Take the $10,000 challenge!

I think what killtown is trying to say, is that it's aeronautically impossible to do it. Speed + The amount you need to turn. Etc. etc. All while under the fact you're about to die.

Sorry to be pedantic but I don't think so, he does say:

...and turn the plane around and head back towards the D.C. area and try to crash into the Pentagon any place you wish. You can hit it from the side, from the top, or where ever. It doesn’t matter where you hit it as long as some part of the plane touches the building, even if it’s just the tip of the wing.

Which kind of implies he doesn't think someone can navigate from that far away and then hit the building at all. He clearly has not said (or implied) that you need to replicate the maneuvers.
His challenge appears to be based more on navigation and general operation of the aircraft than anything, especially the psychological effect of presenting a novice with the 757 cockpit the way it is in the original post.
I would have found it daunting once too, but these days... Not really.. Not easy, don't get me wrong, without any specific training I'd crash and burn before I realised what was going on I imagine... Who knows without trying..
I'd love to try, but it costs hundreds into thousands just for 20 minutes - 1 hour. The missus and the bills would never agree! I'd rather spend the cash on a holiday or new TV to be honest.

On the point that the aircraft 'could not handle it', forgetting the other arguments I coincidently found this when looking for evidence to help one of my other discussions, it appears to be quite useful information to back up the 'shot down' theory of Flight 93 which I do quite believe (though it fully incorporates the official side of events as well) but also has other uses:

A 757 has a cruising speed of 550mph. It should have been able to go much faster than cruising speed before things started breaking off. These planes can dive, pull out and do a barrel roll without coming apart. One reply to this idea has been that the 550mph speed is only at "altitude". Flying that fast at low altitude would have doomed the structure of the aircraft.

In fact, all three other WTC jets were reported to have been flying around 500mph when they crashed. The Pentagon jet was 50 feet off the ground and clipping trees. They didn't fall apart.

It's difficult to imagine what could have been done from the cockpit to overstress a 757 at 500 mph. The consensus from the 757 pilots that have emailed is that it would be possible to overstress this aircraft, but they are really not sure what it would take to do that. It is not built into the simulators. One believed the debris may well look as it does in this case, but he always thought a shoot down debris field would look similar.

Jet engine mounts ARE designed to break away before the wing does. There are instances of engines falling off when struck by large blocks of ice formed by lavatory plumbing leaks. I have yet to read of a large passenger jet engine falling off due to overstress. Flight 427 spun in due to a stuck full rudder and didn't lose an engine. It's hard to imagine a more violent entry than that. Alaska Air 261 dove and rolled inverted, flew inverted for quite a ways as pilots tried to unstick a jammed down elevator. Engines stayed on just fine.

He recalled the case of a China Air 747 that tumbled out of control over the Pacific in 1985. The pilots were able to recover by subjecting the jumbo jet to upward of four times the force of gravity.
seattlep-i.nwsource.com...

Passenger jets, by definition, must be designed with a fairly high structural tolerance in comparison to other aircraft due to their precious cargo. We can anticipate they might fly through thunderstorms, lightning, high wind conditions, unexpectedly turbulent air with heavy loads. Flight 93 had 38 passengers. 1/4 full... so theoretically should have been able to handle more than a fully loaded aircraft.
www.flight93crash.com...

I know we've all seen the video of the old 707 doing a barrel roll, I found the statement that a 747 of all planes carried out a 4g manoever incredible, though I can quite believe it. It's amazing what these planes can actually put up with when somone dares to push them to their limits for whatever reason.

[edit on 13-4-2006 by AgentSmith]

It's 2001, we can track time with heat waves that come off of earth, of course someone can navigate. Especially that big of a passenger plane, it has tons of tracking systems.

I still dont believe it was a plane, but of course, hypothetically one could navigate that far. Quite easily.

Cool, then you can do KT's challenge! All he wants if for someone to fly the plane from the same palce the terrorists took over back to Washington and into the Pentagon. Copying the same manoevers as the terrorists is not essential. We agree the navigation is easy, in this case you don't have to do anything fancy, so you too agree it could be done?

I agree a plane could of easily hit the pentagon, just not like...5 feet off the ground, and going fast as it was, and the way it hit the pentagon.

However I think it's %100 possible that a plane could hypothetically take off and navigate to the pentagon, more so in a Boeing than anything. Due to GPS and such.

But do I believe a plane hit the pentagon? No.

Fair enough, that's a different argument and thread. But it looks like we agree on the points brought up here.

Stop the presses! AgentSmith and Vinci agreed upon something!

Originally posted by Vinci
I agree a plane could of easily hit the pentagon, just not like...5 feet off the ground, and going fast as it was, and the way it hit the pentagon.

You know I'm not even sure about that. Imagine yourself in the cockpit and looking out the windows. Can you really get a good angle looking down? Unless you had some coordinates plugged in to give you some navigation, hitting a particular spot on the ground is like standing across the street and trying to hit the bullseye on a dart board with a dart.

Exactly the point. He was in a PASSENGER AIRLINER (well, supposedly) therefore, he had GPS and other things. Possibly a handheld gps as well.

You think all pilots fly by sight? Even the ones going from..Seattle to Russia?

Originally posted by Killtown
You know I'm not even sure about that. Imagine yourself in the cockpit and looking out the windows. Can you really get a good angle looking down? Unless you had some coordinates plugged in to give you some navigation, hitting a particular spot on the ground is like standing across the street and trying to hit the bullseye on a dart board with a dart.

Pilots do it everyday when they land, when you flare the aircraft you can't see jack. It's no more impossible than landing in effect, easier in fact as the aircraft will have been horizontal, not angled up.

[edit on 14-4-2006 by AgentSmith]

Would it be more realistic if he would have been 100 ft off the ground, and hit the middle, or if he overshot the Pentagon and he could have hit 2 rings on the opposite side. These are all what ifs?

Bottom line is he turned the aircraft, pointed it at a target, a LARGE target, and he flew a large plane into it. It was a miracle that it did not hit the ground before entering the Pentagon.

If Mercedes can build a car that drives by iteself, you can be assured that aircraft technology is there as well.