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#21
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Question on ditching an Orion
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. |
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Question on ditching an Orion
On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:33:47 -0700 (PDT), frank
wrote: 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. No fans in the F-4s RHAW equipment back then. No problems even on 100 degree days on the flight line. Long time ago, but I don't remember fans for the little magnetrons in the ALQ-160/71 jamming pods. If I remember the different pods right there was a requirement that they be above 250 kts before they were turned on so they would be up fairly high and cool. The BWOs in the later pods were cooled by circulating fluid through them and tubing on the inside of the metal barrel of the pods. The destruct package on the APS-107 was rather ridiculous anyway. The enemy had to know we could detect a launch when the APR-26 came out and planes took evasive action. There was also a magazine article that came out around that time about how that Secret equipment worked.G The APR-26 used an analog method of launch detection and the APS-107 actually decoded the pulse train to the missile. The destruct package, a metal plate, was designed to fry the little board with ICs on it that did the decoding. The later APR-37 also used the pulse detection method. |
#24
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Question on ditching an Orion
"La N" wrote in message...
a425couple wrote: "Gordon" wrote in message... - "a425couple" wrote: - "Eugene Griessel" wrote in message... - "a425couple" wrote: - In 2001 a US (big snip) -Ultimately, the pilot has responsibility for the safety of his crew -but when it involves spyplanes or other strategic assets that would -obviously help the enemy, crews should understand that every effort -must be made to keep those aircraft out of the hands of the enemy. I -was appalled by the EP-3 pilots decision to land in China.. -v/r Gordon Thank you Gordon. I took the liberty of looking up Gordon's website: www.oldboldpilots.org Some really good reading, including bios, there. Lots of distinguished members too. - nilita Yes, indeed. Meanwhile my friend, a while back you asked about current reading books. Recently I happened to do a rather interesting light read. I'd class it as fictional colonial period naval (piracy) and human relations. The title was "The only life that mattered." Check out the preview at (or get a good start at reading it!) http://books.google.com/books?id=rfY...page&q&f=false If it sounds interesting to you, let me know either here or by private email, and I'll get the book back from who I loaned it to and mail it to you. |
#25
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Question on ditching an Orion
"Paul J. Adam" wrote... 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, Well, the last above line is the critical question! Did you read the original cite http://readersupportednews.org/off-s...-online-threat The Online Threat Should we be worried about a cyber war? by Seymour M. Hersh Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz13l1jc4sV and find it unconvincing? 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. Very interesting valid point of view, thanks. I certainly admit that I do not know what 'equipment' and software was destroyed and what was still discoverable. I'm also not sure how knowledgable the crew was! For example, in WWII it was policy that nobody who had knowledge of important secrets should ever be allowed in areas where it might be possible to be captured. For example, anyone who even knew that we were able to decipher the Japanese messages (MAGIC) was not to be in harms way *. The crew are the real prize which could compromise the capability: Are you really sure about that? Knowing how to use a computer program, does not at all mean, you know the program. Or the equipment that runs the program. * Leatherneck: Star-Crossed Translator Story by Dick Camp Second Lt Merle Ralph Cory was an expert cryptanalyst, who, ---- joined the Corps and went to war. His comprehensive knowledge of the American code-breaking successes caused many to second-guess the decision that allowed him to risk capture by the Japanese. ((It was no "decision", he just slipped through the cracks.)) ((he had gone on a 'patrol', and was killed)) Ralph Cory should never have been ---- at Guadalcanal. It was government policy that anyone connected with MAGIC was expressly prohibited from combat or duty that put them in close proximity to the enemy. He slipped through the cracks ---. 2004 Leatherneck Magazine. All rights reserved. |
#26
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Question on ditching an Orion
In message , a425couple
writes "Paul J. Adam" wrote... 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. Very interesting valid point of view, thanks. I certainly admit that I do not know what 'equipment' and software was destroyed and what was still discoverable. I'm also not sure how knowledgable the crew was! They for sure knew enough to deal with "Drop everything, we've got the Premier's private phone!" or similar prioritisation: they'd know what they could and could not get, what they were tasked to receive, what they'd been ordered to be alert to "just in case", and so on. For example, in WWII it was policy that nobody who had knowledge of important secrets should ever be allowed in areas where it might be possible to be captured. Depends on the compartments. You have to hit the balance between protecting your secrets, and achieving the mission. The crew are the real prize which could compromise the capability: Are you really sure about that? Utterly certain? No. Pretty confident? Yes. Knowing how to use a computer program, does not at all mean, you know the program. Or the equipment that runs the program. But you know what you're listening to, what can be cracked and translated aboard, what has to be recorded for later analysis, what the priorities and orders for the mission were, what the aircraft can and can't achieve. For a slightly forced armour analogy: the gunner doesn't know how the code in the ballistic computer runs and couldn't rewrite it from memory. But, with the computer properly trashed, the gunner is the person who potentially could be made to say what he can and can't hit in various circumstances, aided by whatever radar pixies dance inside the little boxes. "How do we copy that?" is one risk: "Dear God, we never knew they were that good" is another; and exposing "Is *that* the best they can actually do?" a third. -- He thinks too much, such men are dangerous. Paul J. Adam |
#27
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Question on ditching an Orion
On Oct 29, 7:58*am, "a425couple" wrote:
"Paul J. Adam" wrote... 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, Well, the last above line is the critical question! Did you read the original citehttp://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/157-157/3730-the... The Online Threat Should we be worried about a cyber war? by Seymour M. Hersh Read morehttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh?cur... and find it unconvincing? 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. Very interesting valid point of view, thanks. I certainly admit that I do not know what 'equipment' and software was destroyed and what was still discoverable. I'm also not sure how knowledgable the crew was! For example, in WWII it was policy that nobody who had knowledge of important secrets should ever be allowed in areas where it might be possible to be captured. For example, anyone who even knew that we were able to decipher the Japanese messages (MAGIC) was not to be in harms way *. The crew are the real prize which could compromise the capability: Are you really sure about that? Knowing how to use a computer program, does not at all mean, you know the program. *Or the equipment that runs the program. * Leatherneck: Star-Crossed Translator Story by Dick Camp Second Lt Merle Ralph Cory was an expert cryptanalyst, who, ---- *joined the Corps and went to war. His comprehensive knowledge of the American code-breaking successes caused many to second-guess the decision that allowed him to risk capture by the Japanese. ((It was no "decision", he just slipped through the cracks.)) ((he had gone on a 'patrol', and was killed)) Ralph Cory should never have been ---- at Guadalcanal. It was government policy that anyone connected with MAGIC was expressly prohibited from combat or duty that put them in close proximity to the enemy. He slipped through the cracks ---. 2004 Leatherneck Magazine. All rights reserved. Anything from Seymour Hersh is unconvincing. He's had an anti-military bent ever since the '60s. |
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Question on ditching an Orion
In article ,
says... On 29/10/10 00:05, Tankfixer wrote: In , says... In , 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... I read somewhere that the Chinese were unable to gain access for almost an hour after the aircraft landed. That's what I understand.. Seems like plenty of time to do some mischief... Oner is forced to assume that everything too big to dump out of the aircraft was comprehensibly smashed before they opened the doors... |
#29
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Question on ditching an Orion
Il 28/10/2010 17:49, a425couple ha scritto:
Odds and probabilities. That is how most of us make many decisions each and every day. Yes, every action MIGHT result in disaster. But we still get out and do things. But we do try to do things in a reasonable manner to increase the odds of a reasonable outcome. And this is even more important when something has already gone badly wrong. IIRC there was experiments on crew survivability during Victorian age, done putting mannequins (and in these happy pre-PETA days, also sheeps &c.) on stricken target ships, and counting splinting &c in the mannequins after the live fire exercise and counting dead/dying sheeps, the results was substantially the same: splintered mannequin and intact mannequin together. Best regards from Italy, dott. Piergiorgio. |
#30
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Question on ditching an Orion
On Oct 29, 4:08*pm, Matt Wiser wrote:
On Oct 29, 7:58*am, "a425couple" wrote: "Paul J. Adam" wrote... 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, Well, the last above line is the critical question! Did you read the original citehttp://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/157-157/3730-the... The Online Threat Should we be worried about a cyber war? by Seymour M. Hersh Read morehttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh?cur... and find it unconvincing? 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. Very interesting valid point of view, thanks. I certainly admit that I do not know what 'equipment' and software was destroyed and what was still discoverable. I'm also not sure how knowledgable the crew was! For example, in WWII it was policy that nobody who had knowledge of important secrets should ever be allowed in areas where it might be possible to be captured. For example, anyone who even knew that we were able to decipher the Japanese messages (MAGIC) was not to be in harms way *. The crew are the real prize which could compromise the capability: Are you really sure about that? Knowing how to use a computer program, does not at all mean, you know the program. *Or the equipment that runs the program. * Leatherneck: Star-Crossed Translator Story by Dick Camp Second Lt Merle Ralph Cory was an expert cryptanalyst, who, ---- *joined the Corps and went to war. His comprehensive knowledge of the American code-breaking successes caused many to second-guess the decision that allowed him to risk capture by the Japanese. ((It was no "decision", he just slipped through the cracks.)) ((he had gone on a 'patrol', and was killed)) Ralph Cory should never have been ---- at Guadalcanal. It was government policy that anyone connected with MAGIC was expressly prohibited from combat or duty that put them in close proximity to the enemy. He slipped through the cracks ---. 2004 Leatherneck Magazine. All rights reserved. Anything from Seymour Hersh is unconvincing. He's had an anti-military bent ever since the '60s. He may be anti military, but he does have his sources. Consider, if the powers that be do something stupid and the peons at the bottom don't like it, they do talk to reporters like a sieve. And DC is bad about that. I don't know why people with a clearance feel the need to leak. I remember some GS whatevers, that really knew better shooting their mouths off on stuff they should never had knowledge of. We're trying to keep it secret and compartementalized, meanwhile some damned bureaucrat is running his mouth all over the base. Go figure. Which is why some people never told their wives anything. I'd never tell mine anything. She's blabs. I get back in the real world, not ever sure I'd tell her where I was. |
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