Student ID Card from Flight 77 found at Pentagon!

Originally posted by rich23
There are, however, quite a few airline pilots and air traffic controllers who have problems believing that a 757 could have made the turn over the Pentagon that was executed by the radar track alleged to have been the AA plane.

Loose Change

They may have problems believing it because they've never seen it before.
Especially so the controllers.
Pilots - many of them opinionated to a great extent - usually know what they're talking about, especially if they're qualified to fly the 757.

I'm fairly sure, that during the 757 training regimen they're not allowed to really get the plane cranked over or engage in too many full performance maneuvers.
Last I heard they don't get training in hands-on spin recovery either.
The ones who do make a point to get some aerobatic training and add spin recovery and other things to their repertoire.

A few years back, a UPS or FedEx employee was bent upon suicide.
He got a ride in the jumpseat of either an 1100 or 747 - can't remember which - freighter.
Takeoff was out of John Wayne airport I believe.

Basics are, the bent-on-suicide guy attacked the crew with a hammer.
The pilot, badly hurt was able to crank the big plane over in a hard, steeply banked turn and get back to the airport.
The general consensus was that many were surprised the plane made the high performance maneuver without stalling.

Keep in mind too the Canadian pilots who got an out of fuel four engine airliner into a short airport due to running completely out of fuel because of a metric/US fuel mis-calculation.

They had one shot at the airport and when it was apparent they would overshoot it and with dead engines there was no going around.

The pilot elected to slip the airplane.
Slips are a common maneuver in small aircraft so as to lose altitude rapidly without gaining excessive speed.
It's a cross control deal, right rudder, left aileron and a little down trim most times.

Contrary to what seems sensible, you can't stick the nose down and aim the airplane at the runway.
You'll gain speed, be unable to set down and overfly the runway.

One of the early flights in a 707 had Tex Johnson, Boeings chief test pilot roll the airplane within sight of the spectator's at one of Seattle's Gold Cup boat races.
A maneuver seen by many and in fact, caught on film.

All of which indicates you can accomplish somewhat radical maneuvers in these big aircraft if . . . you know what you're doing.

Or indeed if you don't know what you are doing and happen to be lucky, much like when you get a 13 year old Joyrider who makes Colin McRae green with envy.

Here's some stuff on that famous barrel roll:

Flying at more than 400 miles per hour just 400 feet above the water, Johnston commenced a sudden ascent. The jet's swept-back wings spiraled as the 128-foot-long, 160,000 pound plane rolled, flying for a short time upside down. Then, for extra measure, Johnston performed a second barrel-roll. Boeing President Allen asked a guest with a heart problem if he could borrow his pills. The potential jet buyers were duly impressed.

www.historylink.org...

Video here:

www.avpics.de...

As the poster above was saying, people seem to fail to appreciate the fact that people just don't do these manoevers normally and will usually never get to carry them out, so of course no-ones seen it before
It would be frowned upon ever so slightly slightly to endanger people and the aircraft, not forgetting it's not the sort of aircraft you can bail out of, so any pilot who wants to make it back down to the ground won't want to risk crashing or damaging the aircraft. The terrorists didn't have that handicap.

[edit on 30-4-2006 by AgentSmith]

Oh. So these pilots WHO CAN BARELY FLY AND SHOW NO INTEREST IN LEARNING HOW TO LAND can nonetheless throw a jetliner around like a barnstormer?

What IS it with you guys? Is that not an obvious enough flaw in the official story for you to even doubt it one little bit? (puts head in hands, rocks back and forth in despair)

So these pilots WHO CAN BARELY FLY AND SHOW NO INTEREST IN LEARNING HOW TO LAND can nonetheless throw a jetliner around like a barnstormer?

Barnstormer you say?

A 270 degree turn with a 3 mile radius is a barnstormer move?

in a plane that size... nonetheless, the accuracy required is still way beyond the purported pilot's skill level. There are other threads that deal with this, but I can't be bothered to look.