ANNIE-GET YOUR GUN!
An F-22 from an Air Force Base in Virginia fired a Sidewinder missile to shoot down the now infamous Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast. The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile. It has a high-explosive warhead and an infrared heat-seeking guidance system. A Sidewinder costs nearly $400,000. The F22 is designed to fly at supersonic speeds and take down high speed targets, not slow flying balloons. So far, we have downed four targets with one miss. Sure, the Sidewinders are expensive, but probably pales in comparison to the cost to scramble and support the F22s.
Now it seems to me that perhaps a more cost-effective solution would have been the A10 Thunderbolt. It has a gun and can fly a bit slower. Its reported ceiling is 45,000 feet, but I suspect it can go higher. The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II also known as “Tank Buster” is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed for the United States Air Force. The A-10 was designed to provide close air support (CAS) to friendly ground troops by attacking armored vehicles, tanks, and other enemy ground forces. Deemed an ugly, but effective and rugged aircraft, it received the affectionate nickname "Warthog." It was designed to take damage and keep flying. And does it ever have a gun.
Installed in the nose of the Warthog is a General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger, a 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-style auto-cannon. Intended to destroy a wide variety of ground targets, the Avenger delivers very powerful rounds at a high rate of fire. The GAU-8/A is also used by the Navy as ship weapon system to provide defense against short-range threats such as highly maneuverable missiles, aircraft, and fast maneuvering surface vessels. A slow-moving balloon should be a “piece of cake.”
Pictured below is Colonel Kim Nichole Reed-Campbell, a retired United States Air Force officer and Command Pilot. She was decorated for piloting her A-10 Thunderbolt II back to base in southern Iraq after taking heavy anti-aircraft artillery damage in aerial combat over Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
So, Annie get your gun and maybe save some taxpayer dollars.
Appreciate all the technical info, and the obvious logic of a less expensive takedown, but why would China, with 300 satellites that have state-of-the-art spy capabilities, employ an easy-to-spot balloon? We know our government always tells us the truth, but still. . .