Question on ditching an Orion

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.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
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.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam





Just parenthetical to all of this, I showed up in Beijing the day after the
incident.


My trip was booked for weeks beforehand, but my engineer and I showed up at
the airport, on 28-day tourist visas with bags full of electronics to work
at the Australian Embassy.


It's a lot more pedestrian than it sounds, but we sailed through customs and
immigration at the airport. During our routine briefing, the security
officer at the embassy told us that the Chinese _knew_ we were spooks. (NO -
we weren't, but that didn't matter) The Chinese didn't care, as long
as they knew what we were up to and what we found out while we were there.
It's only if there is some doubt on this last part that we'd be detained at
the airport - at the end of our 28 days - by the guy with the rubber gloves.


It was a time of slightly elevated tension between the US and China and the
internal security crowd were working overtime on 'visitors' who pretended to
be tourists. We were followed, tailed, politely questioned by locals
and my hotel room was bugged.

Apart from all that, China's a lovely country and we got lots of work
done.....





--



Cheers

Dave Kearton

In article ,
"Dave Kearton" wrote:

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
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.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam





Just parenthetical to all of this, I showed up in Beijing the day after the
incident.


My trip was booked for weeks beforehand, but my engineer and I showed up at
the airport, on 28-day tourist visas with bags full of electronics to work
at the Australian Embassy.


It's a lot more pedestrian than it sounds, but we sailed through customs and
immigration at the airport. During our routine briefing, the security
officer at the embassy told us that the Chinese _knew_ we were spooks. (NO -
we weren't, but that didn't matter) The Chinese didn't care, as long
as they knew what we were up to and what we found out while we were there.
It's only if there is some doubt on this last part that we'd be detained at
the airport - at the end of our 28 days - by the guy with the rubber gloves.


It was a time of slightly elevated tension between the US and China and the
internal security crowd were working overtime on 'visitors' who pretended to
be tourists. We were followed, tailed, politely questioned by locals
and my hotel room was bugged.

Apart from all that, China's a lovely country and we got lots of work
done.....

This reminds me of a story of a married couple of friends who fly for a
major international airline (Both are pilots). He was also an AF Reserve
BG.

We liked to play the board game Risk together, so thy bought an
electronic version to play on layovers. They had a layover in Beijing
and played Risk in the hotel room. I can just hear, "I just captured
Japan" -- "I just took Great Britain", etc. Of course, the room HAD to
be bugged!

Anyway, they took a guided tour of Beijing the next morning. She
remarked to us that they were the only people on the bus and got a
personal guided tour.

I can just imaging the conversation in Chinese Intel: "What's an
American BG doing in Beijing, masquerading as an airline pilot?"

***********

Another friend visited Beijing about 25 years ago, as a member of a
scientific exchange team. At that time, there were two kinds of cars
the green (military) and black (government). They were moved through
Customs and sent to a black car, with Chinese driver, to go to their
quarters and told that the drivers did not speak English. As they were
going down the road, a pig crossed in front of them. Ben,always the
joker, exclaimed, "There goes dinner!" The driver giggled -- they had
another driver the next morning and did not get the original one back.

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"Dave Kearton" wrote:

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
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.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam





Just parenthetical to all of this, I showed up in Beijing the day after
the
incident.


My trip was booked for weeks beforehand, but my engineer and I showed up
at
the airport, on 28-day tourist visas with bags full of electronics to
work
at the Australian Embassy.


It's a lot more pedestrian than it sounds, but we sailed through customs
and
immigration at the airport. During our routine briefing, the security
officer at the embassy told us that the Chinese _knew_ we were spooks.
(NO -
we weren't, but that didn't matter) The Chinese didn't care, as
long
as they knew what we were up to and what we found out while we were
there.
It's only if there is some doubt on this last part that we'd be detained
at
the airport - at the end of our 28 days - by the guy with the rubber
gloves.


It was a time of slightly elevated tension between the US and China and
the
internal security crowd were working overtime on 'visitors' who pretended
to
be tourists. We were followed, tailed, politely questioned by locals
and my hotel room was bugged.

Apart from all that, China's a lovely country and we got lots of work
done.....

This reminds me of a story of a married couple of friends who fly for a
major international airline (Both are pilots). He was also an AF Reserve
BG.

We liked to play the board game Risk together, so thy bought an
electronic version to play on layovers. They had a layover in Beijing
and played Risk in the hotel room. I can just hear, "I just captured
Japan" -- "I just took Great Britain", etc. Of course, the room HAD to
be bugged!

Anyway, they took a guided tour of Beijing the next morning. She
remarked to us that they were the only people on the bus and got a
personal guided tour.

I can just imaging the conversation in Chinese Intel: "What's an
American BG doing in Beijing, masquerading as an airline pilot?"

***********

Another friend visited Beijing about 25 years ago, as a member of a
scientific exchange team. At that time, there were two kinds of cars
the green (military) and black (government). They were moved through
Customs and sent to a black car, with Chinese driver, to go to their
quarters and told that the drivers did not speak English. As they were
going down the road, a pig crossed in front of them. Ben,always the
joker, exclaimed, "There goes dinner!" The driver giggled -- they had
another driver the next morning and did not get the original one back.



Two stories - that happened to me ...


My hotel room - in the Great Wall Sheraton



My hotel room had hidden cameras, I found at least two. One covered
the bedroom area, from an air-conditioning grille and just gets an overall
view.


The other ???? You know when you have a shower and the bathroom
mirror fogs up ? When I took a shower, the mirror fogged up -
with the exception of a brick-sized space that remained clear.


There are only three things in a hotel bathroom; a bath/shower, a hand basin
and the toilet. If there was a camera hidden in that space, it
wouldn't see the shower, it might see the edge of the hand basin area,
try not to form a mental image it would see the back of your head when
you were sitting on the porcelain.


I don't know how much they were paying the poor guy who had to watch that
video of me on the can - but it certainly wasn't enough.




Rocky & Bullwinkle

Can't say a lot about what we were up to at the embassy - it's not a
secret, just bad manners to talk about other customers' premises.
What I can say is we were servicing CCTV cameras. To make the job
easier, we took a couple of handheld CB radios (hoping the CB band in China
was the same as ours). I'd be up on a ladder, tweaking a camera
lens and Peter, my engineer would be at the monitor telling me how the
picture looked.


After several hours of this tedium, I clicked on the mike and said "OK
Boris, first we do cameras, then we kill Moose and Squirrel"


As it happened, the Embassy's head of security was in the security room
with Peter, when all this happened. Frank ***** was a year away
from retirement, a chain smoker and nothing ever bothered him anymore.
He casually wandered over to where I was up a ladder, cuddling the camera,
lit up a nail and took a drag.


Then in the most laconic voice he could be bothered to muster, he said "
you know Dave, big exhale the Chinese secret police never watched Rocky
and Bullwinkle when they were kids, big drag with drawback unless you
want to spend 12 hours at the airport with the guy with the long rubber
glove, you might not want to muck about on the radio"

(well he didn't say 'muck' about, but it was close)





--



Cheers

Dave Kearton

On Oct 28, 10:02*pm, "Dave Kearton"
wrote:
"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message

news


In article ,
"Dave Kearton" wrote:

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
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.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam

Just parenthetical to all of this, I showed up in Beijing the day after
the
incident.

My trip was booked for weeks beforehand, but my engineer and I showed up
at
the airport, on 28-day tourist visas with bags full of electronics to
work
at the Australian Embassy.

It's a lot more pedestrian than it sounds, but we sailed through customs
and
immigration at the airport. * * During our routine briefing, the security
officer at the embassy told us that the Chinese _knew_ we were spooks.
(NO -
we weren't, but that didn't matter) * * * *The Chinese didn't care, as
long
as they knew what we were up to and what we found out while we were
there.
It's only if there is some doubt on this last part that we'd be detained
at
the airport - at the end of our 28 days - by the guy with the rubber
gloves.

It was a time of slightly elevated tension between the US and China and
the
internal security crowd were working overtime on 'visitors' who pretended
to
be tourists. * * *We were followed, tailed, politely questioned by locals
and my hotel room was bugged.

Apart from all that, China's a lovely country and we got lots of work
done.....

This reminds me of a story of a married couple of friends who fly for a
major international airline (Both are pilots). He was also an AF Reserve
BG.

We liked to play the board game Risk together, so thy bought an
electronic version to play on layovers. They had a layover in Beijing
and played Risk in the hotel room. I can just hear, "I just captured
Japan" *-- "I just took Great Britain", etc. Of course, the room HAD to
be bugged!

Anyway, they took a guided tour of Beijing the next morning. She
remarked to us that they were the only people on the bus and got a
personal guided tour.

I can just imaging the conversation in Chinese Intel: "What's an
American BG doing in Beijing, masquerading as an airline pilot?"

* * ***********

Another friend visited Beijing about 25 years ago, as a member of a
scientific exchange team. At that time, there were two kinds of cars
the green (military) and black (government). They were moved through
Customs and sent to a black car, with Chinese driver, to go to their
quarters and told that the drivers did not speak English. As they were
going down the road, a pig crossed in front of them. Ben,always the
joker, exclaimed, "There goes dinner!" The driver giggled -- they had
another driver the next morning and did not get the original one back.

Two stories - that happened to me ...

My hotel room - in the Great Wall Sheraton

My hotel room had hidden cameras, I found at least two. * * * * One covered
the bedroom area, from an air-conditioning grille and just gets an overall
view.

The other ???? * * * * * * You know when you have a shower and the bathroom
mirror fogs up ? * * * * * *When I took a shower, *the mirror fogged up -
with the exception of a brick-sized space that remained clear.

There are only three things in a hotel bathroom; a bath/shower, a hand basin
and the toilet. * * * * * * *If there was a camera hidden in that space, *it
wouldn't see the shower, *it might see the edge of the hand basin area,
try not to form a mental image * it would see the back of your head when
you were sitting on the porcelain.

I don't know how much they were paying the poor guy who had to watch that
video of me on the can - but it certainly wasn't enough.

Rocky & Bullwinkle

Can't say a lot about what we were up to at the embassy *- *it's not a
secret, just bad manners to talk about other customers' premises.
What I can say is we were servicing CCTV cameras. * * * * * To make the job
easier, we took a couple of handheld CB radios (hoping the CB band in China
was the same as ours). * * * * *I'd be up on a ladder, tweaking a camera
lens and Peter, my engineer would be at the monitor telling me how the
picture looked.

After several hours of this tedium, *I clicked on the mike and said *"OK
Boris, first we do cameras, then we kill Moose and Squirrel"

As it happened, *the Embassy's head of security was in the security room
with Peter, when all this happened. * * * * * Frank ***** was a year away
from retirement, a chain smoker and nothing ever bothered him anymore.
He casually wandered over to where I was up a ladder, cuddling the camera,
lit up a nail and took a drag.

Then in the most laconic voice he could be bothered to muster, *he said * *"
you know Dave, *big exhale the Chinese secret police never watched Rocky
and Bullwinkle when they were kids, *big drag with drawback unless you
want to spend 12 hours at the airport with the guy with the long rubber
glove, *you might not want to muck about on the radio"

(well he didn't say 'muck' about, *but it was close)

--

Cheers

Dave Kearton

Way back in the dark ages, we used to have the location of the nearest
Ruskie trawler posted at the site in the secure area to keep people
aware Boris was watching. Or listening to Armed Forces Radio.

On Oct 28, 9:49*pm, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:
In article ,
*"Dave Kearton" wrote:



"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
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.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam

Just parenthetical to all of this, I showed up in Beijing the day after the
incident.

My trip was booked for weeks beforehand, but my engineer and I showed up at
the airport, on 28-day tourist visas with bags full of electronics to work
at the Australian Embassy.

It's a lot more pedestrian than it sounds, but we sailed through customs and
immigration at the airport. * * During our routine briefing, the security
officer at the embassy told us that the Chinese _knew_ we were spooks. (NO -
we weren't, but that didn't matter) * * * *The Chinese didn't care, as long
as they knew what we were up to and what we found out while we were there.
It's only if there is some doubt on this last part that we'd be detained at
the airport - at the end of our 28 days - by the guy with the rubber gloves.

It was a time of slightly elevated tension between the US and China and the
internal security crowd were working overtime on 'visitors' who pretended to
be tourists. * * *We were followed, tailed, politely questioned by locals
and my hotel room was bugged.

Apart from all that, China's a lovely country and we got lots of work
done.....

This reminds me of a story of a married couple of friends who fly for a
major international airline (Both are pilots). He was also an AF Reserve
BG.

We liked to play the board game Risk together, so thy bought an
electronic version to play on layovers. They had a layover in Beijing
and played Risk in the hotel room. I can just hear, "I just captured
Japan" *-- "I just took Great Britain", etc. Of course, the room HAD to
be bugged!

Anyway, they took a guided tour of Beijing the next morning. She
remarked to us that they were the only people on the bus and got a
personal guided tour.

I can just imaging the conversation in Chinese Intel: "What's an
American BG doing in Beijing, masquerading as an airline pilot?"

* * ************

Another friend visited Beijing about 25 years ago, as a member of a
scientific exchange team. At that time, there were two kinds of cars
the green (military) and black (government). They were moved through
Customs and sent to a black car, with Chinese driver, to go to their
quarters and told that the drivers did not speak English. As they were
going down the road, a pig crossed in front of them. Ben,always the
joker, exclaimed, "There goes dinner!" The driver giggled -- they had
another driver the next morning and did not get the original one back.

Had lots of local drivers driving VIPs in Japan that supposedly did
not speak English. All interpreters and drivers were thought to be if
not official Japanese intelligence, reporting to them. Not to mention
the waiters at the clubs. All the hired nationals. Yeah, leaked like a
sieve....

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...

"Tankfixer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

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



We can only speculate how the Chinese would have reacted to that.


When you're facing the possibility of time in a Chinese gulag, it's best not
to **** them off more than you have to.



--



Cheers

Dave Kearton

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!

On Oct 28, 7:35*pm, BobP wrote:
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!

Generally best way to kill electronics is turn the cooling fans off.
Let all the electrons run around in circles and heat up.