JATO anyone?
Cross-posting my comment on a related thread copied to Jim Robinson:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3014940/posts?page=68#68
“Loose lips sink ships.”
This is a serious charge, and one that I considered long and hard before going public with the exposure of the “V1-VR Runway Kill Zone.”
I kept it to myself for nearly six years after stumbling onto the concept in 2006, sharing it with the chief research officer of the Air Force and being told that I was the first one to bring it to their attention and did not object to me going public with it.
I asked myself how I would feel if terrorists destroyed a fully loaded passenger plane because the Runway Kill Zone vulnerability had not been defended against and the public had not been educated to be vigilant regarding drone activities near airports or near the POTUS.
After 9-11, how did the people who warned that unlocked cockpit doors would enable terrorists to turn airliners into flying suicide bombs capable of decapitating the US government? Would they have been called tinfoil, nutcase chicken-littles needlessly alarming themselves and the flying public? Absolutely. Now we should know better, OMO.
On 9-11, the passengers of only one of four jets counter-attacked the terrorists. They were “educated” by hearing over cellphones what could be in store for them and the nation. Better that they had been “educated” before 9-11 because passengers of ALL FOUR of the jets might have rebelled or better yet, locks would have been placed on cockpit doors.
I have concluded that it is patriotic to sound the alarm when a national security vulnerability is identified and to do whatever I can to educate the public and officials on how to identify a potential threat and to advocate for reasonable defensive measures.
Terrorists are not stupid, they are way ahead of the US government and the public in their use of creative opportunistic inexpensive asymmetric attacks...exactly like the opportunity presented every time a jetliner takes off.
If a fair-minded person spends a lot of time, as I have, on US government and defense-oriented public websites, every day new attack vectors that terrorists could exploit are discussed and war-gamed as to defenses. I believe it is obvious that discussion of the Runway Kill Zone is totally appropriate and does not violate “Loose lips sinks ships.”
Check out the former NTSB aviation security expert on the CBS NY affiliate immediately declaring the JFK drone event could be a terrorist attack and speculating that a drone could be directed into a jet engine achieving the same result as happened with Captain Sully (with video of the crash provided to the public) exactly as described on the Runway Kill Zone blog:
“FBI Investigating Report Of Possible Drone Spotted Near JFK”
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/03/05/fbi-investigating-report-of-possible-drone-spotted-near-jfk/
Sean Hennessey is the CBS2 News reporter who covered the JFK story.
Al Yurman, former NTSB investigator:
“You take an object that weighs 20-25 pounds and it can do a lot of damage to a plane trying to land.
“If the object gets in the wrong place, like the engine or it happens to hit the windshield, depending on the weight, it could cause the plane to make an emergency landing.”
“Look no further than the 2009 ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ when a flock of geese got into the engines crippling an Airbus A320 forcing the pilot to make an amazing landing in the Hudson River.
“Something that small probably won’t show up.” (on the airport radar)
Lloyd Bennett Field (model aircraft field near JFK)
68 posted on Friday, May 3, 2013 12:59:59 PM by Seizethecarp
If I recall correctly, the certification requirements for four-engine civil aircraft are that they be able to maintain a “positive climb rate” if they lose two engines on takeoff.
That assumes that the drone knows the exact altitude at which the aircraft will cross over a given point on the ground, and that it will not drift sideways from the runway centerline after takeoff.
JATO anyone?
Any comments on the 777 engine explosion at Las Vegas?