Unknown "Blob" over DC today. Hmmm

a reply to: Stormdancer777

Tracking systems usually monitor in ground speed. When you're talking about ground speed, with a small plane, you can actually see negative speeds. So if the wind is strong enough, a Cessna will appear on radar to be flying no faster than a bird.

a reply to: luthier

No. I'm saying that DC has different capabilities than a carrier or carrier group. Not all radar is the same. A ship radar, such as the Aegis, is designed to be electronically steerable, and can be concentrated down into a small but extremely powerful beam, that at short enough range, can actually burn out electronics. Washington DC doesn't need that capability, so air traffic control radar works for them. They have smaller radars, used for NASAMS and NASAMS 2 in the area that can back up the air traffic control radars, and will be used for point defense systems.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I would say if they domt know what color the birds feathers are, what heat signature they had, and that the pattern is we are very far behind protecting DC than we are the ocean.

a reply to: luthier

Why? You don't need that level of coverage. It's also ridiculously expensive and difficult to do. The biggest threat to DC are missiles, either cruise missiles or ICBMs, and we have ways to watch for them separate from the radar covering DC. No military has the capability to get aircraft into the DC area without us seeing them coming long before they get there. There's a system in place, and it works. It worked today, and it's worked other days.

Anyone seen that hideous baby Trump balloon, lately?

... are they just looking more close these days, or is this not a common thing for mysterious avians?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: luthier

Why? You don't need that level of coverage. It's also ridiculously expensive and difficult to do. The biggest threat to DC are missiles, either cruise missiles or ICBMs, and we have ways to watch for them separate from the radar covering DC. No military has the capability to get aircraft into the DC area without us seeing them coming long before they get there. There's a system in place, and it works. It worked today, and it's worked other days.

This is false.

Either you believe in UFOs or you know there are foreign militaries with that capability.

And no it's not that expensive and space based radar and observation is certainly available nearly 24 7. Not to mention drones and any projectile they may need to ID

a reply to: luthier

Yeah, it really is expensive for what you expect. We aren't talking about a simple radar set in someone's back yard. You need a radar system capable of incredible resolution, meaning an SPY system. In 1997, an SPY-1A/B cost around $20M. The SPY-6 is currently running almost $400M for engineering and development, and will cost even more. Then, since you want "the color of their feathers", you have to have an optical tracking system, capable of long range. So you're going to need something like the Close In Optical Tracking System, with multiple camera stations. So you're looking at another probably $5-8M at least.

Space based systems don't work well for tracking aircraft, or small objects. Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, you can't read a newspaper from orbit. So if you want to place a satellite over DC, you're going to get similar or worse capability than you already have.

Drones need a way to track an object. So you need a radar to tell you it's there, and guide you in close. So you're back to building a $30+M radar system, which would probably end up being well over $200M once you add in backups, ground stations, and the like. For a capability that isn't needed. The only unfriendly militaries that would be trying to get into DC with aircraft or weapons are Russia and China, and neither one has a stealthy aircraft capable of reaching DC.

Why does it have to be either a UFO or foreign military? Is it really so hard to believe that radar picks up birds, and mistakes happen?

I haven’t seen a picture and NBC said it might have been a “ weather balloon “.

You know what that means . 🛸

NBC

a reply to: gallop

Lol

Hoyt dispatched that repugnant symbol .

Patriot 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

a reply to: Zaphod58

It doesn't have to be a ufo. I was saying we know there are craft that can get by conventional radar we just don't know who owns them. Or someone does but not the public. I watched scamander fravor explain how they tracked the crafts in the Pacific and the Atlantic.

Are you saying we are not adjusting DC to this known problem?

And DC isn't some ones back yard. It can have plenty of installations and does.

They most certainly have satelight imagery after the fact and know now.

Are you saying they have no infrared etc? How far up are these geese?

a reply to: luthier

They don't have infrared tracking systems just sitting around at all their installations, even in DC.

There are military radars monitoring airspace outside the US, watching for potential threats coming into US airspace. It's how we catch Russian intelligence flights near Alaska, and track them down to California, when they go that far down. It's redundant to have both air traffic control and military radars monitoring every inch of US airspace. Not to mention the interference it will cause one or the other.

DC may have plenty of installations, that doesn't mean they're all capable of hosting radar systems on the scale of a SPY-1 or later.

Satellite imagery isn't going to show birds, or even small planes flying near DC. You'd have to have a satellite in the right place, that was taking imagery at the time, and it would have to be a late generation KH series. Even then it would take a great deal of luck.

Scientists have now shown that the highest resolution satellite imagery is capable of "seeing" these birds from space, allowing researchers to count their numbers on remote islands directly from satellite images without ever having to go there.
This is the first time that satellites have been used to count individual birds from space.

a reply to: Zaphod58

So DC has none of the tools the Nimitz had to track those ufo's and DC has not adjusted to the fact we can't monitor those craft with conventional systems.

Either you are talking beyond your knowledge or we are terribly underequipt for our knowledge of threats.

a reply to: luthier

How are they threats? You know with absolute certainty that they were hostile, or potentially hostile, and weren't ours? Funny that we aren't able to track them with conventional systems, but the Nimitz supposedly tracked them on radar and on the FLIR systems of the F-18s.

Why does DC need to have super advanced radar systems? They're not going to do anything against any real threat, and there are systems in place to monitor any potential threat. They work well enough to get the most important people in DC out of the area or into bunkers.

Contrary to what you think, DC doesn't need to have the most advanced systems monitoring it. What is in place worked just fine today, just as it has on every other day, and will work in the future too. The systems in place outside DC, on the coasts work just fine for monitoring airspace that needs monitoring, and will notify the people that need to know of any threats.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I guess you missed my point. If we have them why couldn't some one else?

In which case we would absolutely know we have no defense (if they were ours)

There are a few weapons systems we may have problems with and we have had an un armed jet make it to DC so I don't feel that is accurate.

The Nimitz was able to track them but you say the radar is too expensive for DC. I am.ver confused. You don't think the white house has infrared systems and how high are we talking these birds were again?

SKY EVENT!!!

a reply to: luthier

I didn't say "radar was too expensive" for DC. I said the radar that you expect to see in DC, which is the type used by the Nimitz battlegroup is too expensive to put in DC. There is radar coverage of DC, but it's primarily air traffic control radar systems, not military systems.

Not everyone is at the same level of tech as everyone else. Russia and China are just now building stealth aircraft, while we're on our fourth generation of stealth aircraft. But they're already building hypersonic missiles, while we're lagging behind them with hypersonic weapons.

Even if the White House has IR systems, they're not great for use during the day, at low altitude. IRST type systems are designed to operate in cold temperatures, when there's more contrast between a hot target and the ambient temperature around it. At low altitude there's more heat in the air, meaning less contrast, meaning much less resolution.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I find it nearly impossible to believe we don't know exactly what it was at this point.

Real time possibly,...still a stretch. I have used advanced infrared hunting gear at dawn and dusk and it still works okish in the daytime I have used FLIR binoculars in broad daylight


How did the radar lose the birds? This is the Whitehouse not Tibet.

a reply to: luthier

It's the White House, but it's still radar. It doesn't suddenly start working better because it's the White House. They landed, they started flying too slow for the radar to track them because they dropped below its range gate.... There are any number of reasons for the radar to have lost them.