NORAD and the jets diverting...

Do you have any idea how an afterburner works bsbray? They would have had to be in afterburner for the entire flight to even approach their top speed. When you go into afterburner, you are opening nozzles in the exhaust that just start pouring large ammounts of fuel into the exhaust causing it to burn, and create more power. You're basically opening your fuel tanks and dumping them into the engines. Even a short flight in afterburner eats HUGE ammounts of fuel.

Here's a good example for you.

But a turbojet with an afterburner has a typical TSFC value of 1.5. This says that adding the afterburner, although it produces more thrust, costs much more fuel for each pound of thrust added. For example,

Initial thrust = 2000 pounds
Thrust with afterburner = 3000 pounds
TSFC = 1.5
Fuel flow rate = 4500 pounds per hour.
www.grc.nasa.gov...

And for comparison, here are the stats for an F-16

Primary Function: Multirole fighter
Builder: Lockheed Martin Corp.
Power Plant: F-16C/D: one Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-200/220/229 or General Electric F110-GE-100/129
Thrust: F-16C/D, 27,000 pounds
Length: 49 feet, 5 inches (14.8 meters)
Height: 16 feet (4.8 meters)
Wingspan: 32 feet, 8 inches (9.8 meters)
Speed: 1,500 mph (Mach 2 at altitude)
Ceiling: Above 50,000 feet (15 kilometers)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 37,500 pounds (16,875 kilograms)
Range: More than 2,000 miles ferry range (1,740 nautical miles)
Armament: One M-61A1 20mm multibarrel cannon with 500 rounds; external stations can carry up to six air-to-air missiles, conventional air-to-air and air-to-surface munitions and electronic countermeasure pods
Unit cost: F-16A/B , $14.6 million (fiscal 98 constant dollars); F-16C/D,$18.8 million (fiscal 98 constant dollars)
Crew: F-16C, one; F-16D, one or two
Date Deployed: January 1979

Fuel Capacity internal: 7,160 lb (3,255 kg)
external: 6,950 lb (3,160 kg) in two 370 gal (1,400 L) and one 300 gal (1,135 L) tanks
8,015 lb (3,645 kg) in two 600 gal (2,270 L) tanks

Notice the internal fuel capacity. 7,000 pounds will go in the blink of an eye in full afterburner at top speed. Using that formula, with 2,000 pounds of thrust, the fuel flow in afterburner is 4,500 pounds/hour. The F-16 has 27,000 pounds of thrust. They would burn through the fuel in about 45 minutes in full afterburner.

Dude, I'm not saying top speed. I'm just saying they could've risked burning that oh-so-precious fuel to go a little faster than 400 mph in light of such a national disaster. It's not like they were flying halfway across the world, and even at 400 mph it was only a 19-minute trip.

The problem was that no one knew WHAT flight that was, or even if it was a valid target. I found several accounts stating that they had an unknown blip on radar, and weren't even sure if it was a plane or something else picked up by the radar. The fighters would have had to make sure they had enough fuel on board when they arrived on scene to do a search patter to find if it WAS a plane, then intercet and identify it.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The problem was that no one knew WHAT flight that was, or even if it was a valid target. I found several accounts stating that they had an unknown blip on radar, and weren't even sure if it was a plane or something else picked up by the radar.

There were atleast 11 blips at the start, a i think even a number of upto 21 at one point has been sighted also. These were 'false blips' as part of the war games running that morning, this is admitted too. They were taken off screens after the WTC was first hit and the 'live drill' turned into a 'real life' scenario. Just one of the small ways in which 9/11 was planned from the inside out and caught a lot of innocent people with their hands unknowingly in the pie. Most of the top brass outside the small inner circle were told it would just be 'let one hit, stop the rest', Bush was outside the inner circle, hence his expression during My Pet Goat when he was told a second plane has hit the WTC - that's the expression of realising you are a puppet. Not a bad alibi either, reading to school kids while Cheney is in a bunker controlling the War Games.

The book 'Crossing the Rubicon' has a lot of detail about the false radar blips and 9/11 wargames aspect of the day, a lot was happening that morning, it's a great read.

Originally posted by TheShroudOfMemphis
These were 'false blips' as part of the war games running that morning, this is admitted too.

Where? Not in Crossing the Rubicon. The only evidence to support this is an article talking about injects that clearly refers to Norad screens, not FAA, and also says they were purged moments after the first call came in.

Originally posted by ashmok

Originally posted by TheShroudOfMemphis
These were 'false blips' as part of the war games running that morning, this is admitted too.

Where? Not in Crossing the Rubicon. The only evidence to support this is an article talking about injects that clearly refers to Norad screens, not FAA, and also says they were purged moments after the first call came in.

From the book and the link below which adds more context to it all:

"
Additional war games on 9/11 included Northern Vigilance, an exercise that pulled Air Force fighters from the east coast of the United States up into Canada and Alaska simulating an attack out of Russia. All of those fighters were rendered useless as the 9/11 plot unfolded - too far away to respond.

One of the components of this drill included "false blips" (radar injects simulating aircraft in flight) placed on FAA radar screens. 21 At one point FAA head Jane Garvey said they suspected up to 11 hijackings on 9/11. Was she saying they couldn't determine which were real, which were simulated, and which were live-fly military exercises?

Regardless, all of this rendered Air Force response on 9/11 useless.

In Air War Over America it is documented that General Arnold of NORAD didn't pull out of the war game titled Vigilant Guardian until reports of flight 93 being hijacked were coming in. That was at 9:16, a total of 54 minutes after it was known that flight 11 was a hijacking. 22 What took so long? Were there still "false blips" on FAA radar screens at this time?

There were likely false blips on screen even after 9:16. The Kean Commission's report introduced "phantom flight-11" as being reported by the FAA at 9:25 on 9/11. The FAA reported flight 11 was heading to Washington D.C. at that time when in fact it had already struck the World Trade Center. The Kean Commission's report stated they were "unable to locate the source of the mistaken FAA information." 23

"Phantom flight-11" was a false blip, but since the war games are classified, specific information on "false blips" and other details can't be reported.

Now imagine being an air traffic controller with both real planes and "false blips" simulating hijackings on your screens when suddenly there are real, multiple, hijackings. Where do you send the few Air Force fighters that you have? You can't guess wrong, you don't have enough assets for that. The FAA doesn't even make that decision, the military does. The Kean Commission managed to scapegoat the FAA in their report, but the Air Force itself confirmed the FAA did its job properly on 9/11 in Air War Over America. 24
"

www.fromthewilderness.com...

Originally posted by TheShroudOfMemphis
From the book and the link below which adds more context to it all:

Thanks, but there's no evidence there, it only shows Ruppert's skill at jumping to conclusions.

Examples:

Additional war games on 9/11 included Northern Vigilance, an exercise that pulled Air Force fighters from the east coast of the United States up into Canada and Alaska simulating an attack out of Russia. All of those fighters were rendered useless as the 9/11 plot unfolded - too far away to respond.

Ruppert bases this entirely on a Norad release saying "The North American Aerospace Defense Command shall deploy fighter aircraft as necessary to Forward Operating Locations (FOLS) in Alaska and Northern Canada...". Note that it says "as necessary", so we don't actually know that any fighters were deployed. If they were, we don't know where they came from. And there's no evidence at all that they were fighters that would have been available for immediate response on 9/11.

One of the components of this drill included "false blips" (radar injects simulating aircraft in flight) placed on FAA radar screens. 21

Again, fake certainty. The "21" reference is to his own book, and if we look there we find this:

No other mainstream press (especially in the US) had mentioned that false radar blips had been inserted onto radar screens on September 11th. But on whose screens? Where? A major anomaly in official 9/11 accounts had been officially ignored.

No supporting evidence here, either. He takes a story that clearly talks of injects on NORAD screens, asks if they might have been on other screens, then treats his own question as evidence.

At one point FAA head Jane Garvey said they suspected up to 11 hijackings on 9/11. Was she saying they couldn't determine which were real, which were simulated, and which were live-fly military exercises?

Again, no evidence, he's asking a question. And actually this is one that's easy to answer: she wasn't saying any such thing. In Richard Clarke's book (where the 11 figure came from) she's quoted as saying "We have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications.” Off course, which means they knew the course they were on -- not a false blip. Out of communications, which means they were in communication once -- not a false blip.

We don't have to guess at this, there are even media accounts explaining why some of these suspected hijackings came about.

Example: Delta Flight 1989 is told to land by Delta, the FAA don't realise this and are suspicious when he makes his request (there was even a SWAT team sent to the airport). The same article mentions others:

One, a TWA flight, refuses to land in Pittsburgh and wants to fly on toward Washington. Another, a Midwest Express flight, disappears from radar over West Virginia. And three jets over the Atlantic Ocean are sending out distress signals, the Coast Guard reports.
www.usatoday.com...

Fighters were launched after a scare over Korean Airlines Flight 85, too ( www.usatoday.com... ).
Lots of stories, all in the public domain, no need to invent "false blips on FAA screens" to explain them.

[edit on 15-9-2005 by ashmok]

There is absolutely NO WAY that they would ever put false blips on an active ATC radar screen. For ANY reason. It doesn't matter how realistic the exercise is, it won't happen. If they wanted to do an exercise involving the FAA they would set up the exercise with an FAA training installation. It becomes a Flight Safety issue if they are putting fake returns on an active screen. The controllers wouldn't know who was the real flight and who was the fake one, and would have issues trying to keep them apart from each other.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
There is absolutely NO WAY that they would ever put false blips on an active ATC radar screen. For ANY reason. It doesn't matter how realistic the exercise is, it won't happen. If they wanted to do an exercise involving the FAA they would set up the exercise with an FAA training installation. It becomes a Flight Safety issue if they are putting fake returns on an active screen.

Wouldn't that be the whole point of putting blips on radar in the first place if the war games were meant as a distraction from the actual attacks and cause confusion? It may help to remember that our argument is that certain people in our government had these events carried out for political reasons. I don't think this line of reasoning would much affect them or their decisions in a situation like that.

There would have been evidence of this happening. Unless they had people specifically listening for radio communications for the "false" planes on the radar, the ATC controllers would have had reports of many planes with no communication woth them. And if they DID have people listening, then that's even MORE people in on the conspiracy with more potential for leaks.