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Balloon in the sky with diamonds ?

Honestly, I figure there are liable to be a couple guys Stateside, doing some serious head scratching, to try to come up with something in the way of either a limited time of flight 20mm projectile (self destruct after 1-2 seconds of flight, say), or the modern equivalent to a sub caliber insert, so they can simply punch a whackload of holes in the balloon itself, for relatively cheap.

Pretty sure if they asked the Armourers back at base, they could have had all manner of things wired to a bomb rack, and rigged to go off when the pilot chose to fire! :)

Flight time, if suitably motivated, for an intercept, is ~4 minutes to 60K ft. A very stripped down, and well polished F-15, made 93K ft in 3 1/2 minutes...

Someone mentioned the zeppelins, and their ability to take a fair number of small holes, without terrible effect. Those were multiples of compartments, and carrying extra hydrogen too, as I recall reading. Not a lot of room to carry extra floatie stuff, in the payload of a small balloon (a couple hundred pounds more or less).

Dunno whose idea the missile was, but it seemed a waste of money to me.
 
trevj said:
Honestly, I figure there are liable to be a couple guys Stateside, doing some serious head scratching, to try to come up with something in the way of either a limited time of flight 20mm projectile (self destruct after 1-2 seconds of flight, say), or the modern equivalent to a sub caliber insert, so they can simply punch a whackload of holes in the balloon itself, for relatively cheap.

Pretty sure if they asked the Armourers back at base, they could have had all manner of things wired to a bomb rack, and rigged to go off when the pilot chose to fire! :)

Flight time, if suitably motivated, for an intercept, is ~4 minutes to 60K ft. A very stripped down, and well polished F-15, made 93K ft in 3 1/2 minutes...

Someone mentioned the zeppelins, and their ability to take a fair number of small holes, without terrible effect. Those were multiples of compartments, and carrying extra hydrogen too, as I recall reading. Not a lot of room to carry extra floatie stuff, in the payload of a small balloon (a couple hundred pounds more or less).

Dunno whose idea the missile was, but it seemed a waste of money to me.
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Did you read about the Canadian weather balloon that strayed into Russia in 1998? Three air forces tried to shoot it down unsuccessfully ! Put over a 1,000 rounds thru it and still didn't succeed in bringing it down! I would have thought a single round would cause it to explode given there is probably significant internal pressure but apparently not!

 
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Degen said:
Years ago I was up in NORAD and they scrambled to intercept and escaped weather balloon. It was decided that for practice they would shoot it down, so a pilot was designated to shoot it with a missle and he missed! Apparently the balloon took evasive action....it sat there :D.


I have a feeling the pilots remember the story and don't want to look bad.
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It is quite true that a ballon is hard to shoot down with most missiles if their not "fly by wire" guided...a balloon has no heat signature hot enough (just the sun's radiant heat) for a heat seeker to lock onto.
 
I think we just need a bunch of sky roomba's with knives on them patrolling our airways.

I'm surprised they didn't come up with a fancy way of catching it before it hit the water. A bunch of helicopters holding out a big net or something. I bet they could have come up with something cool to waste money on.
 
Canadium said:
Did you read about the Canadian weather balloon that strayed into Russia in 1998? Three air forces tried to shoot it down unsuccessfully ! Put over a 1,000 rounds thru it and still didn't succeed in bringing it down! I would have thought a single round would cause it to explode given there is probably significant internal pressure but apparently not!

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Had not seen that article, but it's an interesting read. Makes me ponder where on the balloon envelope they hit it, if at all. All the helium, lives at the very top, and holes in any other area, would have no effect until the helium rose to such altitude as to make use of the expansion of all that extra material draped below the top 'bubble'. And the otherwise disposable polymer 'bag' used for that weather balloon, would have been fairly self sealing to an extent, as well, I think.

The 'Chinese' balloon, appears to be of a High Pressure type, too, by the round shape, and lack of saggy extra material.
 
trevj said:
The 'Chinese' balloon, appears to be of a High Pressure type, too, by the round shape, and lack of saggy extra material.
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For it to go to 60,000 feet, it might be a structured framework balloon. If the helium has much pressure, it won't carry hardly any payload to 60,000 feet and there is a considerable payload on that Chinese balloon. Just look at all the solar cells!

Environment Canada uses hydrogen for it's twice daily balloon releases. A friend of mine operates a company that has 5 release points across Western Canada. They use a *considerable* amount of hydrogen to lift just 800 grams. And those balloons are very big, about 30 feet long and about 8 in diameter. Hydrogen is much more buoyant than helium (I think something like 25%)
 
trevj said:
Makes me ponder where on the balloon envelope they hit it, if at all.
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So this is just thinking. No math, no relevant knowledge, nothing.

Could it be that helium simply isn't flammable at that altitude? Not enough oxygen maybe? Too rich, too lean,...... Etc.

Maybe a bullet at that altitude doesn't get hot enough to ignite anything?

Lots of potential explanations.
 
Susquatch said:
So this is just thinking. No math, no relevant knowledge, nothing.

Could it be that helium simply isn't flammable at that altitude? Not enough oxygen maybe? Too rich, too lean,...... Etc.

Maybe a bullet at that altitude doesn't get hot enough to ignite anything?

Lots of potential explanations.
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Helium is an inert gas and is not flammable. Did you mean Hydrogen? In any case I'm guessing whatever lighter than air gas they use is going to collect at the top of the balloon. Unless you puncture the very top of the balloon some of the gas will remain and keep the balloon afloat.
 
Susquatch said:
So this is just thinking. No math, no relevant knowledge, nothing.

Could it be that helium simply isn't flammable at that altitude? Not enough oxygen maybe? Too rich, too lean,...... Etc.

Maybe a bullet at that altitude doesn't get hot enough to ignite anything?

Lots of potential explanations.
Click to expand...
Something would have to “spark”, though, to ignite any gas, whatever the altitude

Just like you can throw matches at a pail of diesel all day long, with no other catalyst present it won’t light
 
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