Expert Top Gun/Airline Pilots say Flight 77's maneuvers are impossible

reply to post by SPreston

Over-ride the flight computer and the plane can turn and dive and climb with greater G forces...

SPreston, your ignorance of actual aviation technology, techniques and the physics of real flying is continually astonishing!!!

It would be quite entertaining to see a video of yourself, and real pilots, sitting down together in one room so that you could espouse all of your fantastic 'knowledge' and 'theories', such as those I've quoted above!

Yes, it would be a fantastic thing to watch....but, it's a fantasy that I fear will never come to pass.

Originally posted by WWu777
So, one of the world's best pilots says he CANNOT duplicate the maneuvers of Flight 77, and that it's not possible. What does that tell you?

That tells me (actually, proves to me) that foolish and idiotic people come in all shapes, sizes, experiences and vocations.

Are you more qualified than Commander Ralph Kolstad to comment on the maneuver of a 757? Do you have similar qualifications that he does? Have you logged 23,000 hours of flight time? Have you flown fighter jets and 757's for 40 years? What are YOUR qualifications against his?

You can believe anyone and anything you like. Rather than take a critical look at the event and the supporting evidence that a 757 slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon, if you want to hitch your intellectual wagon to a fool like Kolstad, please...by all means.

Originally posted by WWu777
Now, expert pilots with four decades of experience say it's impossible. Do you have any qualifications that match up to theirs?

If "expert pilots" say they can't fly a 757 in a circle while descending with an ultimate goal to hit a particular building on the ground, I am more concerned with the claim that they are "expert" pilots.

reply to post by WWu777

Are you more qualified than Commander Ralph Kolstad to comment on the maneuver of a 757?

More qualified? ME? Nope.

Do you have similar qualifications that he does? Have you logged 23,000 hours of flight time?

ME? Similar...well, yes. Except for the USAF career. Have I logged 23,000 hours? NO. About 20,000. Is that enough???

Have you flown fighter jets and 757's for 40 years?

NO to the 'fighter jets'. YES to the 757. NO to 40 years (I only started flying about 36 years ago...close enough???

NOW....the good Commander and I have never met. I would, though, be most interested in sitting down and talking 'shop' with him, so he could explain to me, pilot-to-pilot, why he has the opinions he does.

Perhaps his impressions of the AAL77 ground track, airspeeds, bank angles etc. are different than from what I've seen. I've posted a YT link, of the NTSB animation recreation based on the DFDR info. I thik I've linked the other NTSB report, showing the AutoPilot, Navigation and Fuel Consumption information from the DFDR....but, here it is again, just in case:
www.ntsb.gov...

It's pretty technical, but I'm certain Commander Kolstad will understand it. Perhaps he never saw it? OR, he was told that it was somehow 'faked'??

Not trying to beat up your OP, but with the exception of just a handful of pilots, most pilots don't see anything unusual in the data of AAL77....except for the suicidal pilot plowing into a building, of course.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Here is the NTSB animation.

weedwhacker, I can't watch that YT video, I'm on dial-up.

So, I'm not deliberetly trying to be a smart arse (this time) when I ask you if this is the NTSB video that depicts the NOC flight path?

reply to post by tezzajw

...NTSB video that depicts the NOC flight path?

It's the one with the simplistic airspeed indicator, altimeter, and DG...the control wheel, and the 3D track from just West of the Pentagon, starting at 8,000 feet, the fly over and large right turn at about 280-290 knots indicated airspeed and not more than 30-35 degrees bank.

It doesn't seem to be definitive on the NoC or SoC debate...at least, I wasn't looking at that aspect anyways.

However, I wil say, based on what I read here on ATS...and the overhead depictions I've seen....a NoC ground track would have required a much steeper bank angle than shown in the animation.

I repeat that the animation I linked was offered up on YT by a P4T member, "JohnDoeX". It was what HE wanted out there for all to see.....

reply to post by weedwhacker


Perhaps weedwacker you can provide a technically sound answer to a point that I have seen raised about the Pentagon incident. My knowledge of aircraft and flying is limited to selecting a window or aisle seat I'm afraid, so I hope you might overlook any rank stupidity to my questions.

Several years ago, I met a pilot for a commercial airline at a party who was also a reserve military pilot. He claimed, after several scotches that the maximum airspeed of an airliner is dependent on air density and thus altitude. He plane that is alleged to have hit the pentagon, he claimed, could not have been traveling at the speed cited because it physically could not have gone that fast at that altitude without suffering massive failures. Even it it did, he went on, the plane could not have descended that low at that speed because it would have created a "pillow" of air (like a bow wave) from it's rapid descent that would have prevented it from getting that close to the ground.

I meant to ask him to elaborate but he became far more interested in discussing massage techniques with a yoga instructor so I didn't get the chance. Was he correct in any part of his statements? They are believable, but that does not mean they are right.

Thanks


[edit on 17-7-2009 by metamagic]

[edit on 17-7-2009 by metamagic]

I'm not a debunker, but I do want the official story to be true purely because the alternative is just too horrible. I just think that if the American government were behind all of these events, it's not like they planned it all on the 9th or 10th of Sept. and did a rush job leaving so many holes in the story, they would have had to have planned it months and months in advance.

If it's agreed that it took months of planning then why then would they come out with stories that could be so easily disproved or questioned or that would seem so far-fetched that they couldn't possibly be true?

Presumably, if the government did orchestrate the hijacking of planes they would have had the input of top pilots or top people in the military with years of flight experience, so wouldn't these people have said, "We can't tell the public that story, it's just not possible and it will raise too many questions."?

Any group of people planning an elaborate inside job plan it down to the minutest detail and create a cover story that is very difficult to poke holes in. They also want as few moving parts as possible in order to create a cover story as uncomplicated as possible yet still achieve their goal. "Let's bring down the twin towers and leave it at that, anything more and we'll be pushing our luck!" that's what I'd have said if I was one of the orchestrators. Why add WTC 7 and the Pentagon and Shanksville into the mix? The collapse of the twin towers was catastrophic enough. It didn't need the collapse of the WTC 7 building or the Pentagon or Shanksville events for people around the world to be outraged, shocked and stunned. It's not like people would have thought, "Well the twin towers coming down was terrible, but imagine if WTC 7 had come down as well or if a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, that would have been really terrible!"

I think most people would agree that whenever there is the mention of 9/11, people think of the collapse of the twin towers. They don't think, "Oh, that was the awful day when a plane crashed into the Pentagon!" or "Oh, that was the awful day when passengers overpowered the terrorists and brought down that hijacked plane over Shanksville!" Well, unless you lived in Shanksville or worked at the Pentagon of course.

It just seems much more implausible to me that the government would plan so many different events for one day and then come up with a loose cover story that would then appear to have been thought up at the last minute. They wouldn't do that.

Going back to this topic in particular, if the flight paths and flight manoeuvres were so "impossible" and improbable and so complicated, why would they plan to make them that way? It doesn't seem logical.I think if it was that impossible then pilots all around the world would have made an outcry about it when the story was released and there's no way that would have been kept quiet. In the OP it says Commander Ralph Kolstad questioned it days after, and that's good that he did if he found the claim so outrageous, but why didn't hundreds or thousands of other experienced pilots around the world also question it? Someone like him would be so influential and have so many contacts and he would have so many colleagues and ex-colleagues that I presume would have felt the same way, why didn't we and why aren't we hearing from them?

Instead, it seems like these people are very few and far between and they seem to come out of the woodwork years later as in the OP:
"And now 6 years after 9/11 he says, When one starts using his own mind, and not what one was told, there is very little to believe in the official story."

Originally posted by weedwhacker
NOW....the good Commander and I have never met. I would, though, be most interested in sitting down and talking 'shop' with him, so he could explain to me, pilot-to-pilot, why he has the opinions he does.

As far as I know, weedwhacker, Commander Ralph Kolstad is a member of Pilots For Truth.

Why don't you sign up there, sit down at your monitor and engage in some civil discussion with him?

Don't back down now, you've quite clearly stated here that you want to talk shop with him.

reply to post by Mark_Amy


Likely it is too damaging to career or retirement, or possibly one's life and family, while still serving under their thumb to publicly come out against the government.

Although a few were active duty, most of these military persons retired before they spoke up.

200+ Pilots and Aviation Professionals

200+ Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials

Much of the same applies to engineers and physicists and other professionals, because a huge percentage of their contracts are government or military.

700+ Engineers and Architects

400+ Professors Question 9/11

O.K. forget about what planes and can and can't do! What pilots can and can't do which kind of manuvers! The question everyone here should be asking is what in the HELL happened to all the people on those planes. Did the government kill them all?!?!? Even with all the hype about 9/11, I have just got to believe that if those planes were remotely controlled, and our government flew them into it's own cities, what did they do with the passenger's that left the airports on that dreaded day? There are families(wives, husbands, children) out there with loved ones who are GONE!!! So where are they? I don't believe that every single one of these people could stay quiet, and out of touch with their families knowing that they were, in part, responsible for over 2000 deaths. With today's media I just can't believe that you can keep that many people quiet about such a conspiracy! I understand that main stream media is somewhat controlled, but what about all the freelance reporters, and photographers?! Someone like that would love to break that kind of news to the whole world. I know as a combat veteran that our country has done some unforgivable things, but just how do you keep that many people silent?!

Originally posted by skyeyes
The question everyone here should be asking is what in the HELL happened to all the people on those planes. ..... I don't believe that every single one of these people could stay quiet, and out of touch with their families knowing that they were, in part, responsible for over 2000 deaths.

You think the passengers were partly responsible? How?

I think none of the passengers had any idea of what was going on, apart from flight 93, and they were all killed when the planes hit their targets. I find it very hard to believe that the planes were switched and then the passengers were taken to a secret hangar to be executed as collateral damage.

And this comes from someone who recently bought the collector's edition of The X Files, is currently watching seasons 1 to 10 and whose head is full of government conspiracies!! Gotta say though, I'm currently on season 2 and it is very exciting, but still not quite as captivating as the 9/11 story! I guess it's like people say, "truth is stranger than fiction!" I wonder what Mulder and Scully would have made of it??

Originally posted by metamagic

Several years ago, I met a pilot for a commercial airline at a party who was also a reserve military pilot. He claimed, after several scotches that the maximum airspeed of an airliner is dependent on air density and thus altitude.

Could you pass me this pilot's name? I'd like to make sure he never pilots an aircraft I am on.

Maximum speed of an aircraft (which includes "airliner") is dependent on engine size - pure and simple. Put a big enough engine on a brick and it'll fly pretty fast. The Rolls Royce or Pratt and Whitney engines on these large airliners can indeed get them up to the speeds discussed with these events.

Even it it did, he went on, the plane could not have descended that low at that speed because it would have created a "pillow" of air (like a bow wave) from it's rapid descent that would have prevented it from getting that close to the ground.

Another "urban legend" created by someone for unknown purposes. Aircraft have flown into the ground all the time in the low-altitude/high-speed environment. There's even a term for it - "controlled flight into terrain". Happens at airshows more often than I like to see/hear - a pilot misjudges altitude during a loop or a low pass and scrapes his plane, often at high speed, into a bajillion pieces on the ground. Ground effect does effect a landing aircraft when various factors are in play to kill lift on the wings, but depending on the downward velocity vector Mr Newton and physics will always come into play and a 100 ton aircraft, regardless how aerodynamic it is, will reconnect with the ground. What your "pilot" is talking about shows an alarming misunderstanding of aerodynamics.

reply to post by metamagic


metamagic,

Have your pilot friend watch this video.

It's the military variant, but still a B757. I'd say at about 150 feet off the deck...





[edit on 18 July 2009 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by tezzajw

Don't back down now, you've quite clearly stated here that you want to talk shop with him.

Ya know...it's quite different to attempt conversation via interwebs, versus face-to-face in chat made. There are nuances, voice intonations...mannerisms, etc, that are hard to explain nor define....

Not to make this about anyone on P4T, but I'll tell you a story:

A fellow I met casually some years ago was quite a talker, and spin artist...claimed he was a cargo pilot for a company back then (now out of business), not one of the biggies...but anyway claimed we flew the B727 for them.

He was adept at avoiding specifics, and changing topics...but knew enough to bluff well. (Think the story "Catch Me if You Can")

Anyway, I finally nailed him because he kept using the word 'aircraft' when describing the B727. Pilots don't talk to each other that way...and I pinned him, and said, "You know, you sound more like a Flight Atendant. That's how they're trained to refer to the airplane."

Got him!!! He was a furloughed F/A for PanAm (that's how old this story is, BTW).

I keep my BS detectors better tuned, nowadays......

reply to post by weedwhacker


Not quite the same as engines inches off the lawn at 530 mph is it? Didn't fly through five 337 pound light poles either did it? And I would just bet that pilot in your video did not get flunked-out from a Cessna piloting school did he?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c161d1e54ddd.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by townio
I saw that remote guided missile on tv once prolly this kind of stuff can make all kind of acrobatic figures before attacking its target. It kind looks like a plane too.

Fixed your link for you.
I hope.
You only need the code after the "v=".

reply to post by SPreston


Try watching the video of a real airplane, on the low altitude high-speed pass (HOW fast? Well, we'll let people decide...but it has enough excess airspeed to convert to altitude as shown in that climb at the end.....)

SO...watch the video, and picture the same airplane, barrelling in at 300-350 knots (or more) at about, oh....150 feet. NOW...just push forward a little on the control column....aiming at the bottom of a building. It is less than a second away, your momentum will carry you.

A Cessna pilot could do it....heck, THIS guy could do it, if he wanted to!!!

reply to post by weedwhacker


Wheres the rate of decent on that calculator? that makes a big difference.

reply to post by jprophet420


Yeah....no IVSI, is there?

But, just watching it, there IS a time reference:

13:37:00 --- 2440 feet/300kt
:20 --- 1950 feet/334kt
:30 --- 1425 feet/387kt
:40 --- 524 feet/442kt
:44 --- 180 feet/462kt


NOW...just using those numbers as rough estimates, we get descent rates of, from 13:37:00 to 13:37:20 -- 1,470 fpm

The next ten seconds, rate is 3,150 fpm

Next ten seconds, rate is 5,406 fpm

Last four seconds, works out to 5,106 fpm

Airspeed increasing dramatically, as would be expected.

This is power on, not flight idle.

The clarity of the video is poor, but please try to note the Attitude Indicator, especially the pitch attitude. Just for comparison's sake, in normal flight, at cruise, it's normal to have about 2 to 3 degrees nose up pitch. At slower speeds, in level flight, it will could be as much as 5 degrees nose up --- it depends on speed, weight and configuration (flaps/slats).

edit:

Just watched the vid again...you can see, from 13:36:40, the speed stays fairly constant, the pitch is about 4 or 5 degrees nose down. This would indicate that the throttles were pulled back, (and I don't mean back to idle, more like about 40-45%) because if they weren't it would have been accelerating in that turn. After rolling out and lining up on the Pentagon, the nose is pushed down, but power must be increasing as well, because of the speed increase.

Notice, also, in the turn...times when altitude is level, and the pitch attitude.

I'd like to see an accompanying engine display for this video.....



[edit on 18 July 2009 by weedwhacker]