The F-15 can climb 30,000 feet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle

That is the lower bound of what modern high-altitude balloons can reach. Back in 2023 multiple balloons were observed much higher than that up to 50,000 feet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-altitude_object_e...

This is still in the lower spectrum for such balloons. BS 13-08 reached 176,000 feet back in 2013 (there is reason to believe spy balloons would not go that high though).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon

So, you're wrong. There is no US aircraft that can reach them (unless they drop low as they did in 2023). The US likely wants to hit them before they go low.

The SR-71 is uniquely suited for this task, having reached up to 90,000 feet during testing. It was specially made for some kind of hybrid space war possibility (not balloons, but something high up there).

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somat 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Your amounts are off. that wikipedia page lists the f-15 as having a service ceiling of 65,000 feet. Perhaps irrelevant but a f-15 shot a satellite down once(not relevant because that is more the missiles capabilities than the planes, which is probably the relevant point)

Unit mix up?

The f-16 however, does have a surprisingly low ceiling, there are fighter pilot memes about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koEQp8ImlnI?t=643 something about having small wings, get above 30,000 feet and it's not happy.

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bigyabai 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You misread your source: the F-15 can climb 30,000 feet in 60 seconds - the service ceiling is closer to 60,000 feet officially, and 90,000 under ideal conditions:

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/how-the-f-15-streak-eagle-br...

By "same altitude" I was referring to the SR-71. I do not know what the payload capacity was for either aircraft in the 90,000ft testing conditions, but for interception missions there are more important metrics.

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lelandbatey 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Per the first link you provided, the F-15 has the following:

Service ceiling: 65,000 ft (20,000 m)

That's high enough to go 15k feet above the highest ballon mentioned in the second link you provided, which was 50,000 feet.

Also, the SR-71 carried no weapons, only cameras, and re-tooling to support them would be far more expensive than merely shooting a balloon with a missile from the ground (or building an air-to-air missile that can be fired from existing platforms at altitudes like 65k feet).

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gaigalas 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Fair correction on the altitude (still in the lower bounds of the balloons, as I mentioned).

The SR-71 already flew in the configuration I mentioned. It's the YF-12C (a converted SR-71).

Recovering and converting another sure is more expensive than one missile, but it's a reusable platform.

A ground missile able to reach those balloons is more expensive than a modernized SR-71 sortie. High-altitude, precision missiles are also not allocated for this task. China can launch dozens of balloons for cheap, and spending one multi-million-dollar missile on each is insanity. Even the long range air-to-air ones are too expensive for that.

The SR-71 (as a new YF-12D interceptor) makes more sense. It can take multiple balloons in one flight with cheap shorter range air-to-air missiles (or maybe even cheaper weapons, for a balloon a laser would do), then go home and do that over and over again.

	▲	bigyabai 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		China can launch a lot more than a dozen balloons, perhaps thousands if convincing decoy payloads can be made. The A-12 was intended to counter high-value targets in a limited number, not low-value targets en-masse. I can't rule out that Issacman does have this mission profile in mind, but it seems contrived. Whatever weapon the SR-71 could carry to-altitude could be be done cheaper, more numerously and probably more quickly too with F-15s. Refurbishing a fleet of SR-71s and a fleet of KC-135Qs would be a lot of work for an extremely limited capability.