Looks to me that it hit the ballon, just above the panel array. You see the latter fall off as the balloon explodes. But it could be a prox fuse hit and that both the array and balloon was hit by shrapnel.
In any case, that large panel seems to fall by itself. Depending on its terminal velocity, parts of it could be recoverable. Looks large enough to have considerable drag.
But, as already alluded to in this thread, why send a balloon to gather intelligence? It’s pretty hard to hide… OTOH, if its mission was as benign as they say, why wasn’t fly-over countries informed?
I heard F-16s from Shaw AFB, which makes sense geographically, but that was from a family member so suspect. A more creditable source, the BBC, reports F-22 Raptor via AIM-9X.
Just rambling thoughts here … but don’t weather ballon’s normally just keep rising until lack of air pressure just pops them… or that’s what I thought happened
Depends on the volume of helium in the balloon vs the weight of the payload. If the payload is heavy the balloon will rise to an equilibrium point where the weight of the payload is balanced by the buoyancy of the balloon and pretty much stay there. The helium will then start to diffuse through the balloon and the balloon will slowly lose altitude as its buoyancy reduces. This would likely take days to weeks depending on the volume to surface area ratio.
Lots of good intel in the real audio. CZ535, POI 1, is target, altitude and heading, bullseye call, attack profile, shooters, Frank, and support flight, Eagle?
