F-35, not F-22, to Protect U.S. Airspace

Jeff Dougherty ha scritto:
On Feb 1, 10:18 pm, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote:

Trouble is, in a new 9/11 emergency, Pilots will have the will and
nerves to shoot knowing that they are killing also civilians ?

I'm fairly certain American pilots would, if they were in a 9/11 type
scenario or had a good reason to think they were faced with one- i.e.,
you have a hijacked airliner that's heading for a major city. I
remember reading an Aviation Leak article that interviewed the two
F-16 pilots who were scrambled to intercept Flight 93 short of
Washington- one had no ordinance whatsoever, the other had half a
magazine of 20mm. Their plan was for the first guy to empty his gun
into the airliner, and if that didn't work the wingman was going to
try to ram it. Thanks to the heroics of the Flight 93 passengers they
never had to put that plan into action, but both of them seemed
completely convinced that they would have gone through with it if
required.

I can agree on this (and both pilots, esp. the Wingman) but back then
these was desperate measures under exceptional circumstances. Another
thing is actually planning & ordering the deliberate killing of
civilian, many of them citizens of the same country of the AF involved
(I keep this on the general perspective) this is the major military
Ethic issue I refer.... I'm sure many air forces have contingency plans
on this, but that the orders will be given and carried, is a really big
unknown;
And if in the aftermath is ascertained that was a false alarm, (that is,
the a/c wasn't hijacked and/or the hijackers has no intention to use the
a/c as weapon) the morale of the entire AF involved is guaranteed to
plummet to the very low, esp. of the people more or less directly
involved in giving executing that order.


Certain Air Forces (surely the Japanese) can accept this, with the
ultimate sacrifice (It's fully conceivable that a Japanese Pilot with
this order choose to wilco it ramming the hijacked a/c, atoning his act
with his sacrifice (and place in the Yasukuni shrine..) but about many
other A/F & their pilots & aircrews ?

I'm not sure you can assume most Japanese pilots would feel that way-
Yasukuni is still very much bound up with the rest of pre-WWII style
militarism in Japan, and tends to be the province of the far political
right more than a universal cultural icon. No doubt there are a good
number of Japanese pilots who would feel that way but I wouldn't
assume that JASDF pilots as a whole would be any more or less
conflicted than any other air force's pilots. If we were discussing a
similar scenario in the 1930s or early 40s, I might go along with you.

You seems to dismiss the culture & mindset of Japanese (and Eastern
people in general) whose are much more inclined towards self-sacrifice,
Divine Wind or not (think about deaths caused by overwork (seems to me
that in Japanese is called "kuroshi", but I'm not sure...)

It's a rather loaded issue in Military Ethic, I fear....


Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

On Feb 2, 4:55*pm, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote:
Jeff Dougherty ha scritto:



On Feb 1, 10:18 pm, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote:

Trouble is, in a new 9/11 emergency, Pilots will have the will and
nerves to shoot knowing that they are killing also civilians ?

I'm fairly certain American pilots would, if they were in a 9/11 type
scenario or had a good reason to think they were faced with one- i.e.,
you have a hijacked airliner that's heading for a major city. *I
remember reading an Aviation Leak article that interviewed the two
F-16 pilots who were scrambled to intercept Flight 93 short of
Washington- one had no ordinance whatsoever, the other had half a
magazine of 20mm. *Their plan was for the first guy to empty his gun
into the airliner, and if that didn't work the wingman was going to
try to ram it. *Thanks to the heroics of the Flight 93 passengers they
never had to put that plan into action, but both of them seemed
completely convinced that they would have gone through with it if
required.

I can agree on this (and both pilots, esp. the Wingman) but back then
these was desperate measures under exceptional circumstances. Another
thing is actually planning & ordering the deliberate killing of
civilian, many of them citizens of the same country of the AF involved
(I keep this on the general perspective) this is the major military
Ethic issue I refer.... I'm sure many air forces have contingency plans
on this, but that the orders will be given and carried, is a really big
unknown;
And if in the aftermath is ascertained that was a false alarm, (that is,
the a/c wasn't hijacked and/or the hijackers has no intention to use the
a/c as weapon) the morale of the entire AF involved is guaranteed to
plummet to the very low, esp. of the people more or less directly
involved in giving executing that order.

I don't think it's an unknown at all. We know that two more-or-less
random pilots were willing to down an airliner on 9/11 without having
*any* time to absorb the concept that a passenger plane could be used
as a weapon. That seems to suggest rather strongly that USAF pilots
in general would be willing to carry out orders to down an airliner in
a "new 9/11" scenario, which is what you were talking about above, and
I'm not aware of anything that would make me think pilots from other
air forces would act differently.

I'm not sure how either of the "false alarm" scenarios would happen
either. There have been several cases since 9/11 where airliners have
mistakenly squawked 7700, but it's always been sorted out- the flight
crew would have to accidentally trip the hijack switch, accidentally
fail to answer repeated calls from ATC, and then fail to notice the
very concerned F-16 driver flying formation lead on them and letting
them see some real Sidewinders. Not that it couldn't happen ever, but
if it does it takes so many coincidences it's almost an act of God.
As for the hijackers not planning to use the plane as a weapon, how
would you know that at the time? (Remember, the 9/11 hijackers told
the passengers aboard their planes that they were returning to their
origin airports.) You have to assume that the plane full of fellow
citizens is about to be used to kill thousands of fellow citizens on
the ground. And even if it turns out months later they were planning
a hostage play...well, then the pilot would have made the best call he
could based on capabilities, not intentions.

(Anyone planning an airline hostage play in today's world would be
well advised to plan their takeover to happen while the airplane's
over nothing in particular and to have a landing field scouted out in
the middle of nowhere. If you take over an airplane these days and
ask to be diverted near a major city, I wouldn't count on getting
there.)

Certain Air Forces (surely the Japanese) can accept this, with the
ultimate sacrifice (It's fully conceivable that a Japanese Pilot with
this order choose to wilco it ramming the hijacked a/c, atoning his act
with his sacrifice (and place in the Yasukuni shrine..) but about many
other A/F & their pilots & aircrews ?

I'm not sure you can assume most Japanese pilots would feel that way-
Yasukuni is still very much bound up with the rest of pre-WWII style
militarism in Japan, and tends to be the province of the far political
right more than a universal cultural icon. *No doubt there are a good
number of Japanese pilots who would feel that way but I wouldn't
assume that JASDF pilots as a whole would be any more or less
conflicted than any other air force's pilots. *If we were discussing a
similar scenario in the 1930s or early 40s, I might go along with you.

You seems to dismiss the culture & mindset of Japanese (and Eastern
people in general) whose are much more inclined towards self-sacrifice,
Divine Wind or not (think about deaths caused by overwork (seems to me
that in Japanese is called "kuroshi", but I'm not sure...)

I'm quite aware of Japan's cultural distinctness, I just think you're
overgeneralizing. The scenario you posited could certainly happen,
but as with any culture Japanese people have a wide spectrum of
beliefs, and without some actual data I wouldn't be prepared to say
that a JASDF pilot would be more or less likely to fire in that
scenario than a USAF or RAF pilot.

-JTD

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

OK guys, take a deep breath.

Couple of points. Its a GAO study. Some of them are good, some of them
are well, studies. GAO does not have subject matter experts. Think of
grad students that go out and write a paper on something. Like I said,
some good, some bad. Some really atrocious.

One point to consider. It costs a lot of bucks to keep planes ready on
the tarmac. Backups, maintenance, crews. And its boring. Some places
like Alaska, yeah you get some launches. Most places you end up
playing games.

And remember, 9/11 was launched INTERNALLY.

Anybody here want to shoot down an American airliner? Over the US?
Thought not.

And yeah, there are still NORAD or ADC sectors that take care of air
traffic. Lots of them. I think it was Vanity Fair that broke the story
on this when the tapes from the sector that dealt with NY and DC were
declassified.

Read through the transcripts, its like anything else, real time,
nobody knows what's going on. Like we always used to joke, best Intel
was from CNN. That's not too far from the truth.

Bluntly, we don't need a lot of effort spent on this. It'll probably
never happen again, and there are better ways to prevent it. OK,
besides letting groups of Arab looking guys get on the same flight
with box cutters. IF you look at what happened on 9/11 and where the
system failed, I'm not going to say the US is doing much better on all
this. At least El Al has professionals doing their flight screening.
But we can't afford to do that. Or we will until the first quarter
bill comes in.

On Feb 2, 6:52*pm, frank wrote:
OK guys, take a deep breath.

Couple of points. Its a GAO study. Some of them are good, some of them
are well, studies. GAO does not have subject matter experts. Think of
grad students that go out and write a paper on something. Like I said,
some good, some bad. Some really atrocious.

One point to consider. It costs a lot of bucks to keep planes ready on
the tarmac. Backups, maintenance, crews. And its boring. Some places
like Alaska, yeah you get some launches. Most places you end up
playing games.

And remember, 9/11 was launched INTERNALLY.

Anybody here want to shoot down an American airliner? Over the US?
Thought not.

And yeah, there are still NORAD or ADC sectors that take care of air
traffic. Lots of them. I think it was Vanity Fair that broke the story
on this when the tapes from the sector that dealt with NY and DC were
declassified.

Read through the transcripts, its like anything else, real time,
nobody knows what's going on. Like we always used to joke, best Intel
was from CNN. That's not too far from the truth.

Bluntly, we don't need a lot of effort spent on this. It'll probably
never happen again, and there are better ways to prevent it. OK,
besides letting groups of Arab looking guys get on the same flight
with box cutters. IF you look at what happened on 9/11 and where the
system failed, I'm not going to say the US is doing much better on all
this. At least El Al has professionals doing their flight screening.
But we can't afford to do that. Or we will until the first quarter
bill comes in.


Agreed.

Bluntly, we don't need a lot of effort spent on this. It'll probably
never happen again, and there are better ways to prevent it. OK,
besides letting groups of Arab looking guys get on the same flight
with box cutters.

In a purely speculative sense, one would think that some common sense
measures that were mandated to be in place years ago - especially
secured cockpit doors and bulkheads proof against small arms - would
pretty much render the question hypothetical. While hijacker(s) of any
motive might get loose in the cabin with a box cutter or even a small
arm of some variety, if they can't get into the cockpit, they can't
control the aircraft.

A hijacker is essentially reduced to two gruesome options: threaten to
start carving up passengers if his demands aren't met - which, while a
psychological burden on the cockpit crew, it isn't likely a demand to
be met post 9/11, or threaten to detonate a bomb which will destroy
the plane - which is a possibility, but lack of control denies them
the aircraft itself as a weapon of any accuracy.

Not much point in shooting down an airliner that can't be hijacked
from its intended course, regardless of whatever tragedies might
occurring in the cabin.

"dott.Piergiorgio" wrote in
:

[snip]

a/c as weapon) the morale of the entire AF involved is guaranteed to
plummet to the very low, esp. of the people more or less directly
involved in giving executing that order.

In mission control at NASA there is a switch that destroys
the launch vehicle should it show signs of endangering
the civilian population.
That protocol includes the manned vehicles.
Its a bitch of a responsibility but necessary.

IBM