On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:05:59 -0700, Tankfixer
wrote:

In article ,
says...

In message , Dave Kearton
writes
IMHO Lt Osborn made all the right decisions under very trying
circumstances. He kept the plane aloft, long enough for all the
sensitive gear to be destroyed, he KEPT HIS CREW ALIVE and what was
left of the plane was flown back to the US after the Chinese were done
with it.

If you think worst-case, ditching or baling out offers the Chinese a
nasty option. "We picked up nine of the crew, here they are. Mission
Supervisor Snuffy, who knows all about what the aircraft can do and what
its mission was? No, haven't found a trace of him, but we're still
searching..." And who's to know different? Once the crew lose sight of
each other, there's no way to know whether Supervisor Snuffy died during
the bailout, drowned in the ocean, is on a slow fishing boat with no
comms on his way to port, or is being forcibly persuaded to be detailed
and explicit about EP-3 capabilities in a Beijing basement.

Once the hard discs, memory cards, crypto modules, whatever have been
dealt with, the EP-3 is an elderly turboprop with a lot of radio
receivers feeding to dead systems. Not a lot of genuine intel value
the it's an ELINT platform, gee whiz, who knew?

The crew are the real prize which could compromise the capability:
keeping them together, alive, and getting them all home protects the
most important asset.

Who cares what the Chinese would see on the plane, they would get that
hardware via other means anyway.

A cynical part of me wonders how much of the hardware is "Made in China"
anyway. Radio receivers aren't exactly new or secret, it's what they
feed, what you can achieve with them and what you were sent to get that
matter.

I always wondered why once they had landed and all that a rather nasty
fire didn't break out onboard...

Maybe they discovered that destruct packages were more trouble than
they were worth. After they brought in the F-4Ds at Ubon in
May 1967 we had problems with the destruct packages in the APS-107
Omni Analyzer in one of the forward missile wells going off on the
ground. Interesting watching the reaction of people seeing smoke come
out of the forward bottom part of the aircraft. If I remember right
they were all out within a month...

They had a little box called the destruct power supply that went along
with the destruct package. We had them all sitting on a shelf awaiting
instruction on what to do with them. The canon plugs were oddball so
we couldn't get a tight fitting cap.
Maintenance supervisor came in one day and reached for an uncovered
plug, the cap had fallen off, and said you should have a cap on this.
He must have touched the plug and bam he was flying out the door of
the little storage room. Impressive. They actually store power as
advertised. He was not amused!