Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Masherbrum on June 29, 2005, 11:41:37 PM
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/30/capitol.evac/index.html
Karaya
PS - Me tinks he's losing his License.
Link fixed
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linky broken
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Me thinks that if they are that concerned about it they should just build another airport someplace else
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The sky is falling!!
shamus
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The Cessnas are coming! The Cessnas are coming!
:rolleyes:
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Fighter jets and a plane from the Customs and Border Protection Agency
Those AF boys were just getting all the good press... I expect the DEA and ATF to be up next time, along with the Forestry Service. Agencies without air support will likely be renting helicopters to get in on the show. The Navy will probably keep a carrier on station. On a positive note, the airspace will become too congested and dangerous for a terrorist attack :)
Charon
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I'm still trying to imagine how these little planes are causing such extreme measures.
How much explosives or whatever could they carry on board? They'd have a helluva time getting their plane to penetrate the thick cieling/walls of the majority of government buildings in DC.
Few years ago, some mental feller balled his Cessna up on the white house lawn. I imagine it *MAY* have knocked a little cement off the outside wall if it had impacted at full speed.
-SW
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Customs has more experience with airborne intercepts than any other current branch of the military, makes sense to me.
WAY more.
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Customs folks are used to doing small plane intercepts and have the surveilance equipment to get a good look of the target on camera that the zoomies can't, yet. I imagine Customs could end up with another mission doing intercepts like this one in the future. After Congress gets tired of the evacuations they'll stop reacting to it.
As to the airport deal, there are 3 in the DC area that have been affected by the 9/11 hoopla. It's much easier to focus the spot light on small planes than it is to continue to make sure large planes no longer get used as weapons. Pretty soon I expect we'll hear people saying "no one really needs to fly little airplanes" and start to shut down general aviation.
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Customs has more experience with airborne intercepts than any other current branch of the military, makes sense to me.
Are they able to get in contact with sufficient time to identify before a decision has to be made? mOst of their work tends to be a bit less immediate in nature. I thought the last time it was a seconds from firing type of thing with F-16s and afterburners.
Charon
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Charon, go ask them. Customs is used to loitering and has a cheaper aircraft to fly in a surveilance mode than a F16. If they need to down the plane, not a real likely situation in most cases, the F16 could be standing by.
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You're right Mavrick Customs does make up an important component of the air defense network surronding Washington.
He said the program for patrolling the Washington airspace is a cooperative one involving the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Department of Defense (DOD) and, of course, the still-evolving DHS. He said a pair of ICE’s Citations, together with two Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters, represented the so-called “low slow” end of the airborne defense system for the Washington area. Jet fighters handle the “high fast” side of the equation, while a deeply classified matrix of surface-to-air defenses covers the “inside game,” or last line of defense close to the ground. Stallworth was deliberately vague on the latter component, politely declining to answer follow-up questions on numbers, locations and types of surface-to-air defenses.
He did say that some of Customs’ eight Lockheed Orion P-3AEW mobile detection and sorting radar surveillance aircraft have also been part of the contingent that keeps tabs on Washington’s airspace. The network is also linked to the National Capital Region Coordination Center in northern Virginia, and coordinates with the U.S. Customs domestic air interdiction coordination center (DAICC) at March Air Force Base in Riverside, Calif. Substantially upgraded in 1998, the DAICC is like a mini-Norad center, coordinating regular ATC radar data with military radar, aerostat balloon-mounted radars and other secret radar assets to provide an impressive level of coverage. If it’s any larger than a condor, it probably doesn’t fly without the DAICC’s computers knowing about it.
Charon
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Originally posted by Charon
You're right Mavrick
Charon
OH CRAP!!!! The world is gonna end now!!!!!!!! I got sumpin right! :p ;) :D