how_we_burned

shouldn't a few rounds from a mig 29 be able to bring a balloon down without any effort? Sounds like a skill issue.

So firstly at 5-7km you shoot a balloon it doesn't just deflate and drop. It'll keep floating (slowly returning to earth over days).

You've been vectored in by ground controllers. You have to spend a heap of time waiting for orders and directions. You can't even see it properly. Its mylar. The FLIR, if its working, isn't showing shit when it comes to mylar.

Secondly imagine you're doing 800kph in a mig-29. Your radar won't lock onto the balloon.

So you somehow line up and setup guns for the shot. Bam, your past it before you have time to even think.

So you line up for another pass. You slow your MIG down to 350kph. This time you have maybe 5-8 seconds before you're pass the target.

You have no idea if you've hit it. You've probably missed it.

A couple more passes and now you're running out of fuel and or ammo (tactical fighters usually have enough ammo for a 1-3 second total firing time) and have to return to base.

Plus all the running cost stuff the other posters have pointed out makes using tactical fighters to shoot down balloons a completely losing proposition.

When the Americans shot down those Chinese balloons it was a near miracle they were able to do it.

Of interesting to note is one of the core applications for the Soviet / Russian A-60 airborne was to shoot down American "weather" balloons.

Really fascinating video (that goes into trainspotting levels of detail) by Not a Pound for Air to Ground

https://youtu.be/tO2Jk5jjzdE

Fixed: 8 feral cats letting me live on their property

The real truth is he probably talked about getting high (or got really high/drunk), complained about his wife, life, work, talked money (and lack thereof), shit jobs and probably of either sports or gaming.

Fucking dogs.

What next anthrax?

I've got privit, onion weed, rust weed and bamboo all fighting it out in gladiatoral combat

And winners reward will be acid ans fire followed by a salting of the earth after which the soil will be evacuated to the clay level before it is dumped in my neighbours yard (where all of these fuckers came from

I have a grey tux that was scared as shit.

There is a way

Find the most delicious food out there for a cat. Not kibble or anything. Like cook some steak. Throw that steak at her till she realises its good. Then hold it out. Get her eating out of your hand.

Continue for a good week. Dont ask anything of her. Then start doing training work. Watch cat training youtube videos.

And apply said learnings.

My feral gray tux is the smartest cat I've ever had. He knows multiple commands and is so friendly now he sits on the very large dog that used to scare the absolute bejebbus out of him.

I bet most of the pension changes are probably for NYPD members.

The NYPD pension provides retirement benefits based on years of service, salary history, and plan type, with average full-career retiree pensions exceeding $100,000 annually

Holy fuck

They get a over $100k USD pension, wtf.

There are 9 critical straits: Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Malacca, Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandeb, Panama Canal, Strait of Gibraltar, English Channel, Turkish Straits, Danish Straits.

I read a shit ton of books. I don't care if they're on a screen or in my hands.

And if you take acid before work be warned miniature dragons will show themselves in your computer screen.

Holy shit. I just realised something from that day.

I was in a call centre on the phones.

Fuck what did i say to people???

Yeah the thing about the closed loop systems is that they pump a shit ton of chems to kill anything in the water. However no matter what shit grows in the loop. So they end up flushing the loop and dumping the water and chems into the sewer, before repeating the process.

So no, closes loop DCs aren't great.

And i literally work in one. Just the other week the DC manager told me they had a leak. A stupid amount of water was lost.

But because water is so cheap for commercial metro users it was more a oops then a wake up. Bare min repairs and bam, back up and running.

The point is these "closed" systems aren't perfect and shit happens. Especially as they age out.

Mind bogglingly how hard it was getting taxed. Although the ass fucking will return in June when the government goes back to taxing it