Update If true, this represents an extravagantly wasteful expense and an act of towering incompetence - but that doesn't make it any less hilarious: "A mystery object shot down by U.S. fighter jets amid ongoing hysteria sparked by a Chinese spy balloon may have been a $12 inflatable launched by a hobby group in Illinois."
H/T: Ace of Spades
If the update is true (and I find hard to think otherwise), they really did crank up the resolution on their radar systems.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are a LOT of those balloons out there. Whoa.
Yeah years ago I was in a community group where a guy demonstrated a cheap project for kids. We stuck lots of brown paper together with tape to form a big round firm balloon shape about 5 ft high, open at the bottom. Then took it outside where we set a hand sized wad of cotton wool soaked with methyl alcohol on a sheet of aluminium foil, lit the soaked cotton and placed the paper balloon on top and held it for a minute or so. Then let go and the balloon shot straight up into the air until all we could see was a dot. Then we watched it drift and disappear. I thought it would only hover a few feet but was shocked that it seemed to reach aircraft levels. So I didn't do it again but others went home and tried it.
ReplyDeleteA year later I heard a local fireman complain that kids were sending burning balloons into the air and they'd been called out dozens of times.