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#31
October 26th 04, 01:01 PM
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"Marco Grubert" wrote in message
om... Nevertheless I think stealing GA aircrafts and using them for either fly-by shootings or in combination with explosives is a real threat Why steal an airplane? Isn't it easier just to rent one? (and even harder to counter than your Oklahoma-bombing truck). It's true that you can protect a specific target from a truck-bombing by erecting barricades to prevent traffic from approaching. In that limited respect, plane-bombings are harder to counter. However, it's of no use to protect a specific target as long as many other equally attractive targets remain accessible. Protecting all such targets would require permanently shutting down traffic in entire cities, which is impossible. Additionally, you can carry a much greater explosive payload in a truck (or even a car) than in a typical GA plane. So on the whole, car- and truck-bombings are the greater threat. Making sure that airports are properly fenced in and have a metal detector/x-ray machine could be a reasonable deterrent. Since car- or truck-bombings are a greater threat on the whole, should we also have to fence in all parking lots and garages, and screen everyone there with metal detectors and x-ray machines? --Gary 
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#32
October 26th 04, 02:04 PM
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"Marco Grubert" wrote in message om... There was no security lapse in that incident. A student was allowed to pre-flight an airplane unescorted, shortly before the student was to be signed off to solo anyway. Preventing such access would have been completely pointless. Even under some of the more draconian new restrictions (at BED now, we need to undergo a fingerprint background check in order to have unescorted access to the ramp), that student would still have had the same access privileges! Of course TSA's alien training rule would not have had anything to say about that moron, Charles J. Bishop, who was a US citizen... Speaking of morons, AOPA has some statements on its website about TSA's chief who seems to be rather clueless about his department; or maybe he was still recovering from TSA's $500,000 2-year-anniversary party. Nevertheless I think stealing GA aircrafts and using them for either fly-by shootings or in combination with explosives is a real threat (and even harder to counter than your Oklahoma-bombing truck). Making sure that airports are properly fenced in and have a metal detector/x-ray machine could be a reasonable deterrent. - Marco Your thought process is terribly flawed. Fences, metal detectors or any other technology will stop absolutely nothing. Do you honestly think stealing is the only way to get a plane? Renting or buying are much more viable options. You cannot stop a determined terrorist. That has been a fact since forever and is simply something we will live with.
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#33
October 26th 04, 07:59 PM
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#35
October 27th 04, 01:23 AM
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"Roger" wrote in message
... On 26 Oct 2004 11:59:56 -0700, (John Galban) wrote: (Marco Grubert) wrote in message . com... As for explosives, the limited payload of GA aircraft tends to counter it's advantages over a garden variety, fertilzer truck bomb. With a big truck bomb, you can blow up a building, even if you can't get right next to it. You'll never be able to do that much damage in an explosive laden light single. Even if you fly it right into the building. Kinda like the kid who flew into the bank building down in Florida? I think it was Florida. He broke a window. He wasn't carrying explosives. I've heard the "small plane carrying big bomb" argument before, and heard that it would be difficult to arrrange for it to detonate at the right moment. Are there any explosives experts out there can comment? It shouldn't be too difficult to get the raw materials; I hear it's being sold on the street in Iraq. But a detonator that's triggered by the deceleration, or something? -- David Brooks Believe!!!!!
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#36
October 27th 04, 02:37 AM
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David Brooks wrote: I've heard the "small plane carrying big bomb" argument before, and heard that it would be difficult to arrrange for it to detonate at the right moment. Are there any explosives experts out there can comment? From what I've read, the problem is to build a detonator that's delicate enough to trigger the device while still being tough enough to take the impact and being stable enough to avoid a premature explosion. The U.S. had tremendous problems with this sort of thing in their torpedo designs early in WW II, and those things only traveled about 40 knots. As an accidental aviation link, the Navy began replacing certain parts in the detonators with similar parts machined out of old aircraft propellors. The metal from the props was tough enough to do the job without deforming. Of course, if you go back to the old-fashioned stuff like mercury-fulminate detonators, the shock will set them off. George Patterson If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have been looking for it.
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#37
October 27th 04, 03:11 AM
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"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
... From what I've read, the problem is to build a detonator that's delicate enough to trigger the device while still being tough enough to take the impact and being stable enough to avoid a premature explosion. For the purpose of terrorism, I would think a timer system would work fine. I'm no explosives expert, but I'm sure there are a variety of electronic or fuse solutions that would survive an airplane crash well enough to set off some explosives. The terrorist would use a short timer, 3 or 5 seconds or so, and then start it just before impact. Assuming the airplane didn't bounce off the target, that would be sufficient. Anyway, I don't guess there's much point in turning this into a "how do you build an airplane bomb" thread. I just think that a sufficiently motivated person can probably figure out a way to solve whatever minor technical problems might come along. That's assuming you need a bomb and you need it to explode. Fact is, you could yield about as many fatalities as one gets with your average car bomb simply by flying a Cessna at high speed into a crowd. Dive for speed, strike in a near level attitude to cut a swath through the crowd, done. Airplanes are certainly useful for killing people. The problem with the attitudes of the general public and the TSA is that they aren't any more useful than any number of other unregulated methods, and it would be impossible to prevent most of the methods anyway. If the regulations did something to make the world safer, that would be one thing; but they don't, and are thus just stupid. Pete
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#38
October 27th 04, 02:42 PM
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On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:11:31 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
wrote in :: The problem with the attitudes of the general public and the TSA is that they [aircraft used as bombs] aren't any more useful than any number of other unregulated methods, and it would be impossible to prevent most of the methods anyway. The difference between an aircraft used as a delivery method and an automobile is the aircraft's ability to easily circumvent the traffic barricades that have been erected since the Oklahoma bombing.
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#39
October 27th 04, 03:47 PM
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The difference between an aircraft used as a delivery method and an
automobile is the aircraft's ability to easily circumvent the traffic barricades that have been erected since the Oklahoma bombing. .... but its payload carrying capacity is quite limited. Little good to circumbent the traffic barricades to deliver a firecracker. OTOH, a truck and a catapult could do the trick just as well. Why not be proactive and ban catapults. (and dogapults too while we're at it.  Jose -- for Email, make the obvious change in the address
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#40
October 27th 04, 07:00 PM
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"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
... The difference between an aircraft used as a delivery method and an automobile is the aircraft's ability to easily circumvent the traffic barricades that have been erected since the Oklahoma bombing. That may be a perceived difference, but logically it makes no sense whatsoever. As someone else already pointed out, only a tiny fraction of all possible targets can be hardened against ground-based delivery, and of course there's also the problem that delivering an ineffective weapon to a target is no better than not delivering an effective weapon. For a terrorist's purpose, what I said is still true: aircraft aren't any more useful than any number of other unregulated methods available. Pete
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