ooopss!!
As a Finn I have my very own ideas on this. While some might think the 'balloon' is nothing 'serious', it is indicative on how major powers observe each other. Just like how Russia is interfering Finnish and Swedish aviation daily -daily! The 'West' cannot just look at what is happening whatever it is - we must have action. These issues are not about physics but about politics.
For a more detailed description of the shoot down, check the Ward Carroll You Tube channel. They did sort of like Fran suggested, hitting the balloon with a missile but no explosion. Presuming that they recover the debris, it will be interesting if the public finds out what equipment these balloons carry. BTW- all modern US fighters have a rapid fire gun for certain situations.
Years ago I had a chance to chat with the Goodyear blimp's ground crew. They said they were continuously repairing bullet holes from yokels taking pot shots at it. The leakage rate was so slow they could compensate for it and fit normally.
Looks like the Air Force chose to use an air-to-air missile to shotgun the balloon, about their only option as it was flying several thousand feet above the F-22's ceiling. They also wanted the debris to fall in the shallow area of the continental shelf off the coast but inside U.S. territorial waters.
who'd shoot at an aircraft with people in it?
Just curious. How is the 60,000 ft. reported balloon altitude above the service ceiling of either the F22 or the F15 - both "publicly" (there are rumors about the F22) rated to 65,000 feet?
@@47f0
You need lift to get that high.
To get enough lift you have to be going fast - the faster you go the more air goes over your wing.
Imagine the scenario - you are trying to hit a near stationary target that you have to be going at 1500mph to maintain altitude with.
Sure you can fire the gun. But you're usually chasing something going slightly slower than you when you do that - it'd be like trying to shoot a postage stamp that was on the shoulder of a fast road...with a pistol...when you're doing 100.
Those aircraft you mention could match the altitude OK - but not at a speed which would allow them time to take a shot at the balloon.
The solution was to fly slower/lower and get just close enough to launch a modified missile - the lower they could launch from the slower the interceptor could go - allowing more time for the systems (essentially it's the human slowing the decision making process) to see the target and launch the missile.
@@pd4165 - Been watching The Battle of Britain again I see. That is not exactly how things work these days.
We have known since the 80s that the F15s could successfully target and shoot satellites from orbit. Since then, in the intervening thirty-five years there have been at least three (possibly four) major upgrades in their ability to acquire and destroy low-observable targets - at any relative speed from any conceivable approach.
Low Earth orbit satellites travel at about 17,000 miles per hour. Acquiring a nearly stationary target the size of a bus with a radar profile that would light up their systems as soon as it was over the horizon was not as challenging as you seem to think it is.
@@47f0
An F15A was tricked out to carry a modified ballistic missile. In the 1980's.
The concept was proven - to do it again they'd have to start over, make a special missile, train up, custom parts for another model F15, one that's currently in service coz that model has been scrapped.
These days you can't just fly up in your kite and shoot something down with a BB gun - you need something like an F22 with a hastily modified Sidewinder.
Not as challenging as I think? Really? It's not me that says so, it''s the USAF.
Are you smarter than the best engineers employed by USAF?
Apparently....flying over 60000 feet is quite tricky if you want to aim something at a giant helium balloon at short notice. Get a bead on it with a gun? It might be possible - but they didn't think they'd miss the payload - which is the prize - or they wouldn't have bothered modifying a Sidewinder and shoot it from a couple of miles away.
But you know best - what do I know about shooting down high altitude balloons - except that they're not orbiting satellites and the USAF has to improvise to shoot one down these days because 'Fly up there and pepper it with bullets, Ginger' isn't something they expected they'd need to do again. Even getting a World War 1 balloon busting aircraft out of a museum might not solve the problem. Hmm.
Got any more USAF projects you'd like to quote out of context?
5th Dimension's "Beautiful Balloon" has been on repeat in my head for the past two days.
Damn I miss Art Bell...
Aww-rite... a Name-check & Call-out on the Late, Great Art Bell!!! Noice!!
Thank you for your level of detail!
HILARIOUS FRAN!!!!! The ballooooooon!!!!!!!!
I really enjoy your Franalysis of news events.
HAHAHAH🤣😂🤣😂 Great Job Fran. The best take on this period. 😂🤣Thanks.
I haven't heard anyone mention the color of the balloon. It looks like it was white. A better camouflage color would have been sky blue. I think it wasn't intended to be hidden.
I'm pretty sure it was meant to be seen as well - and regardless of what payload was on board, I think the Chinese achieved their main objective which was a propaganda coup. Imagine if it turns out the only instruments on the balloon were for atmospheric monitoring (weather / climate / air pollution). It would make the US govt look very thin-skinned.
@JimCoder It *could* be a political message.
Not sure why anyone would need to hide an atmospheric research balloon.
Because as a "spy" balloon, thing thing is six kinds of stupid - you can accuse the Chinese regime of a number of things, but stupid doesn't typically make that list.
As Sigmund Freud said, "Sometimes a weather balloon is just a weather balloon."
An AIM-9X missile costs $400,000. A .50 Cal round costs about $4
@b.buster - No fighter plane can reach that height and no fighter planes are equipped with .50 cal guns.
I can't stop laughing. The ballooooon!
THE BALLOON!
lol nice one Fran 🤣
They blew it out of the sky. The whole envelope ripped open.
Thanks Fran for clearing this up.
Ain't life a pip!
Great solution, nice to find out if they use that.
We humans are the strangest bunch, and you always put a smile on my face.
Thanks, I needed that.
I can guarantee that from now on, my brain will randomly yell 'The Ballooooon!!!' in the most appropriate times. This was amazingly good :D
Same here! “Keep looking up!”
FUNNY STUFF, Fran!
where was Space Force during this crisis? We're the mighty watchful eye,
Guardians beyond the blue.
The invisible front line,
Warfighters brave and true.
Boldly reaching into space,
There's no limit to our sky.
Standing guard both night and day,
We're the Space Force from on high!
I really enjoy the channel. All the best.
Hello Fran, I live near Holden Beach NC just north of Myrtle Beach SC and my Lab/Man Cave window faces south and today I watched the fighter aircraft circle around at high altitude at the same time as the reported shoot down. Too far away to actually see the balloon. Interesting to say the least for me being not too far from the action. Yes, I think the main gas envelope was the target and the remains acted like a streamer to allow the payload to more or less survive a water impact. I know a Navy Destroyer was in the impact area shortly after.
North Carolina? so then it has crossed the entire continent and it was almost over the Atlantic. At that point why even bother to shoot it down?
Imagine their embarrassment when they discover that Winnie the Pooh's "spy craft" was just an innocuous weather balloon.
@@BlackEpyon does not mather, the main reason they made such a fuss about it is because they have to ready the public opinion for war with China in about 2 years.
@@Danny_Boel Those tensions have been building for years already.
Pretty solid prediction as well as a good explanation
thank you fran, great video.
I enjoyed the montage of 50s film clips! Well done! And I liked your suggested method of bringing down the balloon with a few punctures, to minimize damage to the payload. They didn't do that and apparently the debris spread out over a large area. 😒At least it's in shallow water, they did that right...
I was very disappointed too. Small holes would’ve been better. Actually bringing it down earlier over the Aleutian Islands would’ve been ideal. I’m so curious about what the payload had in it!
Plan 9 from Outer Space "Ed Wood"
Use a laser to burn small holes in the balloon to vent lifting gas
There's no convincing a reasonable person that the first opportune action was after it crossed Alaska, Canada, and half the lower 48 width and past the eastern seaboard.
The USS Ponce has a laser.
Best idea I've seen yet. But I don't think lasers that could do this are that prevalent.
It wasn't a balloon -- it was aliens!!
They shot it down off the coast of the Carolinas and blue glitter was seen. It's a boy!
That intro was hilarious! XD
Thank you. Your intro made my whole day. 😜
The balloon! Thank you from Écosse! 🏴
So you want to "precision" shoot small holes in a balloon at 60,000+ feet altitude and control it's decent when it has a payload of the equivalent of 3 buses hanging under it. You probably stand a better chance of hitting a bald eagle flying high in the sky with a slingshot and having it make a controlled decent.
Ah Fran, the most intelligent person on the internet. ❤️ Thank you for being you. 😘😁
I think the weather predicted by this balloon is "A 65% chance of war in Taiwan with a slight chance of nuclear Armageddon. Fallout could be heavy at times"
Least it will bump the royal family battle off of the front page for a day or 2
The Chinese said the balloon was a civilian aircraft. Why didn't they just say it was swamp gas?
This one time, in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show, I was able to get higher from a bigger balloon. Just sayin.
Thank you Fran
this is the most rational possible response
"Looks like we beat them off again sir." We certainly did sparky, we certainly did.
HaHa!! Best intro yet!! What? No balloon remote I.D.??
Colonel Edwards gave the signal to fire from the comfort of a film studio.
Wow, I didn’t realize the severity of “THE BALLOON” until I saw that intro 😱
Remember when Batman kidnapped Lau from Hong Kong with the plane grabbing the balloon out of the sky? I was hoping we'd do that.
Thank you Fran. Bad timing for China on the balloon. Love your hat. We have been dropping these for a while, just more quietly.
Iirc there is a balloon duel in "those magnificent men in their flying machines", perhaps we could get some tips from that😊
Love the intro. As others have posted it was shot down with a sidewinder missile, as the balloon was above the max ceiling of fighter aircraft. The payload was pretty big so we waited until it was over the ocean as you mentioned so the Navy is able to recover it. My understanding is is ended up in very shallow water.
As to the question of why. Low level reconnaissance has advantages but US airspace is pretty open. Best guess was to she if and when it was detected and what the US would do about it. All in all pretty interesting story.
The Continental Shelf is generally about 200 feet deep, easy for salvage. They knew what they were doing! The missile was set to NOT explode, it just caused impact damage.
Great F-troop reference!
What a hilarious intro, you should clip the video and get it on the meme sites.
Cut! That was PERfect!
I just don't understand why everyone just assumes there's no way it could be a weather balloon or some other non military research??
Fits someone's narrative
Spy balloon: something never found in a James Bond novel.
"Shooting it down" isn't the only way to take care of the problem.
In the past rogue weather balloons have been difficult to shoot down just by poking holes in them with bullets, pretty sure that's why they went with a missile for this one. Also I don't think we have any fighters that can operate above 60,000 feet to use their cannons. With your idea if the first shot did release some helium it should come all the way down without additional shots needed, like you said at the start there is just enough helium in the system to make it buoyant at sea level, any loss of helium and it should come back down to sea level.
I suspect you mean rogue, rather than well made up.
F22 and F15 both have published service ceilings of 65k feet. That's published - actual for the f22 is rumored to be higher.
The F35... not so much.
I am pretty sure the F15 can get that high when necessary. Also, the F22.
Ah bless it had "happy 6th birthday" written on it
What gets me about all of this is the absolute contemptuous response to the public by the military. Like this balloon just sauntered past NORAD who seems to track Santa, a sleigh, and eight reindeer every year but somehow missed a giant balloon five Santa outfits could fit into. Then waits until people spot it over Montana to say, "Hey, fuggeddabout it!" like it's none of our business.
"shooting it down with a missile would be a stupid idea"
So, later that day, they shot it down with a missile. 😄
My inner 10th grade boy just couldn’t stop snickering: 1:11
Loved the footage from Plan 9 😂
POP !
they waited until it was over water to maintain complete control over the recovery.
Great video! :)
It reminds me of Capt. Beefheart’s song “the blimp, the blimp!”
I love that Ed Wood intro of this presentation. Besides humor, you bring up some interesting items such as what sort of items it carries, and also properties of high altitude balloons. I was thinking of amateur radio balloons where hams put together latex balloons carrying a APRS, some with a repeater or a camera. California Near Space Project had some latex balloons buoyant at 100K that were able to ride the jet stream across the country, Atlantic, and over north Africa. Then there was this same concept applied by Japanese during WW2 with balloons to travel over US to start forest fires. And early attempts of recon balloons Air Force experimenting in late 1940s, which one landed near Roswell. Seems like China is taking this to the next level. But maybe they're just doing this to cause problems.
best yt channel ever
Thank you so very much for sharing this. Lmfo.. hope the captain Kurk has photon torpedoes ready
"…99 Düsenflieger, jeder war ein großer Krieger, heilten sich für captain Kirk, es gab ein großes Feuerwerk…" Neunundneunzig Luftballons >__< OMG, 80's are back :3 Maybe you wonder why, but you made my day. This is such an absurd thing, that I must laugh a lot. That quotation came from a early 80s german song about the war, that was accidentally started by 99 balloons. Both sides of cold war was so frightened, that they started firing at that poor balloons, which resulted in a deadly conflict for next 99 years. When I heard that song for the first time, back in the 80s, I would not believe, that there is yet another cold war with weird balloon incident hiding somewhere in my future. I definitely don't want that "chinese things" above my head, but that situation is such an unbelievable. And, on the top of that all, you mentioned the Captain Kirk…
You're greatest intro EVER! 🤣
All modern USAF fighter aircraft are armed with a 20mm Vulcan minigun.
The balloon had a solar powered "rudder" via swinging the solar panels.
A rudder does not work on a balloon.
@@franklittle8124 Sails do. So would rudder's to a degree. Aircraft have rudders.
That's... not how wind works.
@@kristoffer3000 I take it you never been on a sailboat?
@@JayMakepeaceAllan That's not the same, this is a weather balloon, not a sailboat.
With the amount of solar cells on the craft I bet it used an electric motor prop.
cool tune at the end credits.
"Using a missile would be stupid" They used a missile!
It's really funny that you go over how to bring the balloon down in a controlled manner. Apparently you should've put the video up a few days sooner - the military didn't get the memo and just hit it with a sidewinder and down she went into a bunch of pieces.
The 🎈 !!!
good video, thanks
They couldn't be bothered to do a controlled descent, but they did wait till it was over the ocean.
I just want to know what that '50's sci-fi film was - I love those and haven't seen that one. Exactly what I need to take my mind off this drama.
Keepin’ it real, balloons in the deal!
It was solar powered. Any balloon pilot can navigate using wind that blow in different directions at different altitudes. No need for propulsion.
Right at the start of the video Fran just gives us the absolute best meme about the balloon thus far
The large ballon’s I knew of as a boy-launched at Holloman AFB. This base specialized in large ballon’s for research and weather. The balloons would burst when they reached max altitude. The balloon was just-well a very GIANT polyethylene bag! These could hold a semitrailer high pressure tank trailer of helium. Have watch the filling and launching of these sorts of balloons. One time my Dad and I found a burst downed one in the New Mexico desert. The gondolas in those days were as large and heavy as a car. There is a parachute just above the gondola that would lower the gondola back to the ground. These were recovered. I also watched a “rocket on” ballonon and rocket combo.the balloon would lift the rocket and the rocket would be fired rom the balloon. The rocket went thru the balloon on its mission.
A conflict involving balloons can only be happy
We must close the Balloon Gap!
I haven't heard this much about a balloon since there was a ufo balloon being chased across the skies of Denver with reports of a kid inside.
Anyone remember the short lived show "The Prisoner"? Large balloons were used as its guards to get escapees back...
Yes, guns, that is how I though they would have "brought" it down. I made a video that mentions this in slide two" The Pentagon said they could not get a ballon to deflate fast enough to bring it down with guns... I guess they never heard of multiple passes with the guns until they got a slow rate of descent rather than just "shooting" it down with a missile - not only damaging the payload with the missile but causing it to plummet into the ocean at a very high rate of speed destroying it more. Looks like all they got was balloon bladder fragments - Roswell all over again [laugh].
we popped their balloon lol 🤣
Invasion of the weather balloons lol.
Thank you.
There is an episode of F Troop about a balloon. (Harvey Korman,)the Hekawi chief saw it and said, “ It is balloon”
The one line from that show that stays with me.
I actually think it was Door Dash for Chinese food.
Me too!
Wasn't it Frank de Kova?
@@wkgmathguy218
Yes it was, Chief Wild Eagle and Crazy Cat
@@davidwood351 Thanks Dave, I thought my memory was going for a minute :D
Changing altitude is enough to change the flight path of the balloon. Doesn't need any other motive power. To bring it down in a controlled manner, you could poke a good size hole in the envelope with a good sized pin (missle). The envelope will either start loosing pressure and descending, or the envelop will shred, turn into a streamer, and descend very quickly. Or what they finally did was blow up the fuel supply causing... the gondola to plummet to the earth (ocean). Okay, you're already saying that so... nevermind.
Here is the truth - a balloon is not a big deal. The most it could see is stuff any random satellite could see and everything it might see is stuff we WANT other countries to see. I mean, things like nuclear silos are not deterrents if they are secret.
According to Wikipedia, there are almost 4000 Argo floats currently drifting in the oceans of the world. These Argo floats are built and launched by the US, France, and other countries, and are known to carry a variety of scientific instruments whose data is sent periodically to satellites for recording and use. These floats are “controlled” in just the same way a balloon may be controlled. Both types of instrument platform can be commanded to operate at a particular height or depth where the prevailing currents cause the platform to drift in a somewhat predictable direction.
Have any of the Argo floats ever drifted onto restricted military waters? Have those floats been shot at or otherwise destroyed?
The publicized data-gathering capabilities of the Argo floats are rather modest and innocuous. But even something as simple as a clandestine hydrophone or magnetometer, in close proximity to a submarine base, might be capable of recording militarily significant data on passing subs. If a Russian or Chinese equivalent of an Argo float passed close to a US submarine base, would we accept their claim that the float did not have any intentions on our national security? Or would we destroy or capture such a float out of an abundance of caution?
Stopped It just spat my tea everywhere xx