Posted on 02/05/2023 7:16:54 PM PST by logi_cal869
Walk of shame...
Do you have a cheaper proposal - with a 100% success rate?
“
Also, the pilot can look through his visor and the missile travels where he’s looking”
Source? I don’t see that in the specs from here:
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104557/aim-9-sidewinder/
If the Republicans had balls, they would each carry two helium filled party balloons into the FUp’d State of the Union and let a few go every time FUBiden told a lie. I apologize for the oxymoron in my leading phrase.
And McCarthy HAS to rip up the speech.
I thought about that too, but can the republicans just get up and walk out right in the middle of it? What a spectacle that would be.
Republicans walking out is not happening. If anything they will line up to kiss Biden’s ass. With the Pride and Joy of South Carolina, the one and only Lindsey Graham at the head of the line.
Unfortunately, you are probably right. Too dang many RINOs out there.
Shot down an unarmed balloon. There is probly a pink ribbon for your fruit salad for doing that.
.
AIM-9X can be targeted against an image
https://jalopnik.com/why-its-sad-that-the-f-22-just-fired-its-first-guided-a-1704889474
The US had its next generation Sidewinder, AIM-9X, and its Joint Helmet Mounted Cuing System, which was a visor-type system that adapted to standard fighter helmets using magnetic spacial tracking, while Europe had the IRIST-T, MICA, ASRAAM missiles and various Helmet Mounted Sights and more advanced Helmet Mounted Displays to integrate with them.
The AIM-9X differs from the last iterations of the original AIM-9 Sidewinder almost totally. For all intents and purposes, it’s a brand new missile that shares the older AIM-9’s rocket motor and warhead. It has an Imaging Infrared Seeker, which uses IR energy in the form of a picture, akin to a video camera, to home in on its target. Because the seeker uses an image instead of a simpler infrared source, it is much harder to confuse with decoys and countermeasures and can differentiate between different objects and aircraft. It can also be reprogrammed to deal with new countermeasures and to hit certain targets in certain areas. It also uses thrust vectoring instead of control fins to maneuver to its target, which greatly enhances its overall maneuverability. When employed with a Helmet Mounted Sight or display, the AIM-9X Block I can hit targets as much as 90 degrees of bore-sight and can lock onto targets at much farther ranges under more challenging conditions that its predecessor. Even without a HMS, the AIM-9X is a huge leap in capability and has a much wider angle bore-sight view than the AIM-9M it replaces. It is also much more maintenance friendly.
An air-to-air balloon kill.... More than 99% of fighter pilots have.
Thank you! Not your daddy’s AIM-9 any more!
Was there a reason we shot the payload instead of the balloon itself? One method destroys the evidence, the other just brings the balloon down. Also interesting it is taking two days for search vessels to get out there.
Yeah, but the F22 is so amazingly stealthy that the Chinese balloon didn’t even see it coming.
It was a happy balloon (as opposed to ‘angry’).
In fact, consider this:
What if its purpose was to receive and isolate intercept radar frequencies?
Something tells me that the pilot didn’t approach the balloon in stealth mode - ahem - and that ccp generals were cheering when they got confirmation of the frequencies.
Apparently bullets are not very effective to take down the balloon. Seriously. One country tried to shoot down a similar balloon and it took one thousand rounds that barely worked.
Yep - would have been better to use a gun instead of a missile.
This is supposed to be a great achievement?
If the missile had missed, the ribbing would have been merciless.
However, a kill is a kill.
Frank Luke, "Balloon Buster" in WWI, has an Air Force base named after him.
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