A B757 hit the Pentagon, reported by GOFER06

It's been a long time since I've flown, but I remember calling trim tests from the ground where the trim took the elevator almost to the stops, without touching the control column, except to adjust the trim button mounted by the pilots thumb.

The 3 auto pilot functions were switched off already in the last 10 minutes.
As seen in the NTSB recreation of AA 77's total flight path online video, above posted by mrthumpy.
Lawrence A. Dickerson says the hijackers would have had to be using FULL NOSE DOWN PITCH to do this.
Can that be done without autopilot functions on, by ONLY trimming the tail elevator with the pilots thumb on the trim button, on such a big B757 at max speed, in that dense air.? And not touching the steering (control) column at all.?
He sounds as if you have to hang on that steering column to force that plane at that speed in a 10 degrees pitch down mode.

Btw, 10 feet wing flex is 3 meter. If you reread my cut light poles calculations and the post about the, known as a fact, 3.66 meters height of the generator trailer with its roof cut made by guide rails for the extruding flaps under its wings, at page 24, its belly would have ploughed through the lawn. And its jet engine nacelles 1.5 meter deeper.
And I think I made those light poles 12.2 meters, but I now remember them to be 9 meter high, all of them standard poles standing around the Pentagon there. Have to check the exact VDOT light pole lengths.

See this excellent post of member exponent, with his calculated 1176 meters distance for his drawn thin red line; from impact to some 40 meters in front of the first wing building of the Navy Annex :
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Length of that chord distance was measured in Google Earth by exponent to be 1176 meters in length.
Thus my guess was too short.
AA 77 flew at the end of its last 6 seconds still about 200 meter behind the Sheraton Hotel before it reached that Hotel, and probably higher than half its wingspan of 38 meters. No ground effect flight there.

It means thus, that only a part of the last second or so, was flown over that lawn (that was 100 meter wide from wall to Route 27), in ground effect.!

I still say, all those 9/11 Pentagon impact witnesses would have told us about an unbelievably fast flying plane, and would have had no time at all to describe any details from that plane, which they however nearly all did, and extensively so. Like for example Penny Elgas and the two Pentagon Police sergeants at the CITGO station.
Those three saw it passing within 10 to 50 meters...
That's a streak of colored light at that proposed speed , so near passing.

a reply to: LaBTop

Trim has nothing to do with the autopilot. It's adjusting portions of the aircraft so that it flies straight and level if you were to let go of the control column. There are trim tabs on the elevator, that are small tabs on the back of the elevator that can be adjusted, or the entire elevator can be adjusted either nose up, or nose down. I don't know on the 757, but on the aircraft I worked on, there was a thumb switch that you could adjust trim either up or down, with barely any pressure on it, and it wouldn't affect the control column movement at all.

a reply to: LaBTop

I've watched aircraft pass overhead, faster than American 77 was supposedly going, and been able to tell you great detail about them. Even aircraft that I wasn't expecting to see. Some people would have seen just a blur, or gotten details wrong, while others would have been surprisingly accurate.

Eyewitness accounts aren't the be all, end all, as I point out all the time, but when combined with other data, they point to a 757 at the Pentagon.

s14.photobucket.com...


Height of a standard VDOT light pole was indeed 40 feet = 12.192 meters.

Photo of light pole 1, the first one cut :


Cut by the 3 meter FLEXED UP wing at 20 Feet = 6.096 meter, or at 23 Feet = 7.010 meter.
That's 3 meters minimum tolerance left for the space between the belly of the B757 and the bottom of the engine nacelles.
There was a stone wall about 0.90 meter high beside Route 27 its overpass over Columbia Pike (leading to South Parking).
We have to subtract that one too. That's about 2 meters left.
Is that space between wing struts, fuselage belly and engine nacelle perhaps more than 2 meters ?
To me it looks like a damn close call.
Then we have the POV lanes concrete dividers in the middle of Route 27, those were at least 1.2 meters high...and we have the passing cars, about 1.50 meters high at the lowest, and god knows how high for SUVs, buses, trucks etc.

There's the 7 meter estimated maximum length of that cut pole 1 piece, too. Add then 1 meter to that space.
Still, Hani Hanjour more and more comes over as a pilot that deserves the title ACE.
I personally doubt he ever flew that plane. He could have been in there, but something else flew that plane in such a lawnmower style.

Honestly said, this is what should have happened when we take in account all data we have now at hand, especially the addition of flexed up wings at that crazy speed :



Notice please very well, that light pole 1 originally was 40 feet high (standard VDOT length) at its lamp head top, and was cut at 20 feet high from the ground by a B757 wing tip.!
So notice my lowest green line in that right hand thick blue colored pole 1, showing a 20 feet cut. (in fact 6 feet lower, since a pole minus the lamp head was 34 feet high, so I gave you all some extra slack of 6 feet = 1.83 meter)
The 3 feet higher shown green line is the 23 feet maximum cut by a flexed up right wing.

It's clear that at that crazy speed and with those, 3 meter higher than normal, flexed up wing-tips, the plane's bottom fuselage and engines should have flown into the overpass bridge top part, trees, POV lane dividers and passing cars.
Instead of passing over all those obstacles as the OS says so.

a reply to: LaBTop

That's assuming the wing flex was 3 meters and stayed at 3 meters. At low altitude the wings bounce a lot, and 3 meters was a guesstimate.

A reply to: Zaphod58

However, I expect trimming will normally be done when the aircraft is flying reasonably straight at standard speed and flight altitude. To try to get the passengers a smooth and straight flight, instead of having to correct every now and then a descending or ascending fuselage.

I now try to imagine a totally stressed-up hijacker, just coming out of a dive over the Annex down to Route 27, cutting light poles on the way over the lawn, then trying to trim with his thumb that heavy plane at that speed with his thumb....while he knows that it is his life's last second...

A reply to: Zaphod58

Note that he just came out of a dive from over the Navy Annex Wing-8 building and it's on a higher ridge above the Pentagon plains.
So the plane will even deeper flex, since its weight and momentum will try to go on downwards.
Try it with a model airplane hung on two elastic rubbers, you will see either the wings flex up, or the fuselage bounce deeper.
In case of this B757, the pilot will force the plane into a straight path out of the smooth dive, which correcting force and the plane's mass momentum will "hang" totally on the wings and wingtips, which "hang" on the air cushion under them.

That overpass is right there, near or at that correction point.

a reply to: LaBTop

Trim can be performed at any time, depending on what you're trying to do. Most pilots will use minor trim adjustments when descending and rely on control input, because it gives you a feel for what the aircraft is doing. But you can trim it for full nose down if you really wanted to and let that handle the descent. During climb and descent you make minor adjustments so that you aren't hauling back or shoving forward on the column. I've never met a pilot they used it for more than assistance, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
A reply to: LaBTop

That's assuming the wing flex was 3 meters and stayed at 3 meters. At low altitude the wings bounce a lot, and 3 meters was a guesstimate.

When I flew a LOT (millions of kilometers), you always saw the wing tips of a B757 extend at least 1 meter ABOVE the top of the fuselage, at cruising altitude (+10 km) and speed in that very thin air (800-900 kmh + about 569 MPH, the end speed of AA 77 if you believe its DFDR) .

When flying trips of 29 hours, one gets bored quickly, and tends to do some playful trigonometry etcetera, to pass the time.
And the height / diameter of the fuselage was a known feature, you asked the stewardess. (4 meters)
Tip of the wing in rest on the tarmac is at a level of about 2/3rd of the height of the cabin / fuselage.

a reply to: LaBTop

It's going to depend on how hard he pulled out of the dive. The flex, in this instance, is largely dependent on Gs. If he leveled out gradually, and shallowly, there's going to be less flex. If he got down low and cranked back on the column and pulled 2Gs, it will be more.

A reply to: Zaphod58

Yep, but just if he pulled out hard, or smoothly switched from dive to straight, at THAT point the wing tip will be maximum flexed in that dense air, at that crazy speed to perform such a task to level out.
As you explain it, it seems to be a cool, standard task. Yep, at landing speed.

NOT at these crazy max speeds. MOST life-long B757 pilots I spoke with, all said they would not even try it without all autopilot assists, at that speed and just above ground, in a certified Flight Simulator.

I edited some pics to contemplate on :

a reply to: LaBTop

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the harder he pulled leveling off, the greater the wing flex is going to be. You aren't going to see a 10-12 foot deflection during pull out from a dive, if you're pulling out at 1.2Gs. And if you're pulling out at 2Gs, you're probably going to see an 18-20 foot deflection. Different scenarios will have different results.

Yes, the point of maximum deflection is going to be as they level off from their descent, but HOW they level off plays a huge role in what the deflection is going to be.

A reply to: Zaphod58

Don't you forget one very important detail :
That plane was already flying at 530 to 569 MPH or over 800 KMH.
Its wings were already flexed to the max at that point.!

I.m.h.op., the only way that plane at those speeds in THAT spot could have flown, was in a STRAIGHT dive.
It could not reliably have been pulled out of even a smooth dive at that max+ speed, so close to its target.
There, at that overpass AT THAT SPEED it was already ONLY 0.2 seconds from impact. MOMENTUM.! Pilot reaction time, etc.
All at that crazy speed, if you believe in that OS its DFDR.

www.abovetopsecret.com... :

5 seconds flight time at 530 MPH is a damn long distance...!
It is 5 secs x 0.1611 = 0.8055 miles.! That's 1.3 kilometer.!

0.161mile = 0.2591044 km, so that plane supposedly flew 260 meters in one second, that's about 2.5 times the distance from that overpass in Route 27 to column 14, the impact point.

Concentrate again on the LAST SECOND in this AA 77 its DFDR pulled diagram :

files.abovetopsecret.com...


3.5 Seconds earlier it has already accelerated to 470 knots, significantly btw, above its maximum dive velocity of 410 knots.
That's more than a kilometer BACK already...470 knots= 870.44 kmh.



Read also this post :
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It's fascinating to see so much discussion about an event that did not happen LOL. So much bandwidth in honor of Ol' Hani, Ace Pilot. Cold-blooded killer slits throats of airliner crew, straps on the Big Boeing, and flies a maneuver most line pilots consider to be impossible.

Yes, the Emperor's New Clothes are beautiful, eh?

It did happen, but quite different from the OS.
The plane was flown remotely, either by some A.I. or an ace pilot.
Perhaps based in a E4-B or AWACS or other military or agency plane, or in an apartment or hotel near the flight path.

And it flew considerably slower, and not in a straight line but in a curved flight path, if you believe all 25 eyewitnesses, which witnesses also render all the DFDR data useless, since they are false, if you believe people instead of easily to be falsificated flight data recorders, which are no more than simple computers.
The Russian and Chinese AND American Secret Services etcetera know how to manipulate those, for many long years already. All our operating systems are full with their backdoors.
I once also posted here a lot about how the French falsificated the DFDR from the crashed test-Airbus A-320 in Mulhouse, France.

originally posted by: Salander
It's fascinating to see so much discussion about an event that did not happen LOL. So much bandwidth in honor of Ol' Hani, Ace Pilot. Cold-blooded killer slits throats of airliner crew, straps on the Big Boeing, and flies a maneuver most line pilots consider to be impossible.

Yes, the Emperor's New Clothes are beautiful, eh?

The whole point here is that the data shows he didn't have to be an ace pilot. There's no reason to believe he executed that turn, dove sharply and leveled off sharply with enough Gs to rip the wings off, yet miraculously kept it a few feet off the ground and then flew the last 5 seconds of the flight, 3/4 of a mile, at that altitude. That's the event that didn't happen. Most pilots say a rookie pilot couldn't do that; I'd be inclined to agree, and there's no reason to believe he did.

He executed the turn, then descended into the Pentagon. None of the data you guys are providing shows otherwise. You're insisting he pulled this Top Gun manuever for no apparent reason. It simply wouldn't be necessary to do this in order to hit the building.

Show me a piece of Airplane ?

Every other crash is riddled with debris.

The most secure building in the world.

Sheesh, Gas Stations have better cameras.

Poppycock...I vote missile