These idiots that develop, fly, maintain, and analyze fighter jets, their armament and have years of experience using them are wrong.  People who sit at home and flew as a passenger on a plane once know better.

 The Chinese spy balloon should have been shot down with bullets so it could float harmlessly down to the ground, instead of using a missile. My idiot associate who flew gunships, and worked with the Navy Blue Angels is incorrect when he offered this:

Let me guess, an armchair pilot figured out the physics that eluded all other human beings. Check out the information about the Canadian unit that ended up over Russia. Physics willalways prevail over opinion. Imagine trying to ID numbers on the center screw of a round highway reflector while stuck at 85mph. Thats what looking at a balloon is like. Helium doesn't leak at 60k feet, it wont even leak at 40k. In 20 years more than a few training exercises have been executed on this specific event. Use a missile, save the fuel.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/162084.stm

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/weather-balloon-canada-china-1.6737831

 What a moron this guy is.

Too bad they can't hang a 20 mm  or two in the fuselage and run a few hundred rounds through a balloon. It's okay if they don't just crash to the ground. Let them flutter down.. Retrieve the equipment in one piece.
A hole is much different from hundreds.


I searched

Slowest plane that can fly at 40000 feet..


I Really Wish America had an airplane equipped with electronic warfare equipment, to pick up transmission and jam the equipment. Gosh,, that would be So Cool.. Alas,we must surrender to a balloon until it has traversed the country.. But once it doesn't matter, we can drop it! Because, yeah!

 Yeah like I said, actual pilots and physicists are dumbasses.  People at home on their couch that don't even fly know more because they can look up information on the internet.  

"Too bad they can't hang a 20 mm  or two in the fuselage and run a few hundred rounds through a balloon. It's okay if they don't just crash to the ground. Let them flutter down.. Retrieve the equipment in one piece.
A hole is much different from hundreds."


Canadian CF-18 fighter jet pilots caught up with the balloon off the coast of Newfoundland and took aim, firing more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition at it.

 It still flew.  That doesn't apply here though - physics in this unique case are different somehow.  Precedence is irrelevant.

"I Really Wish America had an airplane equipped with electronic warfare equipment, to pick up transmission and jam the equipment. Gosh,, that would be So Cool.. Alas,we must surrender to a balloon until it has traversed the country.. But once it doesn't matter, we can drop it! Because, yeah!"

 They did.  See what I mean?  They did analyze it and tested different fidelity signals to see what ones were in use.  NORAD literally argued to let it fly over so they could examine it in detail.  They requested this happen, I even posted a direct quote from someone I know about why they did this.  I have no reason to think he is lying or with the decades of experience, all the sudden is a complete buffoon on this subject.  They tracked it since it was over Japan, and wanted to evaluate the steering.  They decided it was essentially useless as a weapon or spycraft, and spending the time and money trying to preserve it was pointless when they could just recover some of it in the water and wanted to test that new missile dimension anyway.  

 Maybe the people doing the job know more about what they need to do than us sitting safely at home Monday morning quarterbacking a sport we never played.



"So convenient.. The pipeline sabotage just disappeared.
Squirrel!"

 Yeah because the for-profit media and websites dependent on mouse-clicks are going to report on the pipeline for less money than reporting on the balloon everyone wants to hear about today.



"I'm more interested in WTF Is being done about the derailed train."

 I'm sure plenty of people are.  Use different resources maybe.



"The facts of the situation are not readily available, so having an opinion about what they have done is outside of reasonable ability. Just pardon me for not believing the best decisions are being made."

 I get disagreeing but why complain they didn't do something they actually did do, and why completely ignore people that have done this before?  Real pilots that actually shot down balloons are all idiots that don't know how balloons jets and armament on them work?  A few internet searches and now people are experts and real fighter pilots are all incompetent.

"The primary stem had undefined cabling along the entire length. These contained anchor points but the brackets were much longer than what would be considered "normal". This was evaluated to possibly be a disengagement system, if this system was sensor-based and could detach the suspended component there would be no way to know when it would happen and plummet toward the ground. If we interacted with it in any way and the suspended component dropped, we would be blamed for it and then people would be complaining we didn't let it fly to the Atlantic."

What caliber?
Did they HIT it?
What were they flying?
I'm not stupid. I understand the low pressure differential. You poke enough holes of sufficient diameter, it's Gonna fall.
Simple .

 All that information is provided in the references you wont read.

 Obviously they are all incompetent and incapable of assessing the needs and abilities of their own jobs.  NORAD couldn't possibly know if they want to analyze the balloon over US soil, they couldn't possibly know more about the structure, and what they want to test, or in general what they want than people at home on the internet.

 We need more people like us with zero experience and extremely limited knowledge to tell them how they can't do their jobs right because it's "Simple".  Obviously actual fighter pilots know less about flying aircraft then people that aren't pilots.

 Obviously people looking up things online after the fact know more about what should have been done than anyone who actually does the job.  They could have brought the thing down slowly, with enough resources and planning, but elected not to.  Simple.

I get the points you’re making Eegore, but recognize some of this suspicious is because of the excessive lies during Covid and the Hunter laptop for that matter, from Uncle Sam.

Uncle Sam is a great guy and we love him but let’s face it, he lies his a$$ off sometimes.

 
 Yeah I understand that, and they might be lying about why they let it fly over, but I still don't think any of us that have never flown a fighter jet have any business telling actual pilots how easy their job is.  People that have never used modern US surveillance equipment don't need to be telling people that use them daily how to do their job.

 

"Is that like the people who believe, putting up a sign,
and  banning 99.987% of people who buy/own gun/s the right to buy a certain model.
Will stop all ‘mass shootings’ ?"


 Possibly, if those people are stating that it's "simple" to stop all mass shootings by putting up signs.


"Is that like the people who believe, cutting off,
Boobs & d icks, will solve all their problems ?"

 No.  


"Is that like the people who believe, 2+2,
‘Could’ equal 3 or 5, as long as they think it does ?"

 No.


"Is that like the people who believe, illegal’s
Who come in this Nation, should vote ?"

 No.


"Is that like the people who believe, 16 year olds,
Should be able to vote ?"

 Possibly, if those people never had kids, raised kids or otherwise spent any substantial time with kids, and are saying it's "Simple" to allow 16 year old's to vote responsibly, while implying every single psychologist, teacher and parent in the world don't know how 16 year olds act.


"Is that like the people who believe,
Dumbing Down Schooling,
Will make people smarter ?"

 Possibly.  Are these people comparing their limited knowledge to literally every education professional in the world and saying they are wrong?