mjmooney Posted February 5, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2023 2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said: Out of interest, do we know how they shot it down? Air rifle, I reckon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 5, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2023 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegis Posted February 5, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2023 Colonel Farrah still knows how to get balloons down 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 5, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2023 3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said: If nothing else, imagine how excited that pilot would have been. He'll be in a bar somewhere right now, telling a tale that gets bigger with each repetition. Everyone will just think he's full of hot air. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted February 5, 2023 Moderator Share Posted February 5, 2023 1 minute ago, sidcow said: Everyone will just think he's full of hot air. All a bit of a let down, his story. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 Shot down by a missile from a F22. Now China are flapping that the Americians used deadly force and now they are within there right to bring repercussions. China are a weird state always have been, I have no more love for their government than I have for Putin and the Kremlin, poo on my foot the lot of emmm! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegis Posted February 5, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2023 2 hours ago, Xela said: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted February 5, 2023 Author Share Posted February 5, 2023 Two more balloons over Colombia, apparently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 That missile strike I thought was a little unfortunate. It looked like it hit the active components. Shame they did not go through the middle of the balloon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 8 minutes ago, fruitvilla said: That missile strike I thought was a little unfortunate. It looked like it hit the active components. Shame they did not go through the middle of the balloon. I think falling from kilometres up and hitting water at terminal velocity, probably approaching 200mph, would do as much damage. In any case, they'll have their best Jigsaw puzzle solvers working on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 (edited) 22 minutes ago, brommy said: I think falling from kilometres up and hitting water at terminal velocity, probably approaching 200mph, would do as much damage. In any case, they'll have their best Jigsaw puzzle solvers working on it. Doubt a bunch of metal attached to a huge deflated balloon would ever have a large terminal velocity. The issue for jigsaw puzzle solvers will be finding the pieces mixed in with the shrapnel. Should have been brought down intact as possible regardless of the terminal velocity. Edited February 6, 2023 by fruitvilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 5 hours ago, maqroll said: Two more balloons over Colombia, apparently. Probably just one, the guy reporting about it was likely seeing double. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 On 04/02/2023 at 20:46, HKP90 said: But as far as I understand, you can't recover mass once it's released (ie ballast) and the mass of helium is the same compressed in a tank as held in a balloon. They seem to have done it somehow, but control over 2000+ miles of flight without heating the gas (changing density) or having another means of propultion must be very difficult. When the Japanese did this in WWII it was so inaccurate they barely hit the right continent. Apparently balloon part has two chambers. The main chamber has the helium gas in it to give it lift. Then there is a second chamber with a pump. That chamber is for normal air. When you want to go up you empty the second chamber and rise on the helium. When you want to go down you pump air into the chamber at a higher pressure than the air you are floating in and the balloon sinks. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobsons Choice Posted February 6, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 6, 2023 59 minutes ago, LondonLax said: Apparently balloon part has two chambers. The main chamber has the helium gas in it to give it lift. Then there is a second chamber with a pump. That chamber is for normal air. When you want to go up you empty the second chamber and rise on the helium. When you want to go down you pump air into the chamber at a higher pressure than the air you are floating in and the balloon sinks. Aerial submarine. Fascinating. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 8 hours ago, fruitvilla said: Doubt a bunch of metal attached to a huge deflated balloon would ever have a large terminal velocity. The issue for jigsaw puzzle solvers will be finding the pieces mixed in with the shrapnel. Should have been brought down intact as possible regardless of the terminal velocity. Even a large deflated balloon doesn't present much of a horizontal surface area to reduce terminal velocity, especially if it's weighted by attached equipment. Whether damage was done by the strike that burst the balloon or from the fall and hitting water at a relatively high speed, I'm not sure there's much of an issue here anyway. There's only so much surveillance that can be done by equipment at that height so the U.S. probably won't be expecting anything groundbreaking or shocking in what data was able to be gathered. In any case they'll have the ability to track the fall and piece the equipment back together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeadlyDirk Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 I would have thought just putting a few machine gun rounds into the balloon part itself would give it a nice controlled descent. I am not a physicist or a scientist so I'm basing this opinion one GCSE physics from the 90's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 6, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 6, 2023 11 minutes ago, DeadlyDirk said: I would have thought just putting a few machine gun rounds into the balloon part itself would give it a nice controlled descent. I am not a physicist or a scientist so I'm basing this opinion one GCSE physics from the 90's Sounds like you've done your own research so I'll back you to the hilt regardless of any subsequent more expert evidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 8 minutes ago, DeadlyDirk said: I would have thought just putting a few machine gun rounds into the balloon part itself would give it a nice controlled descent. I am not a physicist or a scientist so I'm basing this opinion one GCSE physics from the 90's Given the high altitude and very low air pressure I think the relatively high pressure inside the balloon was always likely to cause it to tear upon rupture. Equipment damage or not, I don't believe the U.S. will end this event thinking 'if only we knew what the balloon was doing'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 10 hours ago, maqroll said: Two more balloons over Colombia, apparently. Getting incredibly high. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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