Comment by jacquesm
7 days ago
Just think about the terrorist potential here. Buy a $10 party balloon, let it go near a major airport and they'll panic and shut down the airport. That's a lot of havoc for a couple of bucks.
7 days ago
Just think about the terrorist potential here. Buy a $10 party balloon, let it go near a major airport and they'll panic and shut down the airport. That's a lot of havoc for a couple of bucks.
Panic, shut down the airport, and reveal their top secret methods of defense against actual attacks.
And imagine the mayhem with 20 balloons, or 100. Very easy in trigger happy situation, a child is all you need.
But what do we know, maybe it was an evil terrorist party balloon. You see, the wall just needs to be a little higher to protect that beautiful country from all southern evils.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons
I have wondered if this would help Ukraine. Let a thousand balloons float serenely into Russian airspace. Some of them may have drones on them waiting to be cut loose and drop a payload on something important. Or they may be carrying a weighted 3d printed shell of a drone that does nothing, Russia can't afford to take that chance. And likewise in the other direction.
Which way are the prevailing winds at altitude over the Ukrainian-Russian border region, anyway?
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> And imagine the mayhem with 20 balloons, or 100. Very easy in trigger happy situation, a child is all you need.
Sounds like a great way for a drug-runner to proceed - release 1000 balloons across a very large area, and have only one of them carry their payload of drugs (or whatever).
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It's one balloon, Michael. What could it cost, 10 dollars?
A large Mylar party balloon with helium? Yeah probably about that depending on where you are and the balloon type and size.
Yep. It seems like for this application you'd want a larger one, a few feet across, with a nice shiny metal foil coating for the radar to bounce off. So, not a $1 balloon.
Schiphol Airport has large No Balloons signs when you go down to the train station. Aluminum balloons can create havoc on the overhead power lines. It recently shut down the train service for the morning.
And they sell them right in the arrivals hall...
Maybe their born with it, maybe it’s…
How have we not blown ourselves up yet?
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The Netherlands did not even blink when unknown actors (read Russians) were flying drones around the country but balloons is too much.
Hast du etwas Zeit für mich?
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum ... well, El Paso as it turns out.
the English rewrite of course starts:
You and I in a little toyshop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got
Set them free at the break of dawn
'til one by one, they were gone...
>Just think about the terrorist potential here. Buy a $10 party balloon, let it go near a major airport and they'll panic and shut down the airport. That's a lot of havoc for a couple of bucks.
And rather than see the government have egg on face people (probably a majority here) will vote for politicians who promise all sorts of licenses and regulations on balloons because of it and then in 20yr when I complain and remind them that once upon a time every store used to sell balloons with no KYC BS they'll act like I'm some sort of barbarian, screech, wring their hands, clutch their pearls, etc.
At least then we’d stop throwing away all our helium away!
When you're done getting up on that cross the rest of the thread will be waiting for you