EMP Over USA

QUESTION

1] How many people are flying in the air over the US at any given time?

2] If a emp plus happened in mid air wouldnt that create alot of yard darts, since commercial aircraft are not emp hardened?

3] What should be done about it?

*fixed caps lock title*

[edit on 22-9-2005 by dbates]

1) A whole lot
2) No, but it would overload the aircraft's electronics and short them out, making the plane have to emergency-land. Not that hard to find a nearby airport when you have 30,000 feet worth of altitude and a good 400 knot cruising speed.
3) Nothing. In order to create a large EMP that can cause enough EM energy to overload a plane's circuits you would have to detonate a nuke a couple km away from the plane. And its somewhat easy to spot a large, thermonuclear-warheaded cruise missile of death with the US radar system, giving enough time to turn the plane. You would need real-time tracking of the aircraft to direct the cruise missile properly. Which is not real easy considering it would take either a hijacked radar system or a really evil spy satellite.

Originally posted by ARCHER
QUESTION

1] How many people are flying in the air over the US at any given time?

2] If a emp plus happened in mid air wouldnt that create alot of yard darts, since commercial aircraft are not emp hardened?

3] What should be done about it?

*fixed caps lock title*

[edit on 22-9-2005 by dbates]

1. There are many thousands of people in the air over the US at any given time. When compared to the number of people on the ground, the number of people in the air is insignificant.

2. The electronics would shut down and I suspect the engines would shut down as well as the computer likely controls something with the engines.

That said, planes can be flown without electronics and I suspect that the landing gear can be deployed without electronics. Modern airliners are very good at gliding, so they could glide down to the ground and land.

3. Nothing. The odds are so remote that it doesn't matter and at present, the only efficient way to generate an EMP in the air is through a nuclear detonation. If we have nuclear detonation over the US then our commercial airliners are the least of our problems.

Nuclear detonation over US soil (presumably by cruise missile or ICBM) means we've probably tracked it and our birds are already in-flight to the point of origin, in which case the only viable option is to place your head between your legs and kiss your butt goodbye.

Though they are nowhere near as strong as the EMP from nuclear weapons you can create a convential E-bomb. Flux compression generator bomb its a old concept dating back to the 50s. But its fairly simple and potentially inexpensive to make on.

science.howstuffworks.com...

This is likely what a terrorst EMP weapon would be and its a far cry from a nuclear level EMP. Besides if a terrorist had a nuclear weapon they wouldnt be using it for its EMP effects