Superhighway/N. American Union

Great Debates
81

OK, so your father flew airliners for 30 years, meaning that he probably retired around 1975–four years prior to the first drawings for the B757 and nearly a decade before it flew. This would tend to indicate that he has no personal experience regarding the handling characteristics of the B757 or B767–planes that have multiple computer-driven pilot assistance programs upon which it has been remarked, since their introduction, that they are much easier to fly than any previous craft of similar size.
Then, his reaction is to a computer simulation. Whose? NIST’s? CNN’s? Some Truther web page?

Without challenging your father’s qualifications in any way, I still do not see an actual expert discussing areas in which he has technical expertise.

82

In fact, it’s already in place. There was talk of improving it but yes, it did run in to quite a bit of NIMBYism at least at the state level.

83

Okay, one more time just for you I’ll post the link but I would as you to please do two thing. Please read all of the sections from all the experts in all the fields instead of stopping at the first one that supports your world view.

Once again I’ll reiterate, My claim is that there is enough dissenting expert opinion out there to create reasonable doubt. I have linked you to plenty of credible people that dissent from the party line.

You repeatedly show black and white/all or nothing thinking which is a hallmark of the fundamentalist mindset. For you it is either 100% true or 100% false.

Sure there are things I believe to be true about the report.

I do not buy into the bomb/remote controll whatever, unit that you are supposed to clearly see in a photograph. All is see is a very low resolution pic that shows me nothing more than it is a plane. I don’t particularily buy into a bunch of smoke plumes coming from the side of the building proving that there was controlled demo.

I am skeptical about green, inexperienced pilots being able to fly a large, complex airliner not designed for ariel acrobatics. As I stated earlier, my father is imminently qualified to call bullshit on that part of the report. I general, I am skeptical about the report when when experts in the various fields take exception to the report.

It is enough to create reasonable doubt that the report may not whole, complete or entirely accurate

84

That doesn’t make sense. I doesn’t matter if these new ones are easier to fly. That doesn’t make it a shoo in for somebody who’s flown very little in their life, let alone a big ass jet. Your implication is that the new planes are so easy to fly a school boy could fly it better without any experience than my father could with years of big jet experience.

85

Actually the implication is that since you dad never actually flew a 757, had most likely retired prior to them coming off of the drawing board, and is drawing upon his experience of flying non “fly by wire” aircraft, he is NOT imminently qualified to call BS on the flight characteristics, nor the capability or the B757 or 767.

As an aside, my Grandfather flew B-24’s out of North Africa in WW2 as well. His ship was *The Nightmare. *

86

Actually, my dad was able to train on 757 with the simulator.

Your logic is faulty. You are saying this:

Because the 757 is easier to fly than its predecessors
that very inexperienced, green pilots can basically jump in and do what my dad and this guy says they can’t do.
Commander Ralph Kolstad, U.S. Navy (ret) – Retired commercial airline captain with 27 years experience. Aircraft flown: Boeing 727, 757 and 767, McDonnell Douglas MD-80, and Fokker F-100. Retired fighter pilot. Former Air Combat Instructor, U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School (Topgun). 20-year Navy career. Aircraft flown: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, and Grumman F-14 Tomcat. 23,000+ total hours flown.

* Statement to this website 8/20/07: "I started questioning the Sept 11, 2001 “story” only days after the event.  It just didn't make any sense to me.  How could a steel and concrete building collapse after being hit by a Boeing 767?  Didn't the engineers design it to withstand a direct hit from a Boeing 707, approximately the same size and weight of the 767?  The evidence just didn't add up. ...

  At the Pentagon, the pilot of the Boeing 757 did quite a feat of flying.  I have 6,000 hours of flight time in Boeing 757’s and 767’s and could not have flown it the way the flight path was described.

  I was also a Navy fighter pilot and Air Combat Instructor, U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School and have experience flying low altitude, high speed aircraft.  I could not have done what these beginners did.  Something stinks to high heaven!

Do you know exactly how much easier a 757 is to fly than a 747?

87

I said no such thing. Go back and read my post and tell me where I said anything remotely close to same.

Considering your credentials and the statements you made following said creds, are you now stating that planes did not hit the WTC and Pentagon? I lost friends and co-workers that day and if there is something that I missed please educate me. Otherwise, I will join the bandwagon of those who have asked you multiple times to quit evading and please state your interpretation of the facts and what you think REALLY happened. Your logic appears to state that since you do not have faith that you could fly the planes in which the world saw them hit the towers, it really didn’t happen that way.

I’m all ears

88

Do you believe an airplane hit the Pentagon? If not, what did?

89

Any schoolboy could fly any big jet–at least in a straight line. The issue is whether a particulr pilot with specific limited training and experience could perform a specific maneuver. Your father, who has never flown that particular plane has made a judgment based on some unidentified person’s computer rendering of some unspecifiec maneuver.

We are not making any fantastic claims about the B757 allowing amateurs ro perform aerobatics, only noting that your father is not an “expert” at determining the events of that day based on the limited inormation available to him.

So, we’re back to having a pilot (i.e., spomeone trained to drive airplanes, not study structural failures), making claims about what could or could not happen in a specific crash. Her does not even get his aircraft knowledge correct, claiming that the B707 (for which the WTC was designed to survive an impact) is, at 160,000 lbs. “about the same size” as a B767 which weighs more than twice as much.

90

You know, the source doesn’t get more credible just because you’ve posted it multiple times.

Except that, as tomndebb pointed out, the “experts” in your link are not experts in the relevant fields.

OK, so you’re skeptical about the hijackers doing what they’re said to have done. What do you think happened? So far as I can tell, there seem to be three options:
(a) The Pentagon was not hit by a jet
(b) The Pentagon was hit by a jet, but not piloted by the alleged hijackers.
(c) The Pentagon was hit by a jet piloted by the hijackers, because either (1) the maneuvers they made aren’t nearly as tricky as you think or (2) the maneuvers are tricky but they lucked out.

Other people have already asked you what your theory is. Now that it’s in easy multiple choice format, maybe you could actually provide an answer.

91

Relevant statistics:

Boeing 707:
[ul]
[li]Empty Weight: 103,000lbs[/li][li]Max Weight: 222,000lbs[/li][li]Fuel Capacity: 15,000gal[/li][/ul]

**Boeing 767-200 (variant actually flown into the South Tower, smaller than the 767: **
[ul]
[li]Empty Weight: 171,000lbs[/li][li]Max Weight: 315,000lbs[/li][li]Fuel Capacity: 24,000gal[/li][/ul]
I’d say the potential 50 tons and ten thousand gallons of fuel difference more than adequately describes why a building designed to withstand the former cannot cope with the latter.

92

Speaking as someone with only simulated experience on 7x7 class aircraft but as a pilot of both real and simulated single and twin-engine aircraft, an interesting fact of note is that you can pull off wildly improbable maneuvers in a simulated aircraft–precisely because you don’t really care if you’re alive at the end of it. For example, a Cessna 172 will technically pull off a barrel roll starting at a mere 15 kts above stall speed, but you’d better start the maneuver at above 20,000 feet or so if you want to have enough time to recover from the ensuing stall–the fact a Cessna 172 isn’t pressurized having real-world but not simulated relevance.

I submit that, while well outside the SAFE flight envelope of a 757, the Pentagon crash was within the possible/plausible flight envelope of a pilot who did not care about little things like “aerodynamic forces damaging/destroying aircraft components” or “having a flyable aircraft at the end of the maneuver”. I’m very tempted to track down a 757 sim and try it out.

–Zeriel, former aerospace engineering type, current pilot and kit-aircraft builder

93

You can keep saying that but it doesn’t make it true. Ignorance isn’t a point of view.

“Reasonable doubt” is a legal term with no meaning in science. Millions of people, including some with educations, say the theory of evolution is not true, but it remains correct.

I have consulted your link, thank you. It’s amateurish and silly and contains amazing, glaring lies, such as the “no visible fires in WTC 7” falsehood. The experts cited largely offer no evidence to support their conclusions; none who question the official report are qualified to speak on the subjects they speak on; others appear to be being quoted out of context. I see no EVIDENCE to support challenging the essence of the official report and what fits all the evidence I have examined.

I don’t trust the government. I do trust myself. I’ve looked at the evidence, and the World Trade Center was destroyed by being hit by two airplanes. I SAW IT HAPPEN. The Pentagon was hit by an airplane. There is no reasonable doubt about it whatsoever no matter what some crank says on the Internet.

None of the planes performed “acrobatics” and it’s not hard for a green pilot to simply steer a plane into a big object.

94

Say, what about that there North American Union?

95

[quote=“Bryan_Ekers, post:67, topic:481848”]

If something makes you a kook, a paranoid, a wacko and/or a nut, it’s because you believe things that are kooky, paranoid, wacko and nuts. Having read your statements, they are all of the above. That these beliefs are different from my own is merely a happy coincidence.

[quote=“Bryan_Ekers, post:67, topic:481848”]

If something makes you a kook, a paranoid, a wacko and/or a nut, it’s because you believe things that are kooky, paranoid, wacko and nuts. Having read your statements, they are all of the above. That these beliefs are different from my own is merely a happy coincidence.

True believers like yourself consider the Popular Mechanics article to be the Holy Grail, the unchanging, everlasting truth that is impeccable and absolutely beyond reproach.

To you it is the gospel truth and that none of your guys are wrong in any way, shape or form. Anybody who question or disagrees or comes up with a different interpretation, expert or not, is at least absolutely wrong if not insane, deranged, delusional stupid or dumb or some kind of a conspiracy wack job.

I wish I had your omniscience. I’m curious, were you born omniscient or did you develop it along the way?

*To borrow you phrase: I can only wish I had power like that.[/I]

I somehow fail to see the logic of the analogy. I suppose if I had the power to have people who spout nonsense silenced/arrested/jailed/killed, but held off if there was a reasonable doubt that they might have a point…

There you go! You didn’t say, “If there was a reasonable doubt that they wouldn’t have a point.” You said, “They might have a point.” Now you’re getting it!

MIGHT, past of may
—used in auxiliary function to express permission, liberty, probability, possibility in the past

96

I would honestly like to know what parts of the 9/11 commission report you don’t believe. So far you’ve tiptoed around it without coming out and saying exactly what you think is incorrect.

Do you doubt the airplanes got hijacked by Islamic extremists, who then guided the planes into the trade center buildings and the Pentagon?

Do you doubt the buildings collapsed as a result of the damage and fire caused by the jetliner impacts? Do you have an alternate theory for the mechanism which caused the buildings to collapse, and if so what leads you to believe this alternate theory? What are the motivations for the people who you believe were actually responsible?

This is not a question that allows room for different interpretations, like you’re insisting on. One of us must necessarily be wrong here, and you’re going to have to defend your position with something more than “you guys are all a bunch of sheep.” The first step of that process is to actually man up and TAKE a position in the first place. Being wishy-washy and noncommittal and unwilling to share your thoughts and reasoning is not the same as being open minded. Your mind is made up every bit as much as ours are, so stop playing the high road card and get your damned hands dirty.

97

Oh, please. The Popular Mechanics article is not gospel truth, but it is good truth, backed up by known facts and solid reasoning. Heck, I’m willing to stipulate that the article may contain some simplifications on trivial aspects of the day’s events, so it wouldn’t be absolute truth, but just a very very good approximation. You have nothing, not a damn thing, to challenge it.

Or at least I haven’t seen it. Where is the PM analysis incorrect, what is your alternate theory and what evidence do you have to back it up? This is not a complicated request.

98

I’d be happy to admit I was wrong or anyone else could offer proof above what has already been presented. To date you haven’t offered shit, even though you have been asked countless times for your own opinion.

99

The EU has no one dominant member, so all can join it without fear of being overshadowed. But a NAU inevitably would be dominated by the U.S., so the leaders of Mexico and Canada might be very reluctant to enter into it.

100

And in point of fact, one of the big initial fears about the EU was that Germany WOULD dominate it. One of the reasons it took so long to get off the ground.