EdFred
Taxi to Parking
I was asked by someone to give my opinion on some idjit's blog about the gov't covering up 9/11. I was then told this was "shown to a commercial airline pilot and he laughed for half an hour" Did I make any statements that were completely out of line?
The blog author (who claims to be an aeronautical engineer and a commercial pilot of "heavy aircraft" comments in plain, my comments in bold.
And if the aim is to navigate to a specific geographic location hundreds of miles away while flying at over 500 mph, 30,000 feet above the ground the challenges become virtually impossible for an untrained pilot.And this, precisely, is what the four hijacker pilots who could not fly a Cessna around an airport are alleged to have accomplished in multi-ton, high-speed commercial jets on 9/11.
Ok, this first call out here pretty much tells me that the author has no clue what they are talking about. Why? When you start your private pilot training, the first thing you are told to do when you get lost or disoriented is to climb. That's right. Climb. Why? Because you can see more from higher up and it becomes EASIER to recognize landmarks and features. And lets face it, finding Manhattan or DC is pretty easy from 10 or 15 thousand feet. Point number two: The planes were not at 30,000 feet, nor were the planes "hundreds of miles away" from their locations. From KBOS to KLGA is 160nm. Flying the coastline or flying to the coastline is fairly easy. Finding NYC on the coast is going to be a pretty easy task.
In order to operate a modern flight simulator with any level of skill, one has to not only be a decent pilot to begin with, but also a skilled instrument-rated one to boot — and be thoroughly familiar with the actual aircraft type the simulator represents, since the cockpit layouts vary between aircraft.
The author here is being deliberately misleading. These simulators are full motion simulators and there is no need for an instrument rating. I talked with 2 pilots last night who have been in these simulators. One had never been in the simulator before, and he was able to land, circle and take off without any previous experience. Granted he does have some experience in single engine aircraft, but then he told me of someone else who was there. There was a student pilot who had just recently soloed (I soloed at 13 hours so you see the experience is not very much) and this student was easily able to navigate and even landed in the simulator with no issues. The instrument rating would only be necessary if the plane were in the clouds.
Rule #1: Never take your eyes off your instruments, because that’s all you have. If you can’t read the instruments in a quick, smooth, disciplined, scan, you’re as good as dead.
This is true, however there is no need to watch your instruments when you aren't in the clouds. Does the horizon look flat? Then you are not turning. Does the horizon appear to be straight in front of you? Then you are pretty close to level. One would not need an instrument rating to do this. If you can see, you can fly. Two weekends ago, I took my mother up flying with me. I had to get something out of the back of the plane, I told her to take the controls, something she had never done, and watch the horizon. Make sure it doesn't go up or down, and make sure it stays level. Well, I'm still writing this so she obviously didn't crash the plane. Oh, and when I turned around to take control of the plane, she was pretty close to where she started: Level and not turning.
Let me place this in the context of the 9/11 hijacker-pilots.These men were repeatedly deemed incompetent to solo a simple Cessna-172 — an elementary exercise that involves flying this little trainer once around the patch on a sunny day.A student’s first solo flight involves a simple circuit: take-off, followed by four gentle left turns ending with a landing back on the runway. This is as basic as flying can possibly get.Not one of the hijackers was deemed fit to perform this most elementary exercise by himself.
All of this is true, if you are planning to take off and land. Anyone can fly enroute with little or no training. We aren't talking precision flying here. If you see it in your windscreen and it's not moving up, down, left, or right relative to your view you will hit it.
Hijacker Hani Hanjour rises from his seat midway through the flight, viciously fights his way into the cockpit with his cohorts, overpowers Captain Charles F. Burlingame and First Officer DavidCharlebois, and somehow manages to toss them out of the cockpit (for starters, very difficult to achieve in a cramped environment without inadvertently impacting the yoke and thereby disengaging the autopilot).One would correctly presume that this would present considerable difficulties to a little guy with a box cutter—Burlingame was a tough, burly, ex-Vietnam F4 fighter jock who had flown over 100 combat missions. Every pilot who knows him says that rather than politely hand over the controls, Burlingame would have instantly rolled the plane on its back so that Hanjour would have broken his neck when he hit the floor.But let’s ignore this almost natural reaction expected of a fighter pilot and proceed with this charade.Nonetheless, imagine that Hanjour overpowers the flight deck crew, removes them from the cockpit and takes his position in the captain’s seat.
I can not really comment on this since I was not in the cockpit. Maybe he had just a box cutter, maybe he had more than a box cutter. Maybe the copilot got up to use the head. I am not about to speculate on what transpired in the cockpit, because I, and frankly neither does anyone else alive know exactly what happened.
Although weather reports state this was not the case, let’s say Hanjour was lucky enough to experience a perfect CAVU day (Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited).
Evidently the author needs a refresher course in reading METARS (Meteorological Aviation Reports) - and makes me question their credentials. Why? Here's the METARs for KBOS, KLGA, and KDCA on Sept 11,2001:
Boston Logan
METAR KBOS 111054Z 32008KT 10SM FEW250 18/14 A3005
METAR KBOS 111154Z 32008KT 10SM FEW250 19/14 A3006
METAR KBOS 111254Z 33009KT 10SM FEW250 21/13 A3006
METAR KBOS 111354Z 35010KT 10SM FEW250 23/13 A3007
METAR KBOS 111454Z 32014G18KT 10SM FEW250 25/12 A3005
METAR KBOS 111554Z 35015G19KT 10SM FEW250 26/11 A3004
What does this gibberish mean? I will break down the first line and you should be able to figure out the other lines.
METAR - type of report.
KBOS - Airport
111054Z - the first 2 digits is the day. The remaining 4 are the time in Zulu time. (all aviation times are coordinated to UTC time - which is basically GMT.) So, on the 11th at 1054Z (subtract 4 hours for EDT - makes it6:54am)
32008KT - This is the direction and speed of the surface winds. The winds were from a magnetic heading of 320 (270 is west and 360 is north) at a speed of 8knots.
10SM - this is the visibility in statute miles. It says 10, but that is the maximum that it will report. Last weekend South Bend was indicating 10SM, but I could see the Chicago Skyline from 70 miles away. Basically, when you see 10 it means at least 10.
FEW250 - this indicates the cloud cover and the base of the clouds in hundreds of feet. FEW indicates that the cloud coverage was between 1/8 and 2/8th sky cover and the base of the clouds were 25,000 feet.18/14 - this is the temperature and dew point in degrees Celsius.A3005 - This is the altimeter setting in inches of mercury. 30.05" (29.92" is a standard day)
New York LaGuardia
METAR KLGA 111051Z 33008KT 10SM FEW250 19/14 A3011
METAR KLGA 111151Z 32009KT 10SM FEW250 19/14 A3011
METAR KLGA 111251Z 32009KT 10SM FEW250 20/14 A3013
METAR KLGA 111351Z 34009KT 10SM FEW010 SCT250 22/13 A3013 RMK AO2 SLP204 FU FEW010 FU PLUME SW DRFTG SE T02220133
We see something interesting in remarks (RMK) section the last line at LaGuardia. The A02 indicates the monitoring equipment, and the SLP204 indicates sea level pressure in millibars (1204mb) but here we see FU FEW010. This means smoke at 1000 feet, Plume is southwest of LGA drifting to the southeast. The T02220133 gives exact temperature and dewpoint at the time. (22.2C and 13.3C respectively) Guess what the smoke was from. Look at the cloud height and coverage. Instrument rating needed? Hardly.
Ronald Reagan Washington National
METAR KDCA 111251Z 35005KT 10SM CLR 21/14 A3021
SPECI KDCA 111341Z 33010KT 10SM CLR 23/14 A3022
METAR KDCA 111351Z 34009KT 10SM CLR 23/14 A3023
METAR KDCA 111451Z 32008KT 4SM HZ CLR 24/14 A3022
METAR KDCA 111551Z 33009G15KT 7SM CLR 26/14 A3021
Now on to Washington DC's Reagan which sits only a mile from the Pentagon. Looks very similar to what it was in Boston and NYC except instead of FEW at 25,000 what do we see after 8:51am (1251Z). CLR - which means clear. So guess what? They did have a CAVU day to execute their plan!
If Hanjour looked straight ahead through the windshield, or off to his left at the ground, at best he would see, 35,000 feet -- 7 miles -- below him, a murky brownish-grey-green landscape, virtually devoid of surface detail, while the aircraft he was now piloting was moving along, almost imperceptibly and in eerie silence, at around 500 MPH (about 750 feet every second).In a real-world scenario - and given the reported weather conditions that day - he would likely have seen clouds below him completely obscuring the ground he was traversing.With this kind of “situational non-awareness” Hanjour might as well have been flying over Argentina, Russia, or Japan—he wouldn’t have had a clue as to where, precisely, he was.
Oh really? What clouds? The aviation reports indicate clear skies, and at worst 1/8 to 2/8 coverage at 25,000 feet. Anyone could have navigated that area without ever looking at the instrument panel.
After a few seconds at 750 ft/sec, Hanjour would figure out there’s little point in looking outside—there’s nothing there to give him any real visual cues.
Only if you are blind. I hear 737s and 767s call the field in sight from 20, 30, and 40 miles away and they are given a visual approach into the field. They fly by sight the rest of the way in. Speaking of clues, this author needs to get one.
For a man who had previously wrestled with little Cessnas, following freeways and railroad tracks (and always in the comforting presence of an instructor), this would have been a strange, eerily unsettling environment indeed.
Yes, I can see how something like this would be unsettling to someone as clueless as the author. Credentials, my ass.
Seeing nothing outside, Mr. Hanjour would be forced to divert his attention to his instrument panel, where he’d be faced with a bewildering array of instruments. He would then have to very quickly interpret his heading, ground track, altitude, and airspeed information on the displays before he could even figure out where in the world he was, much less where the Pentagon was located in relation to his position!After all, before he can crash into a target, he has to first find the target.
Do you remember me mentioning that DCA was only a mile from the Pentagon? The display panels on the airliners show nearby airports. All you have to do is make sure the airport you want is in the 12 o'clock position on the screen and go. Anyone on this message board could do it.
It is very difficult to explain this scenario, of an utter lack of ground reference, to non-pilots; but let it suffice to say that for these incompetent hijacker non-pilots to even consider grappling with such a daunting task would have been utterly overwhelming.They wouldn’t have known where to begin.
Well, I know where to stop, and it is at this point. At this point I have to call the author a complete idiot or a complete liar, or both. I have read the rest of what s/he wrote, but s/he has demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge of everything up to this point, that I am not even going to bother refuting the rest.
The blog author (who claims to be an aeronautical engineer and a commercial pilot of "heavy aircraft" comments in plain, my comments in bold.
And if the aim is to navigate to a specific geographic location hundreds of miles away while flying at over 500 mph, 30,000 feet above the ground the challenges become virtually impossible for an untrained pilot.And this, precisely, is what the four hijacker pilots who could not fly a Cessna around an airport are alleged to have accomplished in multi-ton, high-speed commercial jets on 9/11.
Ok, this first call out here pretty much tells me that the author has no clue what they are talking about. Why? When you start your private pilot training, the first thing you are told to do when you get lost or disoriented is to climb. That's right. Climb. Why? Because you can see more from higher up and it becomes EASIER to recognize landmarks and features. And lets face it, finding Manhattan or DC is pretty easy from 10 or 15 thousand feet. Point number two: The planes were not at 30,000 feet, nor were the planes "hundreds of miles away" from their locations. From KBOS to KLGA is 160nm. Flying the coastline or flying to the coastline is fairly easy. Finding NYC on the coast is going to be a pretty easy task.
In order to operate a modern flight simulator with any level of skill, one has to not only be a decent pilot to begin with, but also a skilled instrument-rated one to boot — and be thoroughly familiar with the actual aircraft type the simulator represents, since the cockpit layouts vary between aircraft.
The author here is being deliberately misleading. These simulators are full motion simulators and there is no need for an instrument rating. I talked with 2 pilots last night who have been in these simulators. One had never been in the simulator before, and he was able to land, circle and take off without any previous experience. Granted he does have some experience in single engine aircraft, but then he told me of someone else who was there. There was a student pilot who had just recently soloed (I soloed at 13 hours so you see the experience is not very much) and this student was easily able to navigate and even landed in the simulator with no issues. The instrument rating would only be necessary if the plane were in the clouds.
Rule #1: Never take your eyes off your instruments, because that’s all you have. If you can’t read the instruments in a quick, smooth, disciplined, scan, you’re as good as dead.
This is true, however there is no need to watch your instruments when you aren't in the clouds. Does the horizon look flat? Then you are not turning. Does the horizon appear to be straight in front of you? Then you are pretty close to level. One would not need an instrument rating to do this. If you can see, you can fly. Two weekends ago, I took my mother up flying with me. I had to get something out of the back of the plane, I told her to take the controls, something she had never done, and watch the horizon. Make sure it doesn't go up or down, and make sure it stays level. Well, I'm still writing this so she obviously didn't crash the plane. Oh, and when I turned around to take control of the plane, she was pretty close to where she started: Level and not turning.
Let me place this in the context of the 9/11 hijacker-pilots.These men were repeatedly deemed incompetent to solo a simple Cessna-172 — an elementary exercise that involves flying this little trainer once around the patch on a sunny day.A student’s first solo flight involves a simple circuit: take-off, followed by four gentle left turns ending with a landing back on the runway. This is as basic as flying can possibly get.Not one of the hijackers was deemed fit to perform this most elementary exercise by himself.
All of this is true, if you are planning to take off and land. Anyone can fly enroute with little or no training. We aren't talking precision flying here. If you see it in your windscreen and it's not moving up, down, left, or right relative to your view you will hit it.
Hijacker Hani Hanjour rises from his seat midway through the flight, viciously fights his way into the cockpit with his cohorts, overpowers Captain Charles F. Burlingame and First Officer DavidCharlebois, and somehow manages to toss them out of the cockpit (for starters, very difficult to achieve in a cramped environment without inadvertently impacting the yoke and thereby disengaging the autopilot).One would correctly presume that this would present considerable difficulties to a little guy with a box cutter—Burlingame was a tough, burly, ex-Vietnam F4 fighter jock who had flown over 100 combat missions. Every pilot who knows him says that rather than politely hand over the controls, Burlingame would have instantly rolled the plane on its back so that Hanjour would have broken his neck when he hit the floor.But let’s ignore this almost natural reaction expected of a fighter pilot and proceed with this charade.Nonetheless, imagine that Hanjour overpowers the flight deck crew, removes them from the cockpit and takes his position in the captain’s seat.
I can not really comment on this since I was not in the cockpit. Maybe he had just a box cutter, maybe he had more than a box cutter. Maybe the copilot got up to use the head. I am not about to speculate on what transpired in the cockpit, because I, and frankly neither does anyone else alive know exactly what happened.
Although weather reports state this was not the case, let’s say Hanjour was lucky enough to experience a perfect CAVU day (Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited).
Evidently the author needs a refresher course in reading METARS (Meteorological Aviation Reports) - and makes me question their credentials. Why? Here's the METARs for KBOS, KLGA, and KDCA on Sept 11,2001:
Boston Logan
METAR KBOS 111054Z 32008KT 10SM FEW250 18/14 A3005
METAR KBOS 111154Z 32008KT 10SM FEW250 19/14 A3006
METAR KBOS 111254Z 33009KT 10SM FEW250 21/13 A3006
METAR KBOS 111354Z 35010KT 10SM FEW250 23/13 A3007
METAR KBOS 111454Z 32014G18KT 10SM FEW250 25/12 A3005
METAR KBOS 111554Z 35015G19KT 10SM FEW250 26/11 A3004
What does this gibberish mean? I will break down the first line and you should be able to figure out the other lines.
METAR - type of report.
KBOS - Airport
111054Z - the first 2 digits is the day. The remaining 4 are the time in Zulu time. (all aviation times are coordinated to UTC time - which is basically GMT.) So, on the 11th at 1054Z (subtract 4 hours for EDT - makes it6:54am)
32008KT - This is the direction and speed of the surface winds. The winds were from a magnetic heading of 320 (270 is west and 360 is north) at a speed of 8knots.
10SM - this is the visibility in statute miles. It says 10, but that is the maximum that it will report. Last weekend South Bend was indicating 10SM, but I could see the Chicago Skyline from 70 miles away. Basically, when you see 10 it means at least 10.
FEW250 - this indicates the cloud cover and the base of the clouds in hundreds of feet. FEW indicates that the cloud coverage was between 1/8 and 2/8th sky cover and the base of the clouds were 25,000 feet.18/14 - this is the temperature and dew point in degrees Celsius.A3005 - This is the altimeter setting in inches of mercury. 30.05" (29.92" is a standard day)
New York LaGuardia
METAR KLGA 111051Z 33008KT 10SM FEW250 19/14 A3011
METAR KLGA 111151Z 32009KT 10SM FEW250 19/14 A3011
METAR KLGA 111251Z 32009KT 10SM FEW250 20/14 A3013
METAR KLGA 111351Z 34009KT 10SM FEW010 SCT250 22/13 A3013 RMK AO2 SLP204 FU FEW010 FU PLUME SW DRFTG SE T02220133
We see something interesting in remarks (RMK) section the last line at LaGuardia. The A02 indicates the monitoring equipment, and the SLP204 indicates sea level pressure in millibars (1204mb) but here we see FU FEW010. This means smoke at 1000 feet, Plume is southwest of LGA drifting to the southeast. The T02220133 gives exact temperature and dewpoint at the time. (22.2C and 13.3C respectively) Guess what the smoke was from. Look at the cloud height and coverage. Instrument rating needed? Hardly.
Ronald Reagan Washington National
METAR KDCA 111251Z 35005KT 10SM CLR 21/14 A3021
SPECI KDCA 111341Z 33010KT 10SM CLR 23/14 A3022
METAR KDCA 111351Z 34009KT 10SM CLR 23/14 A3023
METAR KDCA 111451Z 32008KT 4SM HZ CLR 24/14 A3022
METAR KDCA 111551Z 33009G15KT 7SM CLR 26/14 A3021
Now on to Washington DC's Reagan which sits only a mile from the Pentagon. Looks very similar to what it was in Boston and NYC except instead of FEW at 25,000 what do we see after 8:51am (1251Z). CLR - which means clear. So guess what? They did have a CAVU day to execute their plan!
If Hanjour looked straight ahead through the windshield, or off to his left at the ground, at best he would see, 35,000 feet -- 7 miles -- below him, a murky brownish-grey-green landscape, virtually devoid of surface detail, while the aircraft he was now piloting was moving along, almost imperceptibly and in eerie silence, at around 500 MPH (about 750 feet every second).In a real-world scenario - and given the reported weather conditions that day - he would likely have seen clouds below him completely obscuring the ground he was traversing.With this kind of “situational non-awareness” Hanjour might as well have been flying over Argentina, Russia, or Japan—he wouldn’t have had a clue as to where, precisely, he was.
Oh really? What clouds? The aviation reports indicate clear skies, and at worst 1/8 to 2/8 coverage at 25,000 feet. Anyone could have navigated that area without ever looking at the instrument panel.
After a few seconds at 750 ft/sec, Hanjour would figure out there’s little point in looking outside—there’s nothing there to give him any real visual cues.
Only if you are blind. I hear 737s and 767s call the field in sight from 20, 30, and 40 miles away and they are given a visual approach into the field. They fly by sight the rest of the way in. Speaking of clues, this author needs to get one.
For a man who had previously wrestled with little Cessnas, following freeways and railroad tracks (and always in the comforting presence of an instructor), this would have been a strange, eerily unsettling environment indeed.
Yes, I can see how something like this would be unsettling to someone as clueless as the author. Credentials, my ass.
Seeing nothing outside, Mr. Hanjour would be forced to divert his attention to his instrument panel, where he’d be faced with a bewildering array of instruments. He would then have to very quickly interpret his heading, ground track, altitude, and airspeed information on the displays before he could even figure out where in the world he was, much less where the Pentagon was located in relation to his position!After all, before he can crash into a target, he has to first find the target.
Do you remember me mentioning that DCA was only a mile from the Pentagon? The display panels on the airliners show nearby airports. All you have to do is make sure the airport you want is in the 12 o'clock position on the screen and go. Anyone on this message board could do it.
It is very difficult to explain this scenario, of an utter lack of ground reference, to non-pilots; but let it suffice to say that for these incompetent hijacker non-pilots to even consider grappling with such a daunting task would have been utterly overwhelming.They wouldn’t have known where to begin.
Well, I know where to stop, and it is at this point. At this point I have to call the author a complete idiot or a complete liar, or both. I have read the rest of what s/he wrote, but s/he has demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge of everything up to this point, that I am not even going to bother refuting the rest.
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