Randall may have his heart in the right
place but I'm afraid he's bought into some pretty wild claims with no evidence.
I'm a Captain for a major airline on the
Boeing 757/767 aircraft and have over 30 years of flying experience, over
one-third
of which is in Boeing aircraft. And
I'm telling you that Randall's claim that
"Terrorists in fact did not fly those planes,
it is totally and completely impossible
for those planes to have been flown in such a manner from the cockpit."
is totally false.
The article Randall cites starts off completely
wrong and is one misstatement after another.
> Two of the aircraft exceeded their software
limits on 9/11...They are intelligent planes, and have software limits
pre set
> so that pilot error cannot cause passenger
injury. Though they are physically capable of high g maneuvers, the software
> in their flight control systems prevents high
g maneuvers from being performed via the cockpit controls. They are limited
> to approximately 1.5 g's, I repeat, one and
one half g's. This is so that a pilot mistake cannot end up breaking grandma's
neck.
Totally wrong.
The Boeing 757/767 aircraft both have traditional
hydromechanical flight controls. And while the autopilot (when engaged)
limits g loads for passenger comfort (among
other things), once the autopilot is disconnected the pilot has full maneuver
authority
within the mechanical limits of the flight
control actuation system. In other words, it is not only definitely
possible for someone
to have flown those aircraft on 9/11 "in
such a manner from the cockpit" but it is the ONLY possibility since
there is no way
either aircraft, or any commercial aircraft,
could somehow be flown by "remote-control". The pilot would have
absolute control
of the aircraft. All the bogus claims made
in the article, which include that the Boeing 767/757 are "commuter" airplanes
that
can be flown by "remote-control" are immediate
give-aways to anyone who has any aviation background that whoever wrote
the article knows nothing about commercial
airliners.
Secondly, I disagree with Randall's claim
that "cell phones do not work in airplanes". This one I have personal experience
with.
My spouse was on a business trip once and
called me at home on their cell phone while midway through a cross-country
flight!
After a few minute when I realized that
the cell phone call was from the airplane I said we'd better hang up because
who knew
what antenna was picking up the service
and what kind of roaming charges we'd incurred!
Besides my own personal experience with
a cell phone call from an airplane, here is another source from a Wireless
Week article:
http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA160201
> Although airline passengers are warned against using their mobile
phones in flight, it's fairly well-known that private
> airplane pilots often use regular cellular and PCS phones, even
if it is illegal. Not quite as well-known, however, is that
> people have used their wireless phones to make surreptitious calls
from the bathrooms of airliners.
Hope this helps end the Randall discussion
Bart.
Keep that hammer going!
Sidebar:
I know this pilot (a bartcop.com pillar) personally,
so I'm sure we're getting the straight story.