China weather balloon or spy craft

GW Johnson · 2023-02-05 10:21:13

I see a lot of activity on the internet about the Chinese balloon that flew over the US. Most of that crap is just that: uninformed speculation. Informed speculation is far better.

Some informed speculation:

1. This thing had a forest of antennas under it about the size of two school buses, which is why they wanted to delay shooting it down until over the ocean. That's a serious falling debris hazard. Speculation: could this thing have been harvesting data from the Tik Tok software that they infiltrated into us?

2. Everybody wanted to see the thing shot down. Question is, how do you do that? Our air-to-air missiles are not designed to track targets of that type. The gas bag would have little or no radar signature, and little if any infrared signature. Puncturing it with simple gunfire would be a better choice, but who has airplanes that fly that high anymore? This thing was at or above 66,000 feet.

Supposedly this thing was shot down by an F-22 using an AIM-9 Sidewinder. The aircraft was reportedly flying at 58,000 feet, which would be just about the top of its flight envelope. Climbing from there to 66+ kft would be just about the limits of what a Sidewinder would be able to do. It would be be way out of range vertically for a gun shot, even if the F-22 had guns.

3. Supposedly this is the 4th such incursion by balloon. Just the first seen by the public, thus making the news. There is a pattern here. The Chinese would not be doing this to spy on our missile silos and bomber bases. They do that with satellites. It's hard-to-impossible to steer a balloon where you want it to go, anyway.

Speculation: they were trying to acquire information spread diffusely across America, not any particular point targets. That lends credence to the notion of intercepting internet information generally, and Tik Tok-acquired information specifically.

4. The "right" interceptor for high-altitude balloons like this would resemble the old NF-104. That would be a modified jet fighter craft with a rocket engine, an attitude thruster control system, and air-to-air guns to punch holes in the balloon and let the lifting gas out. It's been 50 years since we had a thing like that, and the NF-104 had no guns back then, being instead a trainer for rocket plane pilots. It flew multiple times to altitudes in the 90,000-to-125,000 feet range. Some less heavily loaded weather balloons fly that high.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-02-05 10:29:25)

kbd512 · 2023-02-05 21:52:00

Informed specuation... Hmm... There's a contradiction in terms if ever there was one.

1. Since the Chinese government has full internet access, would their army of hackers need to send a weather balloon half-way across the world to spy on "Tik-Tok" users?

2. Who is "everyone"? Some of us would have rather we tried to recover the balloon, and then we might learn something that we didn't already know.

3. With respect to spying, how do we know what their satellites are or are not capable of?

I seem to recall everyone in the West thinking the MiG-25 was some sort of "super fighter". It turned out to be a 3g capable high-speed interceptor that was about as maneuverable as our bombers. Our F-111s, for example, could turn more tightly than their "improved" MiG-31s that were strengthened to allow them to do a bit more maneuvering at lower altitudes.

If I listed all of our serious intelligence assessment failures, then I would never get around to posting this. The point is, all speculation without more information is rather meaningless. That's why it would've been better to capture rather than destroy this thing. Those of us who were actually in the military are more apt to try to recover unfamiliar enemy equipment so we understand a little more about its capabilities and limitations. That way, the next time we encounter it, we can exploit its weaknesses.

3. Extracting information from enemy-held territory through direct human methods is a specialty of the Chinese, and we keep allowing them to infiltrate our academic and military industrial apparatus, so they keep doing it. Flying a balloon over America is not their favored method of collection. If their satellites are so capable, then there's not much a balloon could conceivably photograph better than a satellite constellation.

4. Intercepting a balloon is not a particularly challenging task. Our U-2s, which are actually in-service today, are probably adequate for the job of high-altitude interception.

Alternatively, the Proteus design from Scaled Composites could take care of it since it has an external pylon that's already been used for testing various very large sensors at high altitude. It can reportedly stay on station around 65,000ft for up to 18 hours. Whereas the U-2 has to maintain fairly high speeds at higher altitudes to avoid stalling, this thing can fly between 200mph and 300mph at altitude, making it much more suitable for intercepting slow-moving high-altitude targets like balloons. Raytheon successfully demonstrated killing thin-skinned targets on the ground from 1.4km away (burning holes in trucks and people) using a tactical high-energy laser mounted to an AH-64E Apache gunship. Presumably, the same laser could be mounted to the fuselage pylon of the Proteus.

Scaled Composites Proteus in-flight:

Raytheon Tactical Laser onboard an AH-64E Apache gunship:
high-energy-laser-hel-apache-raytheon.jpg?itok=ia3p66jB

At high altitude, barbecuing a balloon envelope using a 60kW to 100kW laser shouldn't be particularly challenging.

It's admittedly not as cool as a rocket-powered interceptor firing million-dollar missiles, but it will get the job done for minimal cost and no real hazard to the crew of Proteus or an armed U-2. If it lets the air out slowly by creating a small hole, then the Proteus or U-2 has the fuel to track it to the sea or ground, even if that process takes 8 hours or more, then we could retrieve it and possibly learn more about its true purpose.

Who would've ever thought that a former Navy man would be more interested in learning about enemy capabilities than simply blazing away with missiles and guns, not learning much of anything in the process?

tahanson43206 · 2023-02-06 08:10:27

Regarding the F22 flight to shoot down the balloon with a missile:

The flight radio call sight was Frank01.

This was in honor of a World War 1 pilot who shot down a number of German balloons.

The balloon was at an altitude the F22 could reach, and the missile was apparently able to find a target.

About 3,520,000 results (0.52 seconds)
The F-22 was flying at about 58,000 feet (18 kilometers) off the South Carolina coast when it fired an Aim-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon that was hovering at between 60,000 and 65,000 feet, Pentagon officials said Saturday.19 hours ago
F-22 Makes First Air-to-Air Strike in Chinese Balloon Takedown
https://www.bloomberg.com › news › articles › us-fighter...
About featured snippets
•

(th)

GW Johnson · 2023-02-06 18:37:38

The F-22 at 58,000 feet would be at the top of its allowable flight envelope, right at the hairy edge of risking inertia coupling loss of control. The Sidewinder has a short range, even shorter if climbing, which this one was. I thought the balloon was at about 66,000 feet; maybe it was a bit lower, which made the missile's flight more feasible. The F-22 also has guns, but was never close enough to use them.

The balloon itself has little or no RF signature, and little if any IR signature. The payload beneath is another matter. The heat-seeking Sidewinder homed on the payload IR signature, and blew it to pieces, which blast and shrapnel tore up the balloon. Between being blown to pieces and the impact damage of hitting the sea at just under Mach 1, there is little foreign technology left to evaluate there. There would be a lot more if it was only torn up with impact damage, which is why you really want to pop the balloon gas bag.

The mission being done here by the Chinese is more about political ends than technical surveillance. Assuming their satellites are comparable to ours, their satellites are a far better means of getting information about missile silos and bomber bases. Ours certainly are. Satellite overflights are OK per the "open skies" tradition established by the launch of Sputnik in 1957. There is good reason to believe Eisenhower delayed launch of our first satellites to deliberately let the Russians go first, in order to set that precedent.

However, balloons and airplanes are NOT part of that "open skies" thing. Those are and always have been violations of sovereign airspace. As difficult as it is to steer a balloon to a specific target, such a craft operated as a spy craft would be more suited to gathering diffusely-distributed info, such as from devices containing Tik Tok software, and from the ubiquitous chips in all our devices that constitute the "internet of things". That sort of spying would be a prerequisite for waging cyber warfare against us. Something to think about!

However, the prime mission is the simple bullying to get what they want, be it territory or political "points", whatever. It shows in the nonsensical protests of the Chinese about our shooting down their "civilian vehicle". What they are really upset about is Blinken cancelling his trip, which from their side would have been a propaganda victory, had it taken place.

I really despise the politicians pointing fingers at each other over this, particularly GOP morons like Ted Cruz, when the non-partisan civil servants at the Pentagon brought forth the records showing 3 of these overflew the US during Trump's administration, and he did absolutely nothing to stop them. There was an earlier one that Biden let overfly us, and another over Latin America at the same time as this one.

The Chinese do anything and everything that they believe they can get away with, to intimidate other countries into submitting to their will. They have been infamous for such behavior for many decades now. They had been getting away with spy balloon overflights until Biden had this one shot down. I think you will find that these balloon overflights may stop now.

If not, then we need a fast response airplane that can fly higher than the balloons and shoot them down by popping the gas bag. You need a response-within-minutes capability to try to ensure the shootdown occurs over unoccupied land. Two school buses's worth of hardware hitting the surface at just under Mach 1 is very dangerous indeed!

I think a modified F-16 is a good candidate to do mixed propulsion vertical zoom missions the way the old NF-104 flew. Some of these balloons fly well above 100,000 feet. It depends on the payload weight versus the gas bag volume. There are currently no planes in our inventory capable of reaching such altitudes.

The next Chinese move is not Taiwan (although they will try to make it look that way), which would lead quickly to general war, but instead an escalation of their harassment of our unarmed spy planes just outside their territorial airspace. They have been using very unsafe flying practices to disrupt our spy plane flights, for quite some time now.

The escalation I predict will be shooting down our spy planes in international airspace, but claiming they were in Chinese airspace, counting on the "he said, she said" uncertainty to get away with it. Our only response possibilities are either to arm the spy planes, or escort them with armed fighters, declare general war, or else quit flying spy missions near them.

And we are going to have to use those arms, I can guarantee that! The bully doesn't stop bullying you, until you belt him in the nose.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-02-06 18:57:14)

SpaceNut · 2023-02-06 19:32:46

How soon we forget Chinese surveillance balloons during Trump, early Biden admin not spotted by NORAD, commander says as this occurred at a minimum of 3 times previously. The news today indicates that a second balloon was seen floating over Columbia South America. Still sticking to the weather balloon story

Here is part of the US path that the balloon took.

The start was through Alaska crossing into Canada until it made its way to Montana.

kbd512 · 2023-02-06 20:53:24

There is no "internet of things" in Alaska or Montana, unless it's an "internet of ice cube things".

The Raytheon laser uses an electro-optical tracker, so whether or not the target returns any radar signature or emits any IR signature is irrelevant to our ability to use it to bring down a balloon. Since it operates at the speed of light, any target movement is irrelevant at the distances involved. The aircraft (U-2 or Proteus) that we would attach it to can fly at altitudes of 70,000 to 80,000 feet, so the balloon's altitude where it was shot down was not a factor, except for ordinary fighter jets that were never meant to fly at such altitudes.

We have no clue whether or not what the Chinese did was technical surveillance or political in nature, precisely because we never recovered the technology on their "weather balloon" to see what it was capable of doing.

Blinken canceling his trip is neither here nor there. He could go or not go to China or wherever, and it wouldn't make any difference to me.

Nobody has any way of proving whether or not civil servants at the Pentagon are political partisans or not. Part of the requirements list for working at the Pentagon is being politically-connected. Wearing a military uniform doesn't mean you cease to hold political beliefs. Anyone who believes otherwise is not enough of an adult to make such evaluations. The National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense under President Trump both say that these "Chinese weather balloon overflights" never happened on their watch. If they did, then the Pentagon either concealed information about them or was itself unaware. Since we have all kinds of photographic evidence of this balloon, producing some photographs of the other balloons that supposedly overflew the US under President Trump shouldn't be too hard. Creating a fictitious document that proves such overflights happened is another bright shining L-I-E that's another dollar short and week late.

This is from CNN, who are NOT fans of President Trump
Pentagon says it had an 'awareness gap' that led to failure to detect 3 Chinese balloons under Trump

Isn't it amazing how our Pentagon just "discovered" they had an "awareness gap" two years after President Trump was already out of office? Maybe that's because totally non-political people like General Mark "White Rage" Milley were too busy spying on America for the Chinese while President Trump was in office, to "warn them" if President Trump was about to attack. That used to be good-old fashioned "treason". This is more of that "political stuff" that "career civil servants working at the Pentagon" aren't supposed to do, but clearly engage in anyway, because they are, contrary to any sophomoric belief, as political as the day is long.

Speaking of morons, I'm a little tired of these Democrat morons, like President Biden's entire administration, making up phony nonsense to attempt (and fail) to cover up their ridiculous ineptitude. I think the "awareness gap" was not realizing until now that they needed to make up another ridiculous lie about President Trump to make President Biden look better, with respect to the Chinese weather balloon debacle, except that it doesn't, because he was actually briefed about the Chinese incursion and did nothing until it no longer mattered in the slightest.

I will agree that the Chinese will do anything they think they can get away with. Since we shot the balloon in question down AFTER it already "got away with" flying over the entire United States and Canada, President Biden's merry band of morons did nothing to bring it down before it entered our airspace, and only shot it down AFTER it was already over international waters, which means they no longer had any right to bring it down because it was no longer in our airspace and no longer any kind of threat to America.

Since we waited until the balloon was clear out of American airspace, the only danger the balloon posed to anyone or anything on the ground was after President Biden decided to blow it up.

A rocket-powered F-16 is more silly "let's spend mad money on my pet project" nonsense. We already have aircraft that can fly high enough, without using a rocket-powered anything. It'll be cheaper to shoot balloons down using THAAD missiles than it will be to flight qualify a rocket-powered F-16, especially after our defense contractors are done with the project.

Unless someone here works for President Xi, then they have no way of knowing what China's next move is.

I would vote that we quit flying spy planes near Chinese airspace, but that's because I fail to see any value in this silly tit-for-tat game. Their military is, I'm sure, truly great at mass murdering unarmed people. The moment it encounters a real military, like the US military, it'll fold like a wet paper bag.

Russia has been "belted in the nose" repeatedly, for the past year. They're still in Ukraine and not going anywhere. From the commentary here, I'm starting to understand how and why our military officers and politicians get us involved in so many pointless wars. The geniuses who thought / think President Trump was Russian asset were the very same ones who were laughing at Mitt Romney when he said Russia was the greatest threat to America. Well, Russia is still actively fighting a war against our ally, Ukraine. When last I checked, Russia still has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at the United States, and there's no contest between Russia and #2 (China) or #3 (North Korea).

Believing your own BS is one thing, but asserting that our enemies believe it is quite another. That's where ideology fails.

GW Johnson · 2023-02-07 14:18:33

If it has a chip in it that communicates with other devices, it's part of the "internet of things". Cell phones, tablets, laptops, smart thermostats, modern digital TV's, most cars made since the 1990’s, glass cockpits in airplanes, a whole long list now. And don’t tell me they don’t have those things in Alaska or Montana, because that’s bullshit! Maybe not all, but at least some, even out in the wilderness areas. All are hackable to one extent or another, because all connect to the internet in one way or another. If it connects, it can be hacked. Period. Ugly fact of life.

Most of the career public servants I am aware of (uniformed or civilian) do not let their personal political notions affect doing their jobs. It’s the politically-appointed top positions that chronically do that, to the detriment of the country’s welfare (something I’d like to see rectified, and I am probably not alone in that opinion). Not that they (the rank-and-file workers) don’t make mistakes, but they do really care and try hard, generally speaking. There are always exceptions, but fortunately, those are not all that common.

The one thing about this incident that truly does concern me is that top leadership figures were unaware of the 3 balloons during Trump's term until after-the-fact, including apparently the top brass at NORAD! NORAD is supposed to "see" and track intruding things of all kinds, that's their fundamental function! Apparently, they've forgotten how to "see" things as unsophisticated as a balloon (or a dirigible, or a blimp). And THAT disturbs me! Somebody really does need to look out the window now and then. That's what the word "lookout" really means.

The last time balloons were weaponized, was WW2. Japan sent balloon-borne fire bombs over the US. It did not work very well, mostly because the balloons and payloads were small and lacked any sort of target-detecting devices, but those balloons followed exactly the same upper-air prevailing wind path as the recent Chinese balloon. Along the Aleutians into Canada, from there into the lower 48. The most common such path is the same: Montana toward Missouri to the eastern seaboard. It could happen again, especially if an adversary thinks we are not watching, or cannot watch for, such things. And, the US used blimps to escort and protect ships traveling the intracoastal canal during WW2. Those were armed, and carried out antisubmarine attacks. Patrols with them persisted into the late 1950’s. I witnessed them flying.

I would remind everyone that the balloon gas bags, which are large, are pretty much invisible to radar (unless aluminized, which none are anymore) and also have very little IR signature, being rather whitish in color. They do have a large optical signature, but only in broad daylight. The payload beneath is comparatively small, but would have at least some radar and IR signature, and not very much optical signature, even in broad daylight. What that leaves you with, is optical sightings with human eyes, and only in daylight hours. Not very visible on cloudy days, either. So, it is sort of a semi-stealth platform, more so than most people imagine.

I would also remind everyone that laser weapons require precision tracking and aiming to work. That's hard enough to do in a short range situation, and exponentially more difficult in a long range situation. 1000 yards or less is "short" range. A 20+ mile slant range is getting to be "long" range.

As to expense, if you recover the intercepting aircraft, you are only out the fuel, the pilot's hazardous duty pay, a payment toward the engine overhaul kitty, and the price of whatever weapons the pilot used. An air-to-air missile as simple as a Sidewinder costs a fair fraction of a million $ apiece. A surface-fired SAM is in the 1-to-10 million $ range. A 20mm cannon round is a few hundred bucks if a fancy explosive, but only a few bucks if a solid penetrator (which is all you need to pop a balloon). That was what I had in mind, suggesting adding rocket propulsion to an F-16 for fast-response anti-balloon work.

Here's an ugly thought: if we had continued letting Chinese balloons overfly us unopposed, they would then know that they might substitute a surveillance payload with an incendiary weapon payload. Over the densely-populated eastern half of the country (see lights at night from space) that's bound to start damaging fires. We already know how well that can work from the fire bomb raids on Japanese cities during WW2. The “targeting” device just needs to detect city lights below. It’s called a photocell.

I rather doubt a balloon is a suitable vehicle for an emp weapon. Those work better at 200-mile altitudes than they do at 20-mile altitudes. We have known that since the Starfish Prime test in 1962, although at that time, the results were a shocking surprise. That was mostly vacuum-tube and electromechanical stuff that was damaged then, too. Today's solid-state electronics is way more vulnerable.

Just some more food for thought.

GW

GW Johnson · 2023-02-08 13:06:15

Have added some second thoughts here. I think the Chinese will try more spy balloon flights, but at a higher altitude, probably at or above 100,000 feet. All you do to achieve that is increase the gas bag size for a given payload weight, or decrease payload weight for a given gas bag size, or both. There are no airplanes in anyone's inventory capable of reaching a target that high, and few if any missiles. They will do this just for the propaganda value of violating our airspace with impunity. Any surveillance is just gravy.

I do think they will try shooting down our unarmed spy planes. They will claim intrusion, and rely on the he-said, she-said uncertainty to get away with it. We will have to arm or escort these flights, and shoot back, to stop this.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-02-08 13:07:41)

tahanson43206 · 2023-02-08 13:50:33

For GW Johnson re #8

I do NOT know the answer to this question, but your observations about our capabilities led in this direction:

What is the State-of-the-Art of military laser systems?

I would hazard a guess that we (non-Military) folks don't have a clue.

What is the State-of-the-Art of rail gun systems?

There may be some public data on that.

Of the two options, the laser system would seem the more efficient at dealing with this issue, but (on the other hand) if we ** have ** such a tool, we may not want to reveal it.

(th)

kbd512 · 2023-02-08 15:43:19

GW,

After having thought about what they did and why they did it, now you think they'll do the exact opposite of what you speculated they'd do yesterday after we shot the last one down?

The entire point was to provoke a response. I'm glad you figured that out. Our village idiot, President Biden, took the bait, so now they're going to do it again. Why wouldn't they? We just spent a million dollars to burst a balloon that might have cost them 1/10th of that.

Isn't that what I said they'd do yesterday in the other thread I created about this topic, because TA had a problem with my argument over ridiculous military spending on projects without decent reasons to exist?

Strapping a rocket motor to a F-16 isn't going to cut it when flying that high, but you already know that. You need a full pressure suit and pressurized cockpit, and some control surfaces large enough to minimally maneuver while flying that high. The U-2 has that, but it's not going to reach 100,000ft without redesigning the entire plane to use lighter composite materials, possibly tandem wings, and likely an upgraded engine as well. Proteus might be more capable, since it's all CFRP construction and already uses tandem wings. However, Proteus probably needs upgraded FJ-44 engines. It was purpose-built to carry heavy payloads to extreme altitudes, though.

We already have missiles if we really really want to spend $1M (AIM-9X) to $3M (THAAD) to shoot down high altitude balloons. THAAD's kill vehicle uses IIR, but it'll probably require reprogramming since it was intended to intercept incoming hypersonic weapons. Flight ceiling is reportedly 150,000m and can reach Mach 8, so I sincerely doubt any balloons will be escaping from it. If any do escape, then we should ask Lockheed for our money back.

That said, Lockheed has already delivered the first 300kW laser to the US army, so again, maybe we should use a laser instead of another egregiously expensive missile or a rocket powered interceptor aircraft. 300kW is supposed to be able to kill targets between 5km and 10km when fired near sea level. At 70,000ft where a minor fraction of Earth's sea level atmosphere exists, it should be able to reach out 30km to 60km (higher than the record altitude achieved by a real weather balloon). That makes flying higher and faster largely irrelevant. At 100,000ft, the target is well within range if the U-2 carrying the weapon flies beneath it.

Calliban · 2023-02-08 18:15:53

Does anyone have any thoughts on what this balloon was spying on? What exactly is the point in putting spy equipment on a balloon that has no propulsion? The US is huge. Without propulsive capabilities the odds are that this balloon will take very detailed pictures of the middle of nowhere.

On the topic of weapons that can shoot these balloons down at a reasonable price. A while back, the US military was developing guided shells as a cheaper alternative to missiles. If a ground based laser can illuminate the balloon, would it be possible to hit it using a guided shell launched from the ground?

Last edited by Calliban (2023-02-08 18:22:28)

GW Johnson · 2023-02-08 18:39:33

Laser: what are you going to use to steer the beam? Radar? IR? Visible light? The gas bag is the large item, and it has no radar signature, and little or no IR signature. Visible light signature is large if in broad daylight on a relatively clear day, but not much if cloudy, and none at night. And how are you going to get pointing accuracy for a slant range of 30+ miles? That is quite expensive to do, and it is why laser systems are only beginning to field now, when the lasers themselves were cutting steel by 1970.

At first I thought the Chinese might quit overflying us with balloons, now that we shot that last one down. After thinking about, I realized that all they need to do is adjust the gas bag size to payload weight ratio higher, to cruise the balloon nearer 100,000 feet, quite out of the reach of any airplane in anybody's inventory, no matter what weapon it uses. So, I think they'll try that before they give up. That's NOT a reversal in my thinking, but it is a change: it's an added possibility.

You do not need very many vertical zoom aircraft to do a vertical zoom to a position close by the balloon target. Just one or two at a few air bases across the country. These aircraft do not need to be the very latest and greatest. They do need a simple rocket motor added, because most (but not all) gas turbines will starve for air and flame out by around 70,000 or 80,000 feet. You need zoom climb capability to at least 125,000 feet, which is what we had from 1962 to 1971 with the NF-104. I'd recommend 150,000 feet by design.

Aircraft used that way do NOT use aerosurface flight controls, they use attitude control thrusters! Such were on the NF-104, as well as the X-15, and the X-1E. The X-2 lacked them, and crashed fatally from inertia coupling loss of control in thin air at only 66,000 feet, and Mach 3.2 speed! We know better, use the thrusters. The X-15 and the NF-104 had to be in the correct attitude for "re-entry" into the denser air below about 70,000 feet. That's what the thrusters did. In the case of the NF-104, you did a windmill restart of the gas turbine once you were down below 60,000 feet.

We've been there before! This is NOTHING NEW! It's a custom aircraft mod, not a new development of any kind, despite what a Boeing or a Lockheed-Martin might try to tell you. There's no excuse for this to take more than several months or just a few million dollars to accomplish. And each flight is relatively cheap, far cheaper than an air-to-air missile, and certainly way far cheaper than any SAM capable of reaching such altitudes.

You ride in a pressure suit, same way the U-2 and SR-71 pilots did. There's no problem with that. Just do it. Even the old partial pressure suits of the 1950's are good enough for a short flight under 30 minutes above the Armstrong limit at 63,000 feet. Those were intended for bailouts up to 100,000 feet. The full pressure suit used in the X-15 was also used in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. It will work just fine.

We've been there before. The USAF bought 3 of those NF-104 vertical zoom craft for training space plane pilots. 2 of them flew multiple time to 120-something thousand feet. The other was lost in the famous Chuck Yeager "helmet fire" crash in 1963. They were A-model F-104 starfighters, fitted with a Rocketdyne AR-2 rocket engine that burned jet fuel and hydrogen peroxide, and hydrogen peroxide decomposition attitude thrusters. The radar in nose was removed, giving them space and weight allowance for the mods. The pilots wore the pressure suit used on the X-15, I believe, but the old partial pressure suits (with uncompressed hands and feet) would have worked, because the time above 63,000 feet was so short.

I suggested the F-16, because it's obsolescent, but it has a high thrust to weight ratio on gas turbine, rater like the F-104 did, but actually better. A lot of them would be easily available for such a modification. Most of these have a Vulcan M61 20 mm cannon (6-barrel chain gun) in the left wing root. You don't even need explosive cannon ammo. Solid slugs would do.

The same craft could also serve as spaceplane pilot trainers, as did the NF-104. If Sierra Nevada gets the manned version of its Dream Chaser flying, there will once again be a need for training like that. And others will eventually follow. How could you lose, having a few balloon-busters that double as spaceplane pilot trainers?

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-02-08 18:47:17)

GW Johnson · 2023-02-08 18:40:37

Calliban:

It says in post #1 what I think they were spying on.

I rather doubt there's a gun that shoots that high: 60,000 feet is more than 11 miles up. 120-something thousand feet is nearly 25 miles up.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-02-08 18:48:36)

SpaceNut · 2023-02-08 19:48:34

67304401-11712933-The_Chinese_surveillance_balloon_is_estimated_to_be_about_the_wi-m-32_1675524133929.jpg

Chinese spy balloon took a flight path that would carry it over a number of sensitive sites, such as military bases, and in Montana, intercontinental ballistic missile silos.

kbd512 · 2023-02-08 19:49:37

Calliban,

The balloon did have propulsion. It's "steerable" in the sense that it can change its altitude and somewhat affect which direction it's headed in (change how far it drifts in a direction nominally the same as the wind), but it will never fly against the wind, if that's what you meant by "lacking propulsion".

kbd512 · 2023-02-09 00:43:03

GW,

Political Matters
In your previous post, you said they wouldn't try launching another balloon overflight because we shot one down. The Chinese were going to "think twice" about trying that again, because President Biden "sent a message". Immediately after that statement (now reconsidered to get something else you want), you asserted that we needed a new weapons development program for a rocket-powered interceptor to stop something that the Chinese ostensibly weren't going to try again, because President Biden "scared them off". Today you were able to spot the logical inconsistency there, which I applaud. Today you're saying that they probably will try it again, which is why you think we need a rocket-powered interceptor to shoot down weather balloons, even though we clearly didn't need one to shoot the last one down, because they might fly it at a higher altitude next time where our fighters can't reach. That is admittedly quite possible, but I still think using a laser is the lowest-cost solution that will get the job done acceptably well.

I said that they would do it again in the response I posted in the "Much Ado About Weather Balloons" thread I created to respect TA's wishes (why ruffle feathers when that was never the intent), because they tried it and got away with it, multiple times in the past if the latest "ermagerd, let's cover up our ineptitude" BS storm from the Democrats is to be believed. At least now, upon reconsideration (the mark of a true scholar and teacher, regardless of political beliefs), you understand why they're likely to try it again. They wanted to get a response out of us, and we gave it to them. When you get what you want from someone by behaving in a certain way, then if you want something from them again in the future, what are you most likely to do first? Maybe do what you did before? Psychology 101 BINGO! Most young women seem to implicitly understand this long before taking their first collegiate-level behavioral psychology course.

The lying from the Democrats to cover up their ineptitude and failures is what I can't abide by. The White House could've come out and said that they knew the balloon was there (whether that was true or not was irrelevant at that point), they were tracking it (obviously someone was), and they weren't going to respond while it could pose a danger to Americans on the ground (which they did). Most Americans would've accepted that and moved on. As a Republican, I would've accepted it. Instead, they made up a bunch of lunatic nonsense about President Trump (something that was utterly irrelevant to their own response to current events, even if it was true) because they so clearly weren't aware and were caught off-guard. Only their own cheerleading squad believes their nonsense. This is exactly like Hillary Clinton "landing under sniper fire", the Russian collusion hoax made up by her election campaign and propagated by all those very political but "non-partisan career civil servants" in government (hard core Democrat "activists" masquerading as non-partisan / non-political civil servants), and all the rest of the outrageous and insane whoppers they've told the public without a scintilla of supporting evidence. They looked high and low for something they could use against someone they don't like because he made them look as stupid as they actually are. Somehow, their over-the-top "rage response" to his very existence is still making them look stupid. Socially-aware people don't like appearing to be stupid, no matter how inept they may be, and I've seen precious few politicians of any stripe who don't have egos bigger than Mount Everest.

Democrats tie themselves up in knots contradicting their own logic, kinda like you did about whether or not the Chinese will send more weather balloons, and then proposing we create a new kind of military weapon to respond to something that you asserted we'd not likely have to deal with again. After awhile, a thinking person has to conclude that these hip-shooters haven't thought through all the implications of what they're doing or proposing.

When I was in the Navy, the Chinese routinely aggressively maneuvered around our ships and aircraft while we were going into or coming out of ports like Hong Kong. We were supposedly invited there by the Chinese government, but someone clearly forgot to send the memo to the PLAN. This was back when the British still controlled Hong Kong. They would do something overtly aggressive and we would pull away instead of simply allowing our much larger and more powerful ships to run right over theirs. That kow-towing response was what they were after, and we gave it to them, so they kept right on doing it to us. Behaving like a rational good-faith actor only works when dealing with other rational good-faith actors.

Technical Matters
The laser has an electro-optical targeting system, same as the 30mm chain guns mounted on the LCS class frigates, same as the 30mm chain gun on the Apache gunships. Some of the newer systems are multi-spectral, meaning they overlay images from IIR, UV, and visible light from the same sensor turret. That's modern "sensor fusing" technology. F-35's DAS suite does the same thing for its pilot.

We even have multi-spectral night vision goggles now, ordinarily only given to helo pilots (enhanced depth perception and texture for flying over vegetation) or corpsmen (makes it easier to treat wounds when blood looks like neon). Jet pilots don't use them because they're heavier and bulkier (bad for pulling gees and also for smacking into the canopy), plus they're flying too fast to see much of anything on the ground without using IIR. These new multi-spectral units are modestly heavier but considerably bulkier and more expensive than the starlight / "image intensification" units that everyone else uses. Dual tubes / sensors provide stereoscopic vision for depth perception, but the single tube remains the most popular option for ground pounders so they can quickly switch back to that old-fashioned Mk I human eyeball, as required.

Since the laser technology of the 1970s, we've invented something that Lockheed calls "adaptive optics" to literally "bend" the lens that the laser is focused through, so that it achieves maximum coherency at a point in space in front of the source emitter. Beam steering is done using a target painting laser, so that the primary laser only fires after the target has been painted using the low-power painting laser. It can be manually steered using a joystick or slaved to the electro-optical sensor turret.

To recap, we use multi-spectral electro-optical turret for target acquisition and identification. In the F-35, this sensor can be slaved to the radar as well. We use a low-power laser to paint the target. We use a high-power (100kW to 300kW) compact / lightweight fiber-channel laser to incinerate or vaporize the target. The laser can fire continuously or using pulses well into the megawatt range.

A miniature gas turbine or upgraded VFG in the accessory housing of the engine provides power to the lasing unit. The F-35s engine has 3 VFGs that provide a total of 240kW of electrical power, with the ability to upgrade, as required. However, I think a purpose-built self-contained power pack is required, a miniature gas turbine connected to a VFG or some other kind of electric generator.

Honeywell produces a turbo-generator that provides 400kW of electrical power using a pair of 200kW generators for the "urban air mobility market", whatever that is. The gas turbine plus pair of electric generators weighs 300kg. They also created a 1MW model that's been tested at 900kW of continuous output, with 97% efficiency, and it weighs 127kg (just the generator by itself, not the HGT1700 APU it's connected to). Collins and Pratt & Whitney also have a 400kW model. Bell / Boeing have something similar. I can't recall the exact output at the moment, although I want to say that their unit(s), because it was actually a trio of VFGs connected to a single turboshaft engine, was considerably more powerful than the others, as-in multi-megawatt. That's 3 viable choices for sourcing multi-hundred kilowatt generators- all very real civil aviation hardware that's been around for at least a few years. Fiber lasers are 40% to 50% efficient, so 600kW of input power produces 300kW of laser power. I'd estimate 75kg for the laser itself and probably another 75kg for the power conditioning electronics.

For the fiber-channel lasers, your choices are Raytheon or Lockheed-Martin or Boeing. I can't recall what kind of optics Raytheon uses. I would say all-up weight of the entire 300kW laser would fall somewhere between 500kg to 750kg. It won't be turned on long enough for overheating to be much of an issue. We're popping paper-thin nylon Helium or Hydrogen balloons, not cutting through steel. A small hole is all we need to gently bring it down to recover its electronics. If we discover that the Chinese are putting explosives in them, we should treat it as an act of war, which is precisely what it is.

An aircraft so-equipped doesn't need to fly at 150,000 feet. The atmosphere up there is practically non-existent, which means far less distortion of the beam. If it's flying at 65,000 feet, then 150,000 feet is only another 26km. If the laser has a range of 10km at sea level on a clear day, then at 65,000 feet, the air pressure is only 1/18th that of sea level. At 100,000ft, it's 1/93rd that of sea level. Any higher and you're almost out of the sensible atmosphere.

At high altitude, it's much easier and cheaper to send a coherent beam of light to burst a nylon air bag than to develop a rocket-propelled fighter jet, modified fighter jet with some rocket propulsion, or any similar system. We already have a 300kW fiber laser, a self-contained power source so no modifications required to the jet engine propelling the aircraft that the laser is mounted to, and the power electronics are already developed. Whether or not we have any air-to-air missiles that can feasibly fly or guide to the target at that altitude is irrelevant, even though we already have those as well (GBI, THAAD, SM6, Patriot PAC-3, AIM-260, AIM-120, AIM-9). There is no altitude that these balloons could achieve that we couldn't reach using a 300kW laser. At 1MW or more, low orbit satellites are within reach. That's the great part about being at high altitude, shooting up rather than down, and having a weapon that reaches the target at the speed of light.

I will agree that PGU-27A/B TP projectiles are ideal for this use case if a fighter jet can get close enough. IIRC, it's a partially hollow Aluminum slug that's still highly effective on squishy targets. If we used the Mk149 20mm APDS (I call all of these things, generically "SLAP" rounds) that we use in our Phalanx, then those rounds could fly a lot farther with lower dispersion. General Dynamics makes the Mk149 20mm APDS round. It's Tungsten rather than DU, so no whining about radiation. Nammo makes 30mm x 173mm APFSDS rounds (same cartridge used by our GAU-8A), which also has a Tungsten penetrator. Both metal slugs and missile warheads that detonate successfully still pose some hazard to those on the ground, so cranking off rounds over a city might be objectionable. THAAD is hit-to-kill, but the kill vehicle is a hefty chunk of metal that won't be stopped or even appreciably slowed by a balloon. Over Montana you probably won't even hit any cows.

Space Planes
Dream Chaser is a real space plane, not a "space plane trainer". Each flight costs well over $100M USD, because it's launched by Atlas V or Vulcan. If you're talking about White Knight 2 and SpaceShip, from Virgin Galactic, those are true "space plane trainers" that do not require ground-based orbital rocket launches. Incidentally White Knight 2 can reach 70,000 feet and carry a 17,000kg payload. I seriously doubt that the laser will be anywhere near that heavy. Virgin would probably be willing to loan out White Knight 2 to the US government when not in use, provided it's returned to them in good condition.

Appropriate Use of Force
I know attaching a laser to a high-altitude jet-powered sailplane is nowhere near as fast or as cool as a rocket-propelled interceptor, but this is not about looking cool, it's about recovering or destroying low-cost high altitude enemy drones that may pose a risk to our people. Lowest cost and least risk to civilians wins out here. Accidentally killing one of your own people is very uncool. An onboard laser or solid slug cannon armament is the most appropriate option here. If the enemy starts lobbing hypersonic weapons at us, then we resort to using missiles, despite the risk to people on the ground.

Calliban · 2023-02-09 04:32:18

If you are using a laser that has an effective range of tens of km, then any aircraft with a ceiling high enough to get above the cloud cover would do. A B52 would be ideal, but expensive for the task. A 747 would do the job. Any jet capable of reaching the stratosphere with a >1 tonne payload will do the job. It doesn't need to be fast to intercept a balloon. A small gas turbine could produce the 300kW power needed to power the laser. The question isn't so much how to do it, but how to do it at minimum cost. Ideally, you want to be able to intercept the balloons over the Pacific.

kbd512 · 2023-02-09 07:39:04

Calliban,

If the fiber laser is 50% efficient, then you have to supply 600kW of input electrical power to produce 300kW of output lasing power. The rest of the power is converted into heat, which is why you either need a really efficient cooling system, like the thermal mass system developed to take about 90% of the cooling system mass out of the equation, or a really big heat sink. Even fiber lasers are nowhere near 100% efficient, they simply do a superb job at beam quality and output relative to other options, and adaptive optics do a superb job of beam collimation.

I would agree that the aircraft carrying the weapon doesn't need to be fast when the target trundles along at jet steam velocity. I would also agree that minimum cost and very low probability of injury to those below is the winner of this contest. I think purpose-built high-altitude recon / "recce" or research aircraft are the way to do it. We already have the airframes, they already have the physical volume required, especially in the case of Proteus that has carried a gigantic external radar pod larger than the nominal fuselage diameter and most of its length. We pay Scaled Composites to upgrade the engines on Proteus from FJ-44-2s to FJ-44-4s (will add about 300lbs of weight between both engines), and then it can easily reach maximum altitude with a hefty payload. It's already proven its ability to carry a 1,000kg payload on the centerline pylon to 56,000 feet. With max fuel and weapon, it'll still be well under the military's MTOW for Proteus.

Edit:
For a literal handful of seconds of use, it makes far more sense to use Lithium-polymer batteries and possibly super capacitors. There's no giant APU / electric generator to carry around, and the batteries or super caps can be recharged using the aircraft's onboard electric power system. Seconds of use, plus hours of airborne patrol operations. That really does keep the weapon's weight well within the mass of a normal gatling gun. 1 second of firing is 167 Watt-hours worth of energy. A LiPo setup with a 30C rating would enable a very compact battery, to the point that we could also charge the super caps to save the batteries from degradation. Even though it was designed for multi-second continuous operation at 10s to 100s of kW, that's not how we want to use it for this mission.

Current super caps are 28Wh/kg, so 6kg for each second of laser firing time, if we add 30kg of super caps plus 30kg of LiPo, then we have at least 20 seconds of firing time for 210kg, plus 40kg for the pod aeroshell and sensor system electronics. Ram air will provide cooling for the power electronics. A 1 second pulse is enough to go through both sides of the balloon, but all we want to do is degrade the fabric in one spot, so maybe 0.25 second pulses. Fiber channel lasers are famous for being able to handle crazy-high pulsed outputs. A 50W average power output fiber channel laser can produce 250kW pulses for spot welding, as one YouTuber has demonstrated, or 5,000X its average power output. We're working with an inordinately more powerful laser weapon capable of generating multi-megawatt pulses. We want to rapidly and very lightly char the fabric to create miniature tears in the fabric to slowly release the air, then glide down in our jet and follow the sinking balloon all the way to where it lands, to mark its location for hardware retrieval and study back at an electronics lab where we can conduct T&E on their spy equipment.

Last edited by kbd512 (2023-02-09 09:15:50)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-02-09 10:12:58

Why was no attempt made to force it down to land and capture it. What happened to calm rationality

I don't see why it must be damaged, why not take it in one piece? Maybe Nielsen ratings box or your phone or u tube or those degenerates on reddit links probably do more spying than this balloon but let's imagine the balloon is a super sophisticated alien spy box, if it was sophisticated then why wreck it all.

Then why blow it up and why not capture it undamaged?

GW Johnson wrote:

Everybody wanted to see the thing shot down.

The 'everybody' tv mob is fickle. Everyone liked watching the red Bull guy jump, Everyone liked Musk's success in the Private Sector, they liked watching Branson and Rutan and Virgin Galactic. If you show them an old book or documentary the mob will like seeing the Flag on the Moon or the story of stratospheric space diving by Joseph Kittinger. The everyone mob likes new Private Sector Space Tourist news, they liked the dive of lan Eustace USA who performed a stratospheric skydive, they also enjoyed watching Felix Baumgartner an Austrian skydiver break previous records....but as soon as all these things are gone off the news cycle, another story will come along to get their attention next week.

Perhaps a Bogeyman like bin Laden or Mao or a New Hitler in a ways has its use and keeps a people united. US culture can be strange but take another culture another 'exotic' land, almost Everyone in the Middle East prays to a camel jacker pedophile from 1400 years ago named Mahomet... the wisdom of the masses perhaps the same 'wisdom' that went to Jonestown to drink the juice. The majority of mobs often have opinions but does this mean 'Everyone' should be listened to the mob or some screeching heads on the tv.

If it was doing something then why not capture it intact?

Let's image for a second we are back in the 70s and 80s and outside a US government building there is a strange box seen! This box its strange looking yellow, black, red...so back we travel back in time in a different year say the 70s and 80s some people think its a 'spy box', some one else in a marxist student news letter thinks it could be a vcr that feel off the back of a van and nothing to worry about, a man from China or East Germany or some place says don't worry it just checks pollution level from some factory we built in America.

So instead of thinking 'rationally' a broadcast is blitzed out into people's minds on tv, the hypnotic magic spells a bunch of talking head drug addicts that parrot other nonsense and degenerates starting screeching on tv at the top of their lungs shouting at an old President to use Marines and Army and Special Forces to use a Barrett M82 50 Call and Cruise Missiles to 'Blast the Box'.... weirdos on the media screech almost like something from a circus or zoo and they want the President to Blast the Box into Bits!
and then on top of all that, they want the bits from box dumped in bucket of salt water so it damages and corrodes all electronic and then a bunch of 'crime scene' idiots out there collecting all those bits and trying to put it back together.

Do you think Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter or Nixon JFK or FDR would agree to these conditions demanded by the media, bomb the box and then with it blasted into many pieces try to put the jig saw puzzle back together to maybe figure out if it was a spy box or just a 'box'.

If the Balloon had Unknown Listening Skills or Unexpected Maneuverability then why not capture it intact, all together and reverse engineer it, I mean we all know China has been borrowing or getting inspired by other designs for years and if the USA can't design a Balloon this good and beat it then why take it, update and revamp it not join the foreign tech to the USA's?

Did they also think through, business and political people in the West and all those cargo and cars and drones and delivery, the Middle East, Latin America, Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, North Korea, Belarus, India, Pakistan, Russia...without knowing if it was spying or not we are in an escalation like 1960, Gary Powers was shot down. Does shooting a balloon for example give others now an excuse to do their national stuff?

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-02-09 10:14:32)

GW Johnson · 2023-02-09 10:37:45

As Spacenut indicated in post 5 above, and I discussed some in post 7 above, you don't have to invoke party politics to explain the controversy over earlier spy balloon flights. NORAD failed to recognize some oddities in their records (presumably radar records, although I've no such details) as balloon vehicles intruding in our airspace. "After-the-fact" of this latest one, it has come out that NORAD went back an identified 1 earlier flight in Biden's term, and 3 earlier flights in Trump's term. As to what fact "after the fact" refers to, as near as I can tell, that has yet to come out.

Meanwhile, it has now come out that a bunch of countries are now revealing that they, too, have been overflown by balloons. Which, of course, adds to the confusion. I would suggest that balloon-borne spying is something the Chinese decided to try, and when it worked, they continued. Until we (finally) figured out how to recognize one of these things, and finally shot it down.

At first I thought they might stop, but soon realized that all they had to do was raise the altitude nearer 100,000 feet, above anybody's interceptor aircraft capabilities. With balloon "steering" being changing altitude to catch winds of different directions, limiting access to only the higher altitudes limits that "steerability further.

If the spying objective is more about diffuse information (as I suggested), steerability doesn't matter. If the spying objective is to overfly bomber and missile bases, then it does. What they do next (continue overflights at higher altitudes or stop overflights), may tell us more about their spying objectives than any mangled debris we recover after the AIM-9X hit that spy payload (not the gas bag).

Here's a thought: one way for the Chinese to verify whether we really do have interceptors capable of flying at 60,000 feet is to fly a balloon that low and see if we really can shoot it down. It's not easy to fly a jet that high as a steady-state flight, nor is it easy to get a gas turbine engine and supersonic inlet system (U-2, SR-71) that will stay lit that high. It can be done, but it is expensive, and you pay a technical price elsewhere in the flight envelope when you push the cap that high.

You can zoom out the top of your flight envelope on a transient, but it is quite dangerous to go where the jet was not rated to fly. You become a test pilot when you do that. But it has been done for decades, such as Mig-15's and Mig-17's trying to reach B-36's in fast zoom climbs (not vertical, but steep). The main risk is losing control into a violent unrecoverable tumble in the thin air. The term is "inertia coupling", but all it really means is your control surface force to inertia ratio (an restoring acceleration capability) is lower than the disturbance acceleration.

There was a prototype for the NF-104 that had the thrusters but not the rocket engine, the JF-104. It had the thrusters because they knew that zooming out of the top of the F-104's flight envelope (around 40-45,000 feet) risked an almost certain unrecoverable loss of control due to "inertia coupling". Without the rocket engine, the J-79 turbine died for lack of air at about 70,000 feet, and the jet would coast on up to about 80-something feet. Thruster stopped the tumble, and put the nose down for the return. They would restart the J-79 at about 60,000 feet.

The risk was that with the J-79 engine dead, there was no hydraulic pressure to operate the aerosurface flight controls. These needed to be put in "neutral" position before the pressure dropped to zero, or the aircraft would tumble out of control on the way down. This was addressed with a de-spin chute installation on the tail along with the rocket engine in the NF-104. Chuck Yeager's "helmet fire" crash happened because his controls were at hard rise when the pressure died. He tumbled, and had to use the de-spin chute on the way down, but made a mistake: he cut the chute before restarting the engine and restoring hydraulic pressure. So it tumbled again. The only remaining option was to eject.

I suggested a reprise of the NF-104 to address downing spy balloons at higher altitudes unreachable with ordinary interceptor aircraft. Maybe the laser is better, I don't know. Guiding the beam requires still-unknown effectiveness against some adversely-low signatures. That would require some testing against appropriately-equipped balloon targets to develop and to verify. The NF-104 vertical zoom is something we already know works, because we did it before. It's just an aircraft mod. No real development, just some verification testing to make sure the mod works as intended.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-02-09 10:54:49)

kbd512 · 2023-02-10 07:59:11

GW,

They went straight to party politics instead of, "We know it's there and we'll do something about it when we think it's safe to do so or if we think it's becoming a greater threat." That was the only correct response. They could've told any reporter that the rest was classified and not open for discussion. Even if they didn't know it was there, that was STILL the correct response. Telegraphing to your enemies that you're not aware of what's going on is B-A-D. There's no two ways about that. The Chinese need to believe that our President and Secretary of Defense are aware of what is happening at all times, and choose to respond, or not, based upon how they feel about it at the time.

Since you just admitted that you've seen no evidence that this happened before, nor what happened before, nor even what the claims actually mean, then even if it did happen before, which is always a possibility, then you still have no evidence. Do you see any problem at all with making claims without evidence? Do you understand why most sane and rational people don't trust other people who make claims but then never show any evidence supporting such claims? We know from very recent history, and all the rest of human history if that wasn't enough, that all claims, however plausible or outlandish, must be subjected to independent verification.

Their response told me everything I needed to know. They're more interested in how their political arguments are holding up than in actually defending the country. Defense from foreign invasion is the #1 J-O-B of any government, regardless of politics. Between the Afghanistan pull-out debacle where thousands of American citizens were left behind enemy lines to fend for themselves and this incident, I'm not getting a warm fuzzy that my government is doing its job.

They could have a special meeting every day where they do nothing but bash President Trump, making any claims imaginable, and I wouldn't care. When the teacher calls on you in class and it's obvious that you haven't done your homework, do not say, "Well, but she didn't do her homework, either." That's not an excuse that holds water. If that's how governance is handled, then we're finished.

The issues of the past with purely hydraulic controls are interesting from a historical perspective on where we came from, in the realm of aviation, but today we use electro-hydraulic actuators that still function even if the engine is completely dead. Whatever the fate of past experimental jet and rocket planes happens to be, it also has little bearing on how more modern jet aircraft function. The F-22, and F-35 especially, are more akin to the FW-190 (electric flight controls) than the Bf-109 (hydraulic flight controls). Even if the engine(s) fails entirely, they still have power from at least two different sources. Going back to a F-16, however relatively inexpensive, which would only be true for very old and worn-out examples, with or without supplemental rocket power, would be a step backwards. A lightly loaded F-22 or F-35 can do "zoom-and-boom", if need be.

We also have Global Hawk and Triton drones that can remain aloft for over 24 hours to find, photograph, and interdict these drones. We've also demonstrated the ability to refuel these drones, mid-air, using other drones. In theory, we could have them patrolling our skies for most of a week before handing off the baton to the next drone. We have Predator and Reaper drones that carry multi-spectral DAS and/or SAR, similar to what F-35 has, so there's no valid excuse the military can give for not knowing what's going on over our own airspace. Reapers can carry hefty munitions, so 7-round pods containing Stinger variant missiles with lower flight speeds and booster-sustainer motors that enable them to reach out at least 10 miles, carrying no warhead, instead being "hit-to-kill" weapons. If we see something of interest, then we can send up the U-2s or Proteus for a closer look and human-in-the-loop and on-scene, prior to authorizing weapons release. Scaled Composites has flown props and jets around the world without refueling, so we have the tech. Between them and the defense majors, we have solutions.

Assuming that is still not enough, then we have the White Knight 2 and StratoLaunch for whatever else we wish to try in the realm of missiles, cannons, rail guns, or lasers to formulate an effective low-cost swarm defense strategy. We're testing hypersonic reusable drones right now. In another few years we'll have operational hypersonic aircraft and missiles that are actually capable of finding and hitting moving targets, which seems to be a capability never demonstrated by any of the Russian or Chinese weapons, even if they're theoretically capable.

If all of that fails in some serious way, which seems highly improbable if anyone at all is actually paying attention at NORAD, then and only then should we consider development of rocket-powered interceptors.

The nazis tried the Me-163 Komet in WWII. The French tried that right after WWII using a variety of experimental aircraft by Sud and other firms. We tried that several times after WWII. All attempts were one-off experiments that technically worked most of the time, but were nowhere near reliable enough for normal military use. A practical rocket-powered interceptor didn't work because of the primitive sensor technology of the time. Maybe it could work today. Maybe we'd just go broke on a development program trying to produce an aircraft with the flight ceiling of a very high end missile system, except that we already spent mad money developing multiple versions of that. It could be awesome and expensive or awful and expensive, but either way it's guaranteed to be awfully expensive. My take on this is that anything but LOX/JP-8 or a solid rocket is a non-starter, so I hope the mechs don't mind cleaning the soot out.

I would spec-out an airframe that mimics the propellant load of the Electron rocket booster stage, with 8 Rutherford engines with sea level nozzles and 1 Rutherford with a vacuum nozzle for high altitude cruise flight. This will be a maximum performance climbing machine, rather than a high-speed interceptor, intended to get to altitude very quickly and then cruise at speeds similar to what the U-2 and Proteus achieved. Since Rutherford is intended to suck the tanks dry, this machine will have its giant 1MW LiPo battery, which means it can mount both an onboard laser and short range low-cost missiles based upon the APKWS-II / Stinger-based laser and IIR modular guidance package. APKWS-II has an improved rocket motor for greater range and flight speed. Both weapons use rocket motors that are extensions of our folding-fin rocket technology.

Rutherford is already a thoroughly proven propulsion system for orbital launch, so only the airframe, flight control system avionics, and weapons system integration needs to take place. This would mark the first military use of a rocket propulsion system powered by batteries to achieve high climb performance and very high altitude sustained cruise. All 9 rocket engines would weigh the same as a single FJ-44-4 engine. Rather than vertical launch with all the technical complications that entails, a conventional runway launch using conventional landing gear would be part of the specification. This system provides the thrust of the F-35's F-135 engine in full afterburner in a package about 5.4X lighter, with each complete rocket engine weighing in at 77 pounds and providing 5,600 pounds of thrust. Electron costs $7M per launch, so an aircraft should be around $14M per copy, with another $10M worth of advanced sensors and weapons, with the sensors and laser system making up most of that cost. This is approximately 1/3rd the flyaway cost of a F-35A. It carries a different weapons package for a different mission. It's not stealthy because it doesn't need to be. If the drone platform is armed, then we need countermeasures added. Either way, it's intended to make high-altitude kills against low cost platforms using low-cost weapons, and it has that all-important rocket propulsion that you want so badly. It certainly adds a new dimension to our defensive capabilities, but it won't be cheap.

GW Johnson · 2023-02-10 13:00:46

I think there's a misunderstanding about what I suggested as an interceptor aircraft. The old NF-104 had mixed propulsion. It retained its J-79 gas turbine engine, but they scabbed a Rocketdyne AR-2 rocket engine into the tail, specifically into the aft half of the base of the vertical fin, underneath the rudder. The thrusters and rocket propellant tankage replace the radar in the nose. It took off and climbed in J-79 power, and started its ascent on the J-79, lighting the rocket to sustain the climb at high-enough speed (transonic to high subsonic, actually) as the J-79 shut down for lack of air. Without the rocket, peak zoom altitude was 80-something thousand feet. With the rocket it was 100,000 to almost 130,000 feet.

The AR-2 burned the same jet fuel as the J-79, using high test hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant. The thrusters were monopropellant hydrogen peroxide using catalytic decomposition, same as those on the X-15. Such were common in the 1950's. Because of the spontaneous decomposition risk, I'd use jet fuel with IRFNA, which the Army used to handle all the time in its liquid rocket battlefield missiles. I think it's pretty much hypergolic, so all you need is a small pressure-fed rocket system. Small units could be the thrusters, or you could install hydrazine monopropellant thrusters. Handling hydrazine is about like handling anhydrous ammonia.

The NF-104's thrusters maintained attitude above 70-80,000 feet where the aerosurface controls no longer worked. You put the nose down for a transonic entry back into denser air, then windmill-restart the J-79. You fly back to base and land using the J-79. The mixed propulsion lets you go where you couldn't go without it (in this case to altitudes where spy balloons can fly today: 60,000-150,000 feet).

I suggested using an F-16 in order not to deplete any of the F-22 or F-35 numbers. It's still an operational bird, just no longer a front line fighter. There are still lots of them, and we only need a few. If it were me, I'd scab two small rocket engines onto the upper strake surface on either side of the vertical fin. Replace the radar in the nose with the rocket and thruster gear. Keep the 20 mm cannon. I'd consider using scattershot instead of a slug, essentially a 20 mm shotgun shell for its ammo. The shot is smaller and moving slower when it falls back.

Like you, I see a lot of cover-my-ass behavior over not recognizing these spy balloon flights for what they are before now. They got their noses rubbed in it, so now they will be watching for such. And that's a good thing, although how we got to this point is bad. The trick now is how one responds. Balloons can definitely fly higher. Joe Kittinger made his jump from about 109,000 feet back in about 1960. The fellow who beat that record a few years ago jumped from about 130,000 feet. No F-22 or F-35 can reach a target that high. Neither could the SR-71/YF-12 or the U-2/TR-2. It's still many miles of slant range with a laser, even from 65-85,000 feet. And you still have to be able to see the target to guide the laser. No better or worse than a mixed propulsion rocket/jet interceptor with a slug-thrower or a shotgun. If you get close, you can see it out the canopy better with your eyes, even at night. From miles away, no.

GW

kbd512 · 2023-02-10 19:49:56

GW,

I didn't misunderstand, I'm saying that if you want a rocket-powered interceptor, then we should build a true rocket-powered interceptor, not a reprise of the NF-104 redone with the F-16. I know what NF-104 was. I know what a F-16 is. I'm saying that for the money spent, I don't want a hacked-up F-16 loaded with toxic chemicals.

Lockheed NF-104 "Starfighter":

Some of us want a practical X-Wing:

50453b40-f22c-11ec-a79b-50d3b67bf4a6

Even this kid knows it's a good idea (it's a life-sized model built by an Atlanta-based doctor to raise money for pediatric medical treatments):

* All 9 Rutherford engines mounted to the fuselage rather giant weirdly shaped engines than on the wings
* Octoweb engine arrangement, 5,600lbf each, 8 sea-level nozzles, 1 vacuum nozzle for high-altitude cruise flight

Vacuum nozzle Rutherford engine on Electron upper stage:

* 1MW Lithium-Polymer battery to provide power to the avionics, sensors, engines, and weapons (this is exactly what the Rutherford-powered Electron rocket uses to spin the turbopumps on the engines)

* Aeroelastic control surfaces (flexible GFRP slats and flaperons with a torque tube that "bends" the control surface)

* 300kW laser turret mounted where you see the fictional "R2D2" robot
mfc-TALWS-story.png.pc-adaptive.full.medium.png

* 4 APKWS-II mounted to the wingtips instead of the fictional "laser cannons"

* LOX tank in the fuselage behind the pilot
Liquid_oxygen_in_a_beaker_%28cropped_and_retouched%29.jpg

* JP-8 or RP-1 stored in the wings

If we need it, we even have an aircraft that can drop it at high altitude for testing.

StratoLaunch with Talon-A hypersonic drone on the pylon:
hy-talon-1_domenic_moen-stratolaunch_promo_1.jpg?itok=dS9LWijD

StratoLaunch Roc in-flight with Talon-A:

The First Commandment of National Defense
Thou shalt never say or telegraph or suggest or otherwise insinuate to our enemies that we're unaware of what they're doing or not paying attention to what they're doing.

You do not ever tell our enemies that we're not on our game. They need to believe that we're watching everything they do at all times, that there's nowhere they can hide, and that we're ready to do battle at all times. Whether or not that's true is irrelevant.

SpaceNut · 2023-02-10 20:33:17

All nice hardware to take down the enemies attempts.
Still at it as US shoots down unknown 'high-altitude object' over Alaska, White House says

SpaceNut · 2023-02-11 18:53:24

A few more high altitude devices have been shot down being off the coast of Alaska and one over Canada.

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