[AU] Light plane sparked terror alert

I see nothing about flares or bouncing aircraft around in
turbulence, just the international standard procedures which have been
in effect for years, if not generations.

Three red flares were released by the intercepting a/c in the recent
incident (a pilot busting a presidential TFR). I am sure that even a
22-year-old fighter pilot fresh out of training would find an
intermediate step between the textbook warnings and the shoot-down.

If not, why have there been no shoot-downs in the U.S. since 9/11?
There have been plenty of incursions.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Surely you are not suggesting the Australian Government deployed a
toothless RAAF FA/18 to pretend it was protecting (among other CHOGM
notables) HM QEII and that the armed one was still on the ground?

As I recall, some of the intercepting aircraft on 9/11 in the U.S.
weren't armed. There was a big hoo-hah at the time as to whether they
would have been ordered to crash into the airliner, had they reached
it in time.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

"matt weber" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 06:54:35 -0400, Cub Driver
wrote:


commanders had full authority to order the Hornet to shoot it down.

Certainly they have the authority. This does not mean they'd exercise
that authority.

In the U.S., to judge by a recent incident, the intercepting a/c are
configured for slow flight. They first try to contact the offending
a/c on the designated emergency channels, including 121.5 civil.
(Pilots are required to monitor 121.5 "if able"; I'm not able, so
don't do it. Instead I look around a lot.) The next step is to fire
red flares. I'm not sure about the step after that, because to the
best of my knowledge it has happened. Most likely it involves bouncing
the lightplane around in fighter-induced turbulence. I doubt that the
F-15/16/18 would go straight to missiles hot.
It is not clear how effective a missle would be. A small aircraft
doesn't have much of a heat signature,and what there is greatly
reduced by the turbulence produced by airflow. Exhaust is at the
front.

In addition, the speeds are so low, that you don't get any leading
edge heating. In short I am not at all convinced that an IR guided
missile would be able to lock onto a prop powered 100hp aircraft. It
just isn't much of an IR or a radar target...


IR missiles have no problem in homing in on the heat signature
of a lycoming engine

These things often don't have much of a radar signature. There is the
Cessna that made it all the way to Moscow during the cold war and
landed in Red Square....

Which has nothing to do with radar signature, they show quite nicely
on ATC radars let alone military sets, the problem with the Cessna
in Moscow was more political indecision than anything technical

Keith

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 07:03:37 -0400, Cub Driver
wrote:


Surely you are not suggesting the Australian Government deployed a
toothless RAAF FA/18 to pretend it was protecting (among other CHOGM
notables) HM QEII and that the armed one was still on the ground?

As I recall, some of the intercepting aircraft on 9/11 in the U.S.
weren't armed. There was a big hoo-hah at the time as to whether they
would have been ordered to crash into the airliner, had they reached
it in time.

At the time the last aircraft crashed on 9/11 there was not a single
armed fighter aircraft on the East Coast of the USA. The aircraft that
were sent to intercept had no weapons except the aircraft itself to
attack with. None of them made it in time to even intercept.

That is corret, NOT ONE. Nor was there a single operable air to air
missile on the East Coast either. The first Aircraft that actually
had live ammuntion doesn't get off the gound until about 10:15AM, and
the first fully armed aircraft (With AIM9's) doesn't get airborne
until about 10:30. The AIM9's had to be pulled from storage, and
assembled for use.

It is something that no one wants to talk about. We have spent
trillions for defense, yet when one was needed there was not a
single armed aircraft even parked on the ground anywhere in the
Eastern Half of the USA...

I suppose it is a good thing the Russians never attacked...

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 12:18:13 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:


"matt weber" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 06:54:35 -0400, Cub Driver
wrote:


commanders had full authority to order the Hornet to shoot it down.

Certainly they have the authority. This does not mean they'd exercise
that authority.

In the U.S., to judge by a recent incident, the intercepting a/c are
configured for slow flight. They first try to contact the offending
a/c on the designated emergency channels, including 121.5 civil.
(Pilots are required to monitor 121.5 "if able"; I'm not able, so
don't do it. Instead I look around a lot.) The next step is to fire
red flares. I'm not sure about the step after that, because to the
best of my knowledge it has happened. Most likely it involves bouncing
the lightplane around in fighter-induced turbulence. I doubt that the
F-15/16/18 would go straight to missiles hot.
It is not clear how effective a missle would be. A small aircraft
doesn't have much of a heat signature,and what there is greatly
reduced by the turbulence produced by airflow. Exhaust is at the
front.

In addition, the speeds are so low, that you don't get any leading
edge heating. In short I am not at all convinced that an IR guided
missile would be able to lock onto a prop powered 100hp aircraft. It
just isn't much of an IR or a radar target...


IR missiles have no problem in homing in on the heat signature
of a lycoming engine

These things often don't have much of a radar signature. There is the
Cessna that made it all the way to Moscow during the cold war and
landed in Red Square....

Which has nothing to do with radar signature, they show quite nicely
on ATC radars let alone military sets, the problem with the Cessna
in Moscow was more political indecision than anything technical
They show up on most ATC radars only because they have a transponder.
Note the difficulties US ATC had in locating 757's and 767's on 9/11
after the transponders were turned off, and 757 or 767 has a far far
larger radar cross section than a single engine cessna.

ATC radars generally only see either very large targets, or very
cooperative targets (transponders).

matt weber wrote:

Note the difficulties US ATC had in locating 757's and 767's on 9/11
after the transponders were turned off, and 757 or 767 has a far far
larger radar cross section than a single engine cessna.

After 9/11, I heard them ask aircraft in the vicinity to assist with
identifying unindentified primary targets on their scopes. And
they didn't seem to have any difficulties painting me as a primary
target whenever my transponder went inop (which was not all that
infrequent in those old single-engine C-210's).

-Mike Marron

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 21:20:03 +1000, "The Raven"
wrote:

"David Bromage" wrote in message
. ..
The RAAF came close

"came close"

to sending a fully armed fighter jet

Which didn't even take off.

to shoot down a
light plane during last year's Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting.

From WLM.............which wouldn't have got there in time to do squat.


Except that it was sitting ready at Amberley on alert!

And in the loop of threat analysis based on dedicated radar
surveillance of a specific intrusion zone established around the
meeting location.

They were a tad more prepared for something other than an event
resembling a routine ATC 'unauthorised penetration of controlled
airspace by a lightie' scenario.

"smithxpj" wrote in message
...
Except that it was sitting ready at Amberley on alert!

And in the loop of threat analysis based on dedicated radar
surveillance of a specific intrusion zone established around the
meeting location.

They were a tad more prepared for something other than an event
resembling a routine ATC 'unauthorised penetration of controlled
airspace by a lightie' scenario.


I wonder how much damage the supersonic charge to the intercept point would
have caused?

JB

"matt weber" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 07:03:37 -0400, Cub Driver
wrote:


Surely you are not suggesting the Australian Government deployed a
toothless RAAF FA/18 to pretend it was protecting (among other CHOGM
notables) HM QEII and that the armed one was still on the ground?

As I recall, some of the intercepting aircraft on 9/11 in the U.S.
weren't armed. There was a big hoo-hah at the time as to whether they
would have been ordered to crash into the airliner, had they reached
it in time.

At the time the last aircraft crashed on 9/11 there was not a single
armed fighter aircraft on the East Coast of the USA. The aircraft that
were sent to intercept had no weapons except the aircraft itself to
attack with. None of them made it in time to even intercept.

That is corret, NOT ONE. Nor was there a single operable air to air
missile on the East Coast either. The first Aircraft that actually
had live ammuntion doesn't get off the gound until about 10:15AM, and
the first fully armed aircraft (With AIM9's) doesn't get airborne
until about 10:30. The AIM9's had to be pulled from storage, and
assembled for use.

It is something that no one wants to talk about. We have spent
trillions for defense, yet when one was needed there was not a
single armed aircraft even parked on the ground anywhere in the
Eastern Half of the USA...

I suppose it is a good thing the Russians never attacked...

Ahhhhh yes, there's a lot to be said for 20/20 hindsight.

--
Islam, a cult obsessed with the imagined superiority of it's culture and
dismayed at the inferiority of it's power.

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 14:12:49 +1000, "Brash"
wrote:

Ahhhhh yes, there's a lot to be said for 20/20 hindsight.

Jeez, don't tell me you can look thru that thing as well.