China balloon & Airship Development

BoraTas

Captain
Registered Member
X
Can't wait for when they down a passenger plane or cessna and try to own the CCP for it.
Well, there is this. They were sabotaging Iran's defensive efforts against their then darling Saddam's Iraq. Then they got scared of a single aircraft which they thought was an F-14. Shooting down a combat aircraft would be illegal too, considering there was no declared war between the USA and Iran. But it is much worse when the supposed F-14 turns out to be a civilian airliner full of passengers.
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Hadoren

Junior Member
Registered Member
The Ukraine War demonstrates the importance of spy balloons in modern-day warfare. You may have heard of DJI drones. But have you heard of DJI balloons?

In fact, civilian DJI balloons are widely utilized in Ukraine for surveillance, reconnaissance, bombing, and dogfights against enemy jets. DJI's "BS" balloon series is particularly popular.

Just yesterday Ukraine used a DJI "BS-2" spy balloon, paired along with Türkiye's game-changing TB-2 drone, to destroy the Kremlin itself.

Here is a picture of the attack. (Notice the air from each explosion. That is the spy balloon's stealth hot air attack.)
SDF TB2 2-18.jpeg
The balloon + TB-2 combo proved unstoppable and passed straight through Russia's air defenses, destroying the Kremlin.



(Disclaimer: NYT and BBC independent investigations have discovered widespread use of DJI spy balloons in Uyghur concentration camps, Uyghur surveillance, Uyghur mass rape, Uyghur mass sterilization, Uyghur slavery, and Uyghur genocide. I of course do not support genocide nor concentration camps.

I therefore condemn DJI and its hot air supply chain for complicity in the Uyghur genocide. Anybody reading this, please do not use DJI spy balloons!)
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
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They're already lying because there was an article stating what they found was all low tech meaning embarrassing for China who doesn't have high tech. If one were to send a balloon on a spy mission that could crash easily, would you put your best stuff on it? Even if they said the balloon had propulsion like propellers, how precise control would you have? The picture they showed had no signs of propellers for a balloon as tall as the Statue of Liberty. I'm no expert but the only other way to control the direction of a balloon that size would be by ascending or descending through the different layers of wind currents. When you see pictures of an ICBM test launch, you see the contrail zig-zagging up through the atmosphere. That's from the different wind currents it's going through. Can you tell the directing of wind currents from the other side of the world? What about the smaller balloons shot down afterwards? They said one was the size of a car. I don't think you can attach any sort of propulsion that wouldn't keep it on the ground. A balloon the size of a car would not be able to lift anything that be called propulsion. Their balloon narrative is filled with lies no matter how they spin it.
 

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
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They're already lying because there was an article stating what they found was all low tech meaning embarrassing for China who doesn't have high tech. If one were to send a balloon on a spy mission that could crash easily, would you put your best stuff on it? Even if they said the balloon had propulsion like propellers, how precise control would you have? The picture they showed had no signs of propellers for a balloon as tall as the Statue of Liberty. I'm no expert but the only other way to control the direction of a balloon that size would be by ascending or descending through the different layers of wind currents. When you see pictures of an ICBM test launch, you see the contrail zig-zagging up through the atmosphere. That's from the different wind currents it's going through. Can you tell the directing of wind currents from the other side of the world? What about the smaller balloons shot down afterwards? They said one was the size of a car. I don't think you can attach any sort of propulsion that wouldn't keep it on the ground. A balloon the size of a car would not be able to lift anything that be called propulsion. Their balloon narrative is filled with lies no matter how they spin it.
On this point very little. That first balloon was operating at such high altitude that there's very little air for any propellers to "bite" into. It would've required very large propellers to achieve any significant thrust which would have shown up clearly on photo. Little tiny electric propellers at that altitude just will not cut it.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
From an ex-air force guy on Quora, I read they likely jammed the balloon throughout its flight and used ELINT assets to record its transmissions. Considering that it is just a weather balloon (it doesn't even have camo :rolleyes:) that is so funny if it is true. Also, I think the later octagonal object with dangling parts was a lost kite. Everything is so funny all the way from politicians' reactions to subsequent victory celebrations to NORAD shooting down everything unidentified after the incident (because Biden couldn't afford one more incident of not looking tough).

If true that could be such an incredible own-goal that they would have managed to turn an innocuous weather balloon into a SIGINT field day for passing Chinese recon satellites, who would have greedily gobbled up as much of all the extensive US signals activity around the balloon as possible.

The equivalent would be someone labelling this forum as a spy ring because they themselves posted classified materials on here.
 

Abominable

Major
Registered Member
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The search has been called off. No UFOs recovered. Apparently the Canadians are still searching for their one but I'll be surprised if they find anything.

So the official narrative is, after spotting and shooting down the original "spy" balloon, NORAD for the first time ever turned off the default settings on their radar which had kept them blind to all these balloons flying around American airspace. They were then inundated with so many objects that they had to scramble jets three times in three days, each ending with a shoot down in US airspace.

There's so many unanswered questions.

Are supposed to believe radars are like consumer devices with preset settings that you just plug and go? At no point of its development or deployment was the sensitive or filter settings calibrated or adjusted until now?

Since last week, why did the objects suddenly stop showing up? Was it just a massive coincidence that three showed up in three days, or did they reset the radar sensitivity?

Why was it so important to scramble jets to intercept and shoot them down, instead of diverting flights?

Why hasn't any hard information objects been released? Even if you don't find the debris (probably because it's some tiny deflated balloon) there should be something on the camera.

Every public update since the initial one has been the virtually same; they could be civilian balloons, they could be Chinese spy balloons, they may even be aliens.

Very bizarre set of circumstances.
 

BoraTas

Captain
Registered Member
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Pentagon Practiced Shooting Down Spy Balloons In Alaska Wargame Two Years Ago​


The coping continues :p
Were they also following the people who manufactured the balloon from the moment they born?

As I see more of these self-aggrandizing lies I am more convinced that looking tough is everything in the USA.
 
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