Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Toad on July 29, 2005, 12:29:05 AM
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.... or not.
They escorted the Cub at least 30 miles to land at an airport North of the Space Center.
But somehow... probably due to a Cub's BLAZING speed... the cops couldn't get to the field in time to catch the pilot who parked the plane and beat feet.
Whew... at least it wasn't a terrorist... or was it?
I feel safer now.
Small plane enters shuttle no-fly zone (http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/28/shuttle.plane/index.html)
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Thats awesome.
Most cars are able to cruise faster :D
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Wish we knew more about the flight profile.. was he low, was he cruisin at 1500, was it James Bond or Abdul Salami Sammichochitz?
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Thats amusing - considering old people **** faster then that thing goes in a full power dive.
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As the crow flies. Straight line trumps roads again.
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Has to be more to the story.
Did they direct him to land at an unattended airfield or one with a tower? Did they coordinate with the field? Did they even call the cops to meet him?
In any event, it shows yet another hole in the wall.
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A J-3 has to be almost invulnerable to modern air to air missiles.
The tiny engine is miniscule with minimal heat output for a Sidewinder to lock onto, and the wood/fabric structure sure has to play havoc w/ the radar guided missiles.
Seems like all your hopes against the Cub menace would lie with the engine block making a big enough radar return or the missile using the CCD to home in on the contrast difference of the plane against the sky (as some later revisions of the AIM-9 do).
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My guess is that he was routed to a field, and they had federales come for him instead of local police, so the federals needed extra time to get there through traffic. The guy probably landed, hung out for a while, then shrugged and went off to grab lunch when nobody showed up. They've got the tail number, it's not like he's hiding who he is, right?
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The J-3 is not invulnerable to 20mm, however. Nor is it invulnerable to "wake turbulence". I think if they wanted to put him down, a high speed pass in blower right over and down in front of him might well do it.
Yes, they have the N-number. Now, assuming the worst, what if this is/was an A-Q operative that stole the Cub? (I doubt it is, but what if?)
The point is, after the intercept the guy got clean away... in a Cub.
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Perhaps my avatar pic isn't doctored after all....
Maybe it was a Cub with the JATO STC, he just fired it off in flight. You know how they overengineered all those old planes, it can probably top out at 3 mach no problem with a little rocket assist. It's all in which doping you use for the fabric.
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J-3 cub may not have even had a radio at all. If so it wiull be rather hard to "direct" the pilot anywhere. Couple that with the fact that there are at least 2 or 3 levels to get the communication through. The F16's cannot talk to Police. They likely can't talk to any civilian contollers either. That means they have to call Tracon who calls 911 who routes it to the police dispatcher who then dispatches the Patrol cars. All this with no commo with the cub so they have to wait for it to commit to a field before they know where it's going.
FWIW a Cub will have a darn hard time being much of a threat to anything on the ground harder than a gopher.
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Later reports say there was no radio contact; they punched off 3 flares in front of him to get his attention and escorted him to the airfiled 50 miles North.
As far as the damage a cub can do...... wonder what would happen if you flew a cub into the shuttles fuel tank/boosters while it sat on the pad before launch.
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Boostes: Nothing. Those are hard steel, it'd crumple and fall to the ground. These things have to hold up to amazing internal pressure during boost, then survive being dropped into the ocean.
The ET... aircraft grade aluminum, frozen to near brittle and fully of cryogenic fuel, that might be different.
Of course, it might not be able to handle the negative thermals nearby because of the cryo, not to mention that the plane is small enough that the ubiquitous Florida bug-zappers arrayed around the facility would probably take it out.
KRRRZAAP!
"Hey Fred, what was that?"
"Looks like... your turn to clean out the filter, Joe."
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Yep yer right Toad. I guess it's time to ban private airplanes. The government knows best.
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Not the point and you know it Mav. The f-16's could have taken out the Cub easily and they were already up patrolling the no-fly.
The point is the incredible lack of co-ordination and follow-up.
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They could have used a .50 cal rifle of course.
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Look, a Cub can be a significant threat.. a reasonably skilled pilot flying NOE could give a jet fighter and radar fits. And, it's not made outta 'wood' fer cripes sakes. It's got a rugged welded tube steel frame covered with ceconite. If it got close enuff for a kamakazi strike it could easily payload enugh 'boom' material and kinetic energy to take out a shuttle.
But, it'd be easy meat for a helicopter. Why no choppers?
Obviously, Toads correct.. there would appear there's a hole in the security and apparently lousy coordination between security assets and teams.
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Yeah, I agree with you Toad. The particulars of this incident are irrelevent - it's the overlapping federal, state and local jurisdictions/empires full of layers upon layers of bureaucrat bosses, program managers, captains and executive assistants that frustrate the heck out of me. And it isn't America, it's the world.
We're all easy pickins' to any terrorist with half a brain.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action and ideas. The Patriot Act and other attempts to legislate away terrorism and all guns by writ are ineffective. Politicians are the worst people to be involved in combating terrorism.
The only group worst than the politicians are the media, who have selfishly promoted an ether of fear and sensationalism that benefits the terrorist leaders while turning it into Terrori$m Inc.
The Department of Homeland Security is a massive waste of money and people and another overlap of empire and budget builders. The US has all the resources it needs to make the country safer and fight terrorist cells at the same time.
The federal grand jury system and the FBI together could be a more formidable domestic pair. Judicial oversight of covert domestic actions.
Instead of marginalizing the CIA, repair and invest in it for foreign intervention and cooperation.
I'm a believer that more covert operations with less information available to the media on anti-terrorism activities will benefit us all more. Freedom of the press doesn't mean anyone is required to talk to them. I think the public has as much of a right to be protected from the excesses of the press, as the press has to be protected from excesses or infringement upon it.
But, there will always be some small, whacko group or single nutcase who can do alot of damage. We can never be perfectly protected.