Payne Stewart on Flight Sim

www.popularmechanics.com...

There's an awful lot of flaws in their analysis of 9/11 "conspiracy thories". My suspicions are always aroused when I come across an Ad Hominem, a debunking whose case incudes a personal attack or character assasination; and this article fits that. Even the phrase "9/11 Lies" indicates that the authors have decided that we're all just con-men who've invented a fantasy to sell books and sound cool! If you're ever in Oxford, pop into the Union and you'll see the same thing: If they can't defeat your arguement they'll try to discredit you as an individual.

I decided to test the second point with my Microsoft Flight Simulator 2005. I recreated Payne Stewart's last flight using the same aircraft at the same time of year over the same route. I took off from Orlando and headed for Dallas using proper skylanes. To cause the crew to become debilitated so quickly, the decompression must have taken place at at least half the Learjet's 51,000 foot service ceiling; this occured 23 minutes after taking off from Orlando when the plane was over northern Florida. Then I just left the autopilot on and followed my nose at cruising speed, which is what happened during the real incident.

According to the ABC News report of the incident, fighters were scrambled from Elgin and Tyndall AFB in Florida to intercept the Learjet after air traffic control had alerted NORAD. These were then relieved on station by the Air National Guard out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They follwed the aircraft until it ran out of fuel and crashed in North Dakota.

What's wrong with this report? Well, lots. It contradicts the testimony of the "expert" in the PM article. The article says it took NORAD 1 hour 22 minutes to locate Payne Stewart's Learjet, I found in my experiment that 1 hour 22 minutes after the earliest time for the decompression, my aircraft was flying over Arkensas, not far from Tulsa itself, where the USAF fighters were relieved on station. This is the problem: the language of the report suggests that the fighters from Florida had already been in contact with the Learjet for some considerable time when the Tulsa aircraft took over. If we add this to the PM debunkers, it suggests that by the time the Tulsa aircraft were deployed the Florida fighters had only just found the Learjet. And I'm not taking into account the time it took air traffic control to realize what had happened, react and contact NORAD, and then for NORAD to tell the USAF to scramble. By the article's own words not all NORAD alerts progress to a scramble.

I also hear that the sponsor of this article has connections with Michael Chertov of the Homeland Security Department. No surprise there!

www.fromthewilderness.com...

Someone suggested this as an explanation.

It still doesn't explain how it took so long for the aircraft to get to the area where it was eventually intercepted. The stalling speed of the Learjet is 87 knots with full flaps (according to MS Flight Simulator). But it must have been flying at its standard climbing speed, because the crew were incapacitated or dead, therfore unable to change the autopilot settings.

What's wrong with this report? Well, lots. It contradicts the testimony of the "expert" in the PM article. The article says it took NORAD 1 hour 22 minutes to locate Payne Stewart's Learjet...

Nothing to do with Popular Mechanics, that's what the NTSB accident report said too. See www.airsafe.com...

Originally posted by Hagbard Celine

What's wrong with this report? Well, lots. It contradicts the testimony of the "expert" in the PM article. The article says it took NORAD 1 hour 22 minutes to locate Payne Stewart's Learjet, I found in my experiment that 1 hour 22 minutes after the earliest time for the decompression, my aircraft was flying over Arkensas, not far from Tulsa itself, where the USAF fighters were relieved on station.

Afaik microsoft flight simulator world isn't in 1:1 scale. Did you take this into account?

Originally posted by PsykoOps

Originally posted by Hagbard Celine

What's wrong with this report? Well, lots. It contradicts the testimony of the "expert" in the PM article. The article says it took NORAD 1 hour 22 minutes to locate Payne Stewart's Learjet, I found in my experiment that 1 hour 22 minutes after the earliest time for the decompression, my aircraft was flying over Arkensas, not far from Tulsa itself, where the USAF fighters were relieved on station.

Afaik microsoft flight simulator world isn't in 1:1 scale. Did you take this into account?

No, because I don't know what the specific scale the Flight Sim world is. But I don't think this could make much of a difference since I've done routes I've actually flown myself for real, like London-Glasgow, London Helsinki and London-Singapore, and the time I've taken is almost the same in both the real world and the virtual world od Flight Simulartor.

Maybe I remember wrong. I do remember that the 3D models aren't in scale but not sure about the world.

Originally posted by PsykoOps
Maybe I remember wrong. I do remember that the 3D models aren't in scale but not sure about the world.

The playing environment is at least very close to live scale. The light aricraft like the Cesna and Piper seem a little big compared to big aircraft like the Boeings and Antonov etc, but I don't know specifically. If you look at the real pictures of these aircraft you can see that the small ones are tiny beside the big ones. This could be to do with resolution limitations. The game writers might have decided to sacrifice realism in favour of impressive graphics.

THe world and the objects aren't scaled correctly (the world is too small overall), but relative to time vs. distance, this is 1:1.

Would you happen to have found the pictures of the crash?

I did the same thing yesterday with Flight Simulator X, and all my plane did was hit the ground at a very low angle, like around 10 to 15 degrees. The NTSB report says that:

At 1211:26 CDT, the NODAK 32 lead pilot reported, "the target is descending and he is doing multiple aileron rolls, looks like he's out of control...in a severe descent, request an emergency descent to follow target." The TULSA 13 pilot reported, "It's soon to impact the ground he is in a descending spiral."

Source: www.ntsb.gov...

Granted, I am not a licensed pilot, I desire to obtain one, have been playing flight simulator since 2000, and have a couple of unlogged hours on a 1968 Twin Piper Comanche.

I'm researching to compare this with Flight 93.

Just curious, is the plane you used a add-on or did it come with the game? Sorry I'm not familiar with 05 but fsx is awesome! Just curious, if it was a add on plane the specifications on it might not be accurate as someone made it.

If you are asking me, I used the one that came with the program. The Bombardier Learjet 45. I haven't found the flight data recorder info yet, which might change things a bit. But I was cruising at 40,000 feet with just the Nav Hold on pointing towards Fargo, ND, and set a fuel leak.

I was more interested in how the plane fell, than of where it landed, but it kept the attitude right enough to prevent it from stalling and just basically glided itself down around 170mph.

I will try it again when I come across the FDR. I want to see the autopilot settings, and pictures of the debris field. And any links to someone that might have researched this already.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 or Microsoft Flight Simulator X? 2005 doesn't exist. And yes, MSFS is 1:1 scale.

Starred.

I was more interested in how the plane fell, than of where it landed, but it kept the attitude right enough to prevent it from stalling and just basically glided itself down around 170mph.

MSFS flight dynamics is not very good to say the least and they do not replicate glide performance very well.

Thanks.

[edit on 6/9/2007 by C0bzz]

You can't use MSFS for any real aerodynamics testing - it isn't accurate enough. If you got X-Plane, and found a replica jet the same as your trying to model, then this is far closer.

The only problem you have then is in the way the real autopilot behaves vs. the sim. With engine failures you're going to have lost both electrical gens so the AP most likely wasn't "in" anymore.

The reason for the rolling of the real jet was probably because the AP dropped out, and something moved the controls that sent it rolling. If the pilots are dead, turbulence could cause their arms to hit the control column, or a loose article or something. There are quite a few valid reasons why "odd" things can happen to an otherwise apparently good aircraft.

Originally posted by mirageofdeceit
If the pilots are dead, turbulence could cause their arms to hit the control column, or a loose article or something. There are quite a few valid reasons why "odd" things can happen to an otherwise apparently good aircraft.

True, but what started the extreme turbulence?

The accident site was located at 45 degrees, 25 minutes north latitude and 98 degrees, 45 minutes west longitude and was characterized by a crater that measured 42 feet, 4 inches long (oriented east to west) by 21 feet, 7 inches wide (oriented north to south). The crater measured 8 feet, 6 inches at its deepest point, which was approximately 7 feet south of the crater's northern wall. The local terrain was relatively flat. A marsh was located approximately 80 feet due east of the crater.

The main airframe wreckage was located in or near the impact crater. The majority of the rest of the wreckage was found within an approximately 75-foot radius. Additional wreckage was recovered up to 150 feet away. Almost all of the wreckage found outside of the crater was located east of the crater.

A debris field of smaller wreckage, including instrument panel components, the flight manual, seat cushions, life vests, and personal effects, extended outward from the impact crater in a north-northeasterly direction toward the marsh. The debris field formed a conical shape of approximately 35 degrees.

Source:www.ntsb.gov...

That puts him right her e

The weather was:

Mean Temperature 48 °F / 8 °C
Dew Point 30 °F / -1 °C
Average Humidity 40
Precipitation 0.00 in / 0.00 cm
Sea Level Pressure 29.90 in / 1012 hPa
Wind Speed 21 mph / 34 km/h (WNW)
Max Gust Speed 41 mph / 66 km/h
Visibility 10 miles / 16 kilometers

Source: www.wunderground.c... om/history/airport/KDVL/1999/10/25/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA

I'm having a hard time finding NTSB's Flight 93 report.