,

 

 

 

 

Somewhere in South Carolina today, a pilot painted the silhouette of a balloon onto the side of an F-22.

 

 

I saw this one making the rounds:

 

 

Source video, which is is well done (and produced extremely quickly):

 

I debated posting that image earlier. It's a photoshop job (link to original in a 2020 news article) but it does feel good.

From a purely numbers, standpoint, this is the first "combat" kill for an F-22, and also the highest-altitude air to air kill in history. My gut tells me that the pilot is going to enjoy a lot of grief from their squadron-mates for years to come. Callsign Helium, or something equally silly.


Here's the most random picture I can find, which depicts my niece's dog's *** bumping against the back of my head, which it did almost continuously for roughly 2,400 miles over the course of a week and a half as we drove from Florida to Texas and back in their RV, to attend the graduation of my godson.





And also an albino peacock, from the same trip.

 

"gasbag" ?

Do missile tests count as "kills"? Probably not, but if so then an F-15 took down a satellite in an ASAT missile test in the mid 80s. Pic from wikipedia:



Also, I read somewhere that the modern practice is to paint all kills as just a star, rather than a silhouette.

--Ian

 

That's the one.

Some hotshot F-22 pilot is going to be known as Gasbag for the rest of their career.







Negative, Ghostrider.

 

Seriously hope Godless Commie fared alright in that quake. It was a big 'un.

 

I was about to ask.

 

I heard it was centered near the border with Syria which is across the country from him, thankfully. But the death toll is already quite high.

Pics irrelevant.

 

US Space Force en route to recover wreckage of downed Chinese weather balloon: