It costs over 100x more than the spy balloon to shoot it down!! x_x

[timewerx]

The $400,000 Missile Bringing Down Those Balloons

The United States military has fired AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to down the alleged Chinese spy balloon and other mysterious flying objects spotted over Alaska, Michigan and Canada in recent days, but the first missile shot at an object over Lake Huron on Sunday missed its target and...

finance.yahoo.com

The cost of a high altitude balloon large enough to carry enough payload for a modest / miniaturized spy equipment is up to $1,000.

The cost of surveillance package given China's ingenuity to improvise and make things at ridiculously cheap cost could be had for only $5,000 or even less. Total balloon cost: ~$6,000

The cost of the Aim-9x heat seeking missile to shoot it down is ~$600,000 if you include licensing and taxes.

Hourly cost of flying the F-22 is ~$44,000. Total shoot down cost: $644,000 is well over 100x the cost of Chinese Balloons, assuming a 100% probability of hit but the missile sometimes miss because the missile tracks heat and weather or spy balloons emit very little heat.

The Chinese could simply send swarms of civilian weather balloons over the American continent and force USA to commit valuable resources and you can't accuse China of wrongdoing because civilian weather balloons aren't legitimate targets. But you can't really distinguish one from a spy balloon until after you shoot it down and recover the wreckage.

Even the F-22 is far from the ideal tool for shooting down balloons at high altitude. With recent experiences gained, they'll need a high flying aircraft that can remain aloft at much slower speeds to make it possible to shoot the balloons down with guns or even possibly to rip the envelop open with a sharp blade extending from a boom. Such methods would also make it possible to recover the payload more or less intact for further investigation and research. Fortunately, there already exists a UAV like the Boeing Condor that can fly slowly at those altitudes and could shoot those balloons down if it had a gun. UAVs would be vastly cheaper to operate than F-22.

 

[Yttrium]

It's okay, we can just borrow more money from China to pay for it all.

 

[timewerx]

It's okay, we can just borrow more money from China to pay for it all.

The problems represents a major oversight for the Western air defense. They don't have an economical counter against cheap, simple, and expendable airborne threats which may be deployed by the enemy in huge numbers since they can be quickly and cheaply manufactured.

We first saw it in Ukraine and now there's possibility that China may be exploiting this weakness. It may just coincidence or accident or completely unintended, nevertheless, highlights a major weakness in Western air defense systems.

High energy lasers may provide economical counter-air but in order to provide 100% coverage of a huge territory such as North America or the whole of Europe, the system must have air mobility. That it must be small and light enough to fit medium sized aircraft or even smaller. Unfortunately, such laser weapon does not exist yet.

 

[Unqualified]

Sometime it could be, I was afraid it could be a dirty bomb.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Money,money,money. What is peace really worth? I mean, can you really put a price on it?

 

[iluvatar5150]

The $400,000 Missile Bringing Down Those Balloons

The United States military has fired AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to down the alleged Chinese spy balloon and other mysterious flying objects spotted over Alaska, Michigan and Canada in recent days, but the first missile shot at an object over Lake Huron on Sunday missed its target and...

finance.yahoo.com

The cost of a high altitude balloon large enough to carry enough payload for a modest / miniaturized spy equipment is up to $1,000.

The cost of surveillance package given China's ingenuity to improvise and make things at ridiculously cheap cost could be had for only $5,000 or even less. Total balloon cost: ~$6,000

The balloon was 200' across (a typical hot air balloon is 60-80'); the solar panels were at least half that length; and the total weight was estimated at a couple thousand pounds. That's not a "modest" payload.

Even the F-22 is far from the ideal tool for shooting down balloons at high altitude. With recent experiences gained, they'll need a high flying aircraft that can remain aloft at much slower speeds to make it possible to shoot the balloons down with guns or even possibly to rip the envelop open with a sharp blade extending from a boom. Such methods would also make it possible to recover the payload more or less intact for further investigation and research. Fortunately, there already exists a UAV like the Boeing Condor that can fly slowly at those altitudes and could shoot those balloons down if it had a gun. UAVs would be vastly cheaper to operate than F-22.

The F-22 has a gun.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

Money,money,money. What is peace really worth? I mean, can you really put a price on it?

And to quote Megadeath, "Peace sells, but who's buying?"

 

[mindlight]

The $400,000 Missile Bringing Down Those Balloons

The United States military has fired AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to down the alleged Chinese spy balloon and other mysterious flying objects spotted over Alaska, Michigan and Canada in recent days, but the first missile shot at an object over Lake Huron on Sunday missed its target and...

finance.yahoo.com

The cost of a high altitude balloon large enough to carry enough payload for a modest / miniaturized spy equipment is up to $1,000.

The cost of surveillance package given China's ingenuity to improvise and make things at ridiculously cheap cost could be had for only $5,000 or even less. Total balloon cost: ~$6,000

The cost of the Aim-9x heat seeking missile to shoot it down is ~$600,000 if you include licensing and taxes.

Hourly cost of flying the F-22 is ~$44,000. Total shoot down cost: $644,000 is well over 100x the cost of Chinese Balloons, assuming a 100% probability of hit but the missile sometimes miss because the missile tracks heat and weather or spy balloons emit very little heat.

The Chinese could simply send swarms of civilian weather balloons over the American continent and force USA to commit valuable resources and you can't accuse China of wrongdoing because civilian weather balloons aren't legitimate targets. But you can't really distinguish one from a spy balloon until after you shoot it down and recover the wreckage.

Even the F-22 is far from the ideal tool for shooting down balloons at high altitude. With recent experiences gained, they'll need a high flying aircraft that can remain aloft at much slower speeds to make it possible to shoot the balloons down with guns or even possibly to rip the envelop open with a sharp blade extending from a boom. Such methods would also make it possible to recover the payload more or less intact for further investigation and research. Fortunately, there already exists a UAV like the Boeing Condor that can fly slowly at those altitudes and could shoot those balloons down if it had a gun. UAVs would be vastly cheaper to operate than F-22.

Elon Musk could add to his fortune here by developing a pin gun to fire at Chinese balloons from beaches over the sea.

 

[Landon Caeli]

I don't care how much it costs. That balloon needed to be shot down.

 

[wing2000]

Fortunately, there already exists a UAV like the Boeing Condor that can fly slowly at those altitudes and could shoot those balloons down if it had a gun. UAVs would be vastly cheaper to operate than F-22.

I agree, a UAV would be a more appropriate choice for these type of targets.

 

[Nithavela]

If this really becomes a problem, a cost effective solution will be found and implemented.

 

[timewerx]

I don't care how much it costs. That balloon needed to be shot down.

For now.

But eventually, they need to figure out a way to make it cheaper to bring down balloons. A high interception / defense cost is a weakness and apparently, the Russians have learned to exploit in the Ukraine war.

Even China can exploit the weakness to a greater effect by sending swarms of balloons that is designed to look like spy or science research balloons with a payload of inert junk/defective electronics (basically garbage electronics). These balloons will be dirt cheap. You won't realize the Chinese are loading them up with $0 of defective garbage electronics since any defect found in the payload can also be caused by violent forces such missile explosion or impact with the ground.

It's not good forward thinking for the armed to not care about improving efficiency and cost effectiveness of their defensive suite. They'd be diverting precious tax payer money that could have been used to offset healthcare or educational costs for example. An expensive army is also an exploitable weakness as we're starting to see in the Ukraine war and NATO's dealings with cheap UFO's.

What's next? Russia could even begin sending fake trucks and fake tanks or ground mobile suicide drones disguised as civilian cars, etc just to force NATO to commit large amount of resources on their super expensive defensive suites.

 

[timewerx]

I agree, a UAV would be a more appropriate choice for these type of targets.

Yes, high flying and slow. Such UAVs may already exist in the civilian sector, expected to be used as wifi hotspots some time in the future.

High Energy Lasers may also provide a cost effective solution but the weapon needs to become small and light enough to be carried aboard aircraft smaller than jet airliners such as UAVs.

A laser UAV would not need to reach the same altitude as the balloon and it can be faster. The range of a laser beam can be over a hundred kilometers on a clear day so the UAV just needs to fly above the weather and 30,000 ft cruise altitude would be sufficient.

Ultimately, a laser UAV would be the best solution as some balloons can fly even much higher, well beyond 100,000 ft. No UAVs nor manned aircraft is able to cruise at those altitudes but a laser beam can reach those altitudes. Problem is that the technology may not be available until the next decade unless people get more serious working on this critically important defense tech.

 

[SimplyMe]

The balloon was 200' across (a typical hot air balloon is 60-80'); the solar panels were at least half that length; and the total weight was estimated at a couple thousand pounds. That's not a "modest" payload.


The F-22 has a gun.

But does not operate at a high enough altitude to shoot down balloons with its gun.

 

[Pommer]

But does not operate at a high enough altitude to shoot down balloons with its gun.

Service ceiling for the F-22 is 65,000ft, per Wikipedia

 

[iluvatar5150]

But does not operate at a high enough altitude to shoot down balloons with its gun.

Was that what the rationale was? I never saw an official statement about it.

 

[SimplyMe]

Service ceiling for the F-22 is 65,000ft, per Wikipedia

Yes, the "ceiling." What the ceiling doesn't include is how "operational" it is at that altitude. To use an Air Force quote (Gen. Glen VanHerck, Commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command), "And the pilots in each situation felt that that was really unachievable because of the size, especially yesterday in that altitude, and also because of the challenge to acquire it visually because it's so small. It's also potentially a safety-of-flight issue because you have to get so close to the object before you see it that you potentially could fly into the debris or the actual object."

And this ignores the fact that bullets tend not to "shoot down" large balloons. For example, in 1988 a Chinese weather balloon went over Canada, and the Canadian Air Force attempted to shoot it down. "Two Canadian air force CF-18 fighters fired more than 1,000 rounds of cannon shells into it off the coast of Newfoundland. An Icelandic official said the Canadian attack caused extensive punctures but failed to release the helium gas from the balloon." It took six days for that ballon to finally come down, the bullet holes merely causing a "slow leak" in the ballon.

Bullets worked in the day when balloons were filled with hydrogen, since the bullets would ignite the hydrogen gas. Unfortunately, with helium balloons, the gas is inert and merely slowly leaks out of the holes, allowing the balloon to remain in the air for several more days.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

"Two Canadian air force CF-18 fighters fired more than 1,000 rounds of cannon shells into it off the coast of Newfoundland. An Icelandic official said the Canadian attack caused extensive punctures but failed to release the helium gas from the balloon." It took six days for that ballon to finally come down, the bullet holes merely causing a "slow leak" in the ballon.

And the F-22 carries 480 rounds in its cannon. It is also flying so fast that it isnt going to be able to lock on, fire and then avoid the balloon.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

This kind of asymmetry has been a problem since the middle ages when a knight who'd had years of expensive training could be killed at range by barely trained peasants with crossbows.

 

[timewerx]

Service ceiling for the F-22 is 65,000ft, per Wikipedia

An aircraft operating at its service ceiling would have very poor maneuverability because the wings are at the brink of stalling (losing lift) even just trying to turn.

Coupled with the short range of the gun at very high approach speeds, >1000 mph, means you only have few seconds to try to shoot it down with gun and pray to God you don't collide with it on they way out because of very poor maneuverability at the service ceiling.

It really has no choice but to use missiles but missiles are very expensive. Even worse, balloons can also float above 100,000 ft where no manned aircraft can reach. Missiles can still hit things at 100,000 ft and beyond but the missiles designed to reach those altitudes are even more expensive!!!

We need alternative solutions and we need it fast. I bet we can use lasers and it doesn't have to be super powerful to burn through a balloon bag. So we can put put one such laser on a UAV. The UAV doesn't have to fly at the same altitude as the balloon. The UAV only needs to fly above the clouds so the laser can operate in clear air and shoot balloons down many miles away. We already have plenty of UAV's that can cruise above the weather >30,000 service ceiling.

I think a laser UAV would be perfect for job OR just figure out a way to make missiles 100x less expensive!! Maybe hire students to work on the solution than hire overly-paid experts I think would be a good start!