Posted on 12/09/2005 5:08:08 PM PST by concretebob
And with that, I think I'll just go back to drinking.
:-)
Really, I programmed it for 13 years, taught it in OKC at the FAA academy for 5. Course manager/Lead instructor. Please tell me how it works...
"As in the case of TWA 800, but much MUCH less likely now, when and if the government feels the need to either restrict or deny information to the general public it is generally for a good reason."
Well, I hope so.
But I'll say I don't think the TWA 800 explanation implausible. Some say they saw a missile. But others say they didn't. The stories become apocryphal. With the JFK assassination the slanted conspiracists say "x amount of people heard three shots". However twice as many heard only two. People hear and see different things under stress. And I've read it impossible from the shore to see the minimal exhaust from a portable sam that allegedly hit 800.
But this time we a pilot eye-witness close.
Could be some test, but we'll see.
"Everyone who should know, knows why the Mombasa missiles failed. This incident is not the same thing."
Well, if it's portable sams fired at airliners it's got a commonality. But the argument that this was not a terrorist incident because the theoretical missiles missed in not a persuasive one to me.
I've got 15 years experience flying fighters and currently fly MD-11's on international routes and have flown in and out of LAX on several occasions. It is not uncommon for pilots to report seeing strange things. The airspace around LAX is incredibly busy. No one else reported seeing anything unusual, and everyone airborne at the time was interviewed by the FBI after they landed (the FBI did do an investigation, but what more are they supposed to do when the only evidence is a single report). A missile launch is not an event that would go unnoticed by all but one aircraft.
"there were several witnesses with wartime fighter experience who said that what they saw was a missile, and that the color of the explosion was wrong for a fuel tank explosion."
I have considerable combat experience and the first thing I will tell you is that the color of an explosion tells you next to nothing. And in the case of TWA 800, I believe there was only one military witness to the event (an ANG helicopter pilot), and his actual statement was that he doesn't know what he saw but that it could have been a missile.
With all due respect, that is because you don't understand the technology involved. The proximity of the radar returns in a passive system is irrelevant and the PASSUR system doesn't assign any ID's. It simply reads what is transmitted to it. The "radar" (it is really only a receiver) can only see what is sent to it. And what is sent to it is a very specific signature that provides very specific information about the aircraft carrying the transmitter. All commercial aircraft now fly with a similar system (TCAS) that is used to prevent midair collisions. It relies entirely on the same transponder transmissions and is incredibly precise at fixing aircraft positions. But it can only "see" what is transmitted to it, and cannot display anything else.
Ditto!!!!
I guess it really doesn't matter if you ignore the fact that the radar can only "track" transponders and therefore, if it was "tracking" something real, whatever it was, was squawking an IFF code. I'm not terrorist, but if I ever planned on trying to take out a commercial airliner, I wouldn't squawk an IFF code announcing my presence to every aircraft within 100 miles that had a TCAS system on board (and that would be every commercial aircraft within 100 miles). Furthermore, since the only track the "radar" can see is an IFF track, if the "target" really got that close to AA 612, it would have set off a TCAS alert AA 612 that would be recorded and traceable.
I'm somewhat familiar with IFF transponders because many years ago I was trained as a Hawk Pulse Acquisition Radar repairman. Are you saying that Air traffic control uses only transponders, and not regular radar as well? At the time, we used a radar system that showed transponder returns as brighter dots on the screen. If there was a transponder in the target, it was a friend. If there wasn't, it was a foe and you would shoot it down.
By today's standards that was primitive technology. But are you saying that air traffic control uses only transponders, and no accompanying radar as well that could paint the side of a plane or missile? Wouldn't that mean that if someone in a light plane, for instance, strayed into the traffic pattern, you wouldn't see it?
If you were using both radar and transponder returns, then it seems conceivable that the radar could confuse an object close to a plane but without a transponder as the plane itself.
You are NOT looking at ATC RADAR!!
I've watched it several times and do not share your complete skeptisism. This object appears and then it becomes flight AAL612 according to PASSUR!
Let me ask you a few questions:
Do you have any vested interest one way or the other what this object is or is not?
Do you believe beyond a reasonable doubt this cannot be a missle?
Do you deny that according to PASSUR this object appears in front of AAL612 when AAL612 is over 6000ft altitude?
Do you deny that PASSUR identifies this object as AAL612, but at an altitude of 1500ft, at this point in time?
Do you deny that PASSUR has this NEW object actually becoming AAL612 a few seconds after what appears to be a cross-over (or a couple or 3 cross overs) and that the originally tracked AAL612 out of LAX is lost?
Do you believe this object seen by PASSUR is a ghost object as defined in your post 46?
If you really want to know ...we use several ASR type RADAR systems at various facilities. At DFW I have 4 ASR 9 terminal RADAR systems for our Controllers to choose from. They DO BOTH Primary and Secondary RADAR returns.
NO, I understand what you are saying now, and I said earlier that I wasn't experienced enough to judge what people are seeing on this display.
I was responding in part to Rokke's comment, "I guess it really doesn't matter if you ignore the fact that the radar can only "track" transponders and therefore, if it was "tracking" something real, whatever it was, was squawking an IFF code."
Radar can surely track passive objects as well as transponders. Transponders make things brighter and easier to track, but they are mainly used for purposes of identification. Perhaps the original ATC radar and the display people are looking at are two different things, but that's not entirely evident from what is being said here.
Anyway, I'm headed for bed.
No problem, it can be confusing at times.
May I ask you to respond to my post 92? Do you agree with my observations of what I am viewing on PASSUR?
BTW my husband said he thinks the media isn't reporting anymore than necessary on these incidents because it would validate the President's war on terror and that is the last thing these libs want to do... even if it gets us all killed.
bump
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