Thread: Trivia and other useless but interesting items

This was funny
Three Air forces failed to shoot this wild Canadian weather balloon down

"Twenty-five years later, Dale Sommerfeldt can laugh about the rogue weather balloon that resisted the firepower of air forces from three nations trying to bring it down.


But he admits at the time it was a headache for those involved.


In 1998, a technical malfunction meant the research balloon had failed to come down as planned, in two or three days' time.


Instead, it began to drift across Canada towards the Atlantic Ocean. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64546767



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I often comment Air force are one of the main reasons Navy Divers exist other than for mines, dropped stuff and blowing things up quietly

If the US Govt isn't confident that the F35, in any of its forms, can shoot down a balloon it makes me wonder if we're getting our money's worth.

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

I must have hit my LIKE limit for you Des. I click and click and no "like"

A bit of deep water and a few of my crew could settle it now

Bit sad for the old girl "NAe São Paulo (pennant number A12) was a Clemenceau-class aircraft carrier in service with the Brazilian Navy. São Paulo was first commissioned in 1963 by the French Navy as Foch and was transferred in 2000 to Brazil, where she became the new flagship of the Brazilian Navy."

The Navy in Bazil will put it right and send her to Davey Jones I sort of hope in about 200 metres

Other Triva When sold by France the "São Paulo suffered from serviceability issues and never managed to operate for more than three months at a time without the need for repairs and maintenance"

Fairly sure the Brazilian Navy will fire with vengeance in their hearts.



Brazilian Navy says it will sink 'ghost' aircraft carrier at high sea | CNN Hope Chile enjoys my old ship an has much better service from her. (I was on Adelaide) "former Adelaide-class frigates HMAS Melbourne and HMAS Newcastle to the Chilean Navy for a deal reportedly worth $110 million.

"

I read where she was given the deep six a couple of days ago.


BTW, you never called in to say hello.

You know the Rumors Des- A sailor has a girl in every port. Ok I would be a hussy if I did that Much more a one on one person myself Oh add the dog and Kids and ......

Originally Posted by Tins

If the US Govt isn't confident that the F35, in any of its forms, can shoot down a balloon it makes me wonder if we're getting our money's worth.

Its a interesting question John. A Side winder missile was reportedly used the other day.

Maximum height of most Commercial planes is 42,000 feet- About 12.8km. Military 50,000 or perhaps a bit more ( Classified perhaps)


Range of a Side winder is up to 22 miles 35.4km. Infrared and semi radar guided. A little tough at those altitudes right on the edge of space.

I was surprised a lazar weapon was not used myself. That might be too Classified of course No Question that tools exist to hit very high flying or orbital devices up higher.

The three countries that tried to shoot down the Canadian Balloon 25 years ago

Canada First - A fighter jet had a ceiling of about 60,000 feet, he recalled and "the balloon, of course, was a lot higher than that"."the Canadian CF-18s fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition at the balloon" Air force at 3km plus would have required them not to have a G&T most unacceptable ( Forgive me any Air force people )

Americans and Poms may not have fired on it! "The instrumentation was sent back to Canada and reused (though there were some bullet holes on the instrument package and its parachute). Mr Sommerfeldt said" so perhaps even with a G&T the Canadians are a good shot

AI from Google- my efforts to get google to ring, set destinations............ are very hit and miss

"Google is launching an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered chatbot called Bard to rival ChatGPT.


Bard will be used by a group of testers before being rolled out to the public in the coming weeks, the firm said.


Bard is built on Google's existing large language model Lamda, which one engineer described as being so human-like in its responses that he believed it was sentient.


The tech giant also announced new AI tools for its current search engine.



"

When will it make me redundant? Retirement

PS I have a little google speaker thing that listens to me! Plays the radio or pod casts and offers some times very odd responses to questions. AI mine is not! Will I want it updated? Not at home I think . Happy to be replaced at work

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

Its a interesting question John. A Side winder missile was reportedly used the other day.

Maximum height of most Commercial planes is 42,000 feet- About 12.8km. Military 50,000 or perhaps a bit more ( Classified perhaps)


Range of a Side winder is up to 22 miles 35.4km. Infrared and semi radar guided. A little tough at those altitudes right on the edge of space.

I was surprised a lazar weapon was not used myself. That might be too Classified of course No Question that tools exist to hit very high flying or orbital devices up higher.

The three countries that tried to shoot down the Canadian Balloon 25 years ago

Canada First - A fighter jet had a ceiling of about 60,000 feet, he recalled and "the balloon, of course, was a lot higher than that"."the Canadian CF-18s fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition at the balloon" Air force at 3km plus would have required them not to have a G&T most unacceptable ( Forgive me any Air force people )

Americans and Poms may not have fired on it! "The instrumentation was sent back to Canada and reused (though there were some bullet holes on the instrument package and its parachute). Mr Sommerfeldt said" so perhaps even with a G&T the Canadians are a good shot

Yep it appeared to me that it needed summat with balls

IMHO just bullets would have been **** weak against a balloon & it shirley would have needed to hit a hard surface to do any good.
A shotgun would have done the job with the right timing as the Jet shot past but would need a hair trigger as well as a decent hole in the Jet's canopy to stick the barrel through.

Maybe not a great idea at that altitude.


IMHO I doubt that PRC would ask permission before acting if a similar "Weather Research Balloon" had drifted uncontrolled over Beijing.

Originally Posted by 4bee;[URL="tel:3181903"

3181903[/URL]]


IMHO I doubt that PRC would ask permission before acting if a similar "Weather Research Balloon" had drifted uncontrolled over Beijing.

Indeed, but maybe Xi isn’t beholden to anyone in the land of the free.