Originally posted by johnlear
I read the Flight 77 FDR for the first time a few days ago. Other than the fact that there is not the slightest indication throughout the flight that any hijacker disabled the pilots, dragged them out of their seats and then sat down and began to fly the airplane all I want is for someone to tell me who reset the altimeters to field barometric at exactly FL180.

John,
Very interesting post... but I was wondering if you could put some of this in layman's terms. What is the normal purpose of setting field barometric pressure. And what does FL180 mean?

Originally posted by ThreadTrekker
John,
Very interesting post... but I was wondering if you could put some of this in layman's terms. What is the normal purpose of setting field barometric pressure. And what does FL180 mean?

Thanks for the post ThreadTrekker. FL180 means Flight Level 18,000 feet.
Above 18,000 feet altitudes are called Flight Levels and all airplanes operating at or above 18,000 feet manually set their altimeters to Standard Pressure which is arbitrarily 29.92 or 29.92 inches of mercury.

Below 18,000 eet all airplane altimeters are set to Field Barometric or however many inches of mercury at the particular field, in the case of the Pentagon (Reagan International) 30.24 inches of mercury.

The altimeter pressures are set so that each airlane is flying with an altitude reference that all the other airplanes around him are flying. This is to maintain 1000 foot separation in case you are passing over or under somebody else. Above 18,000 they set a common standard which is 29.92 because it would be unnecessary to have everybody changing their altimeters to field barometric because at that altitude and speed they would be changing the altimeter every 5 minutes.

So in a descent at FL180 (18,000) altimeters are reset to local field barometric. When you are cleared below FL180 ATC will say something like 'United 456 descend and maintain one zero thousand feet Chicago altimeter 30.15."

If somebody has been flying for a long time setting your altimeter passing through FL180 is second nature. But for somebody who has just hijacked an airliner its unheard of for the simple reason that the hijacker is not in contact with anybody so how did he get the altimeter setting?

But not only was the altimeter of Flight #77 reset it was reset to 30.24 which was local barometric pressure at Reagan. The reason this is significant is if somebody wanted to argue that the hijacker tuned in an automatic weather station he would have gotten the past hours altimeter for that area which was 30.22 not the current Reagan International setting which was 30.24. So my question is where did he get it?

It is highly unlikely that a hijacker would know all this. He is sitting in the seat trying to figure out where in the heck the Pentagon is, not in the frame of mind to be attending to the minutiae of a current altimeter setting to keep him separted from other aircraft at specific altitudes. He is not even talking to ATC, so he has not been assigned an altitude, so he doesn't have to worry about separation.

So what this means is that whoever was flying the airplane and whoever was the co-pilot had hundreds if not thousands of hours in the Boeing 757. The professional use of the autopilot including the use of the scratch pad is not consistent with pilots who have just hijacked a Boeing 757 30 minutes prior. The reseting of the altimeters at exactly FL180 and to Reagan International current field barometric is consistent with pilots who were professionals. The use of the autopilot including scratch pad and its disconnect at 7000 feet is consistent with professional use of the autopilot.

The steep stable bank and accurate descent rate for the last turn into the Pentagon and level off at 20 feet is consistent with a pilot who had many thousands of hours, and probably had fighter jet training. This profile is not consistent with a hijacker whose total time in the Boeing 757 is about an hour.

Thank you JohnLear for the "Layman's Course". I never really understood the "little things" that tend to add up the Pentagon attack being, essentially, a fraud.

The more I read, the scarier it gets!

One question I do have, for anyone who might have a plausible answer:

Once the plane had been lined up with the Pentagon as its target,


Why did they make that huge turn?


You've hijacked a fully loaded airliner, you're on a suicide mission to crash the plane into the Pentagon (or the Capitol, or the White House). You assume that your commrads have successfully completed their missions in NY, so the Infidel enemy is on guard and may be ready to strike at you at any second to prevent you from completing your task.

Now consider:

(One of) Your targets in sight, you're seconds from impact and glorious martyrdom. Allah awaits to embrace you. A seconds delay could mean failure, and a victory for the Satan.....

And you decide to turn the friggin' plane around and hit a different side of the SAME TARGET????


WHY??!!

Given the circumstances, how could you even discern one side of the building from another, in the time you would have had to do so? Why would you even bother?

Or was it that one segment of the Pentagon was more highly valued as a target than the others, and thus figured into your "pre-event" training. (But then, if you had had that much training, you would have been correctly aligned in the first place...You would have also likely been a better, more experienced pilot, right?)

Was that final turn just the result of the hijacker's whim; a savory "circle before the kill"? Would he risk the mission, and his entry into Paradise, to satisfy such an "earthly" lust?


Or were there some "Last minute" instructions from "Some One" to avoid the segment already in view and make, under the circumstances, a risky fly-around turn to hit a differnt part of the Pentagon?

John

Thanks for that very detailed explanation. You sound like someone who has definitely done some flying. This all leaves me very puzzled about the possibilities. Various conclusions come to mind in addition to the official one:

1. The airline pilot was still in control of the aircraft at least until 18,000 ft was reached. Possibly thinking that he was going to land at Reagan.

... but that would not explain the skill required to make the Pentagon landing...

2. The government is wrong about who the hijacker was that flew the plane, and it was instead a much more skilled terrorist.

3. An airplane was not involved and the FDR is faked.

4. The plane was being flown by remote control. This seems the most logical to me aside from the strange pictures that just show a whole in the wall with little other ancillary damage as has been mentioned by others. Still I am not even sure remote control is possible ... and if so, with this much precision?

Well it's not my intension to take the thread off topic. I know there are many other threads on these points. But I had never read these eye-opening details you mentioned. The 9/11 discussions are really disturbing. Since we don't have all the pertinent information, I keep looking for the "facts" with the highest probability of being true. The pentagon attack is really strange. I like to think I am a rational person, but it's really hard to sort this one out.

Originally posted by PisTonZOR
If that game is GTR 2, then yes.

Really?...LOL. You must live in fantasy sim-land...

What if the plane is already flying, and all you need to do is press a couple of buttons to find out where your 'target' is?

Here's homework for you, go find what those 'buttons' are and exactly how you do that, including what John Lear mentioned, and then let me know. If the 'terrorists' could learn that then it shouldn't be hard for you, should it?

That's because they can't get lost.

And why is that?

Originally posted by Bhadhidar
One question I do have, for anyone who might have a plausible answer:

Once the plane had been lined up with the Pentagon as its target,


Why did they make that huge turn?


Now consider:


And you decide to turn the friggin' plane around and hit a different side of the SAME TARGET????


WHY??!!

Given the circumstances, how could you even discern one side of the building from another, in the time you would have had to do so? Why would you even bother?

The short explanation...To line up with the missile that was fired somewhere close and that he trajectory of both the plane and the missile add up.....
No 757 crashed the pentagon it surely was a Missile with DU on its head...

Now the chilling question is, where are those people and the plane?

and to recap, its very easy for armchair pilot to say flying a plane is a piece of cake.... if its that simple, thn why all the training?

Since mr lear is paying attention to this thread and since he knows a lot about airplanes, one quick question mr. lear:


is it possible to input gps coordinates into the autopilot of an airliner and let the plane do the rest?

I suppose this can be done, but by whom and how easy is to do so?


thanks


fred

Originally posted by kix

Now the chilling question is, where are those people and the plane?

and to recap, its very easy for armchair pilot to say flying a plane is a piece of cake.... if its that simple, thn why all the training?

Oh i am sure they were killed, they wee identified. Which brings up the question if they were on the plane when it crashed and the fire wass hot enough to destroy the plane it would have also destroyed the bodies and the DNA evidence.

The DAN experts at NISt had to come up with new DNA testing for 911. They didnot have the new testing ready till 2002 well after the bodies were identified.

Originally posted by kix

Now the chilling question is, where are those people and the plane?

and to recap, its very easy for armchair pilot to say flying a plane is a piece of cake.... if its that simple, thn why all the training?

Oh i am sure they were killed, they wee identified. Which brings up the question if they were on the plane when it crashed and the fire wass hot enough to destroy the plane it would have also destroyed the bodies and the DNA evidence.

The DNA experts at NIST had to come up with new DNA testing for 911. They didnot have the new testing ready till 2002 well after the bodies were identified.

[edit on 17-3-2007 by ULTIMA1]

Originally posted by kix

The short explanation...To line up with the missile that was fired somewhere close and that he trajectory of both the plane and the missile add up.....
No 757 crashed the pentagon it surely was a Missile with DU on its head...

Now the chilling question is, where are those people and the plane?

and to recap, its very easy for armchair pilot to say flying a plane is a piece of cake.... if its that simple, thn why all the training?

Maybe they were loaded onto Flight 93 ... apparently there were extra seats available.

Originally posted by derfred33
Since mr lear is paying attention to this thread and since he knows a lot about airplanes, one quick question mr. lear:
is it possible to input gps coordinates into the autopilot of an airliner and let the plane do the rest?

The FMS (flight management system) can be programmed to follow a program of many waypoints and then start a descent and then level off all at the proper speeds. What it cannot be programmed to do is exceed the limitation of normal flight, that is, exceed a 30 degree bank angle, exceed Vmo (Velocity maximum operating or maximum indicated airspeed) or be programmed to make a 360 degree turn into the ground.

The FDR of AAL#77 indicates that Vmo was exceeded during the last minute of flight so that would tell us that the airplane was not being flown according to FMS inputs and besides the data for Autopilot (both A and B) indicate that the autopilot was off.

I suppose this can be done, but by whom and how easy is to do so?

Within the limitations I have described above. It is easy to do. It was not done on the airplane on whose parameters this FDR is recording.

Originally posted by johnlear
...So what this means is that whoever was flying the airplane and whoever was the co-pilot had hundreds if not thousands of hours in the Boeing 757...
...The steep stable bank and accurate descent rate for the last turn into the Pentagon and level off at 20 feet is consistent with a pilot who had many thousands of hours, and probably had fighter jet training. This profile is not consistent with a hijacker whose total time in the Boeing 757 is about an hour.

Compelling post by JL.

And simply to ask the obvious question, what would compel such a pilot to commit suicide?

A quick question (especially as Mr Lear is following this one).

Is this at all humanly passable? Forget 9/11 for a second, just this.

Let it suffice to say that it is physically impossible to fly a 200,000 pounds airliner 20 feet above the ground at 400 MPH.

The author, a pilot and aeronautical engineer, challenges any pilot in the world to do so in any large high-speed aircraft that has a relatively low wing-loading (such as a commercial jets), i.e., to fly the craft at 400 MPH, 20 feet above ground in a flat trajectory over a distance of one mile.

I've heard that flight is very economical when close to the ground - WIG effect, wing in ground effect craft are well established.

Is the WIG effect applicable at speeds around 400 mph? Also, in peoples option, what level of pilot (e.g. newbie commercial / experienced commercial or experienced commercial with say combat exp) would be able to pull anything like this off?

In short, could any one make these maneuvers?


[edit on 17/3/2007 by Now_Then]

Originally posted by Now_Then
A quick question (especially as Mr Lear is following this one).

Is this at all humanly passable? Forget 9/11 for a second, just this.

Let it suffice to say that it is physically impossible to fly a 200,000 pounds airliner 20 feet above the ground at 400 MPH.

The author, a pilot and aeronautical engineer, challenges any pilot in the world to do so in any large high-speed aircraft that has a relatively low wing-loading (such as a commercial jets), i.e., to fly the craft at 400 MPH, 20 feet above ground in a flat trajectory over a distance of one mile.

I've heard that flight is very economical when close to the ground - WIG effect, wing in ground effect craft are well established.

Is the WIG effect applicable at speeds around 400 mph? Also, in peoples option, what level of pilot (e.g. newbie commercial / experienced commercial or experienced commercial with say combat exp) would be able to pull anything like this off?

In short, could any one make these maneuvers?

Wing in ground effect begins at an altitude of one half the span of the wing. The span of the 757 is about 125 feet so ground effect would take place at about 62 feet. As you get closer to the ground there is more of a cushion from the air being forced into a smaller and smaller space under the wing. As this force pushes up the pilot has to push forward to counter the force pushing the plane up. As the airplane was probably 100 feet or more above Citgo he probably didn't get down into ground effect until about one half the distance between Citgo and the Pentagon or about 950 feet. (distance Citgo-Pentagon 1900 feet.) So since he is allegedly traveling at 450 mph or about 730 feet per second he has just over a second to correct for this tremendous ground effect taking place between 62 feet above ground level and the alleged 10 feet or so at which he hit the Pentagon. Could a hijacker compensate in time for this effect to avoid being ballooned up to 40 or 50 feet? 2 chances. (1) No chance, and (2) no frigging chance.

Could I do it with 19,000 hours of flight time, 16,000 in heavy jets? No. Not without practice.

Could a professional Boeing 757 pilot do it with enough practice? Of course. It would take about 10 or 15 Pentagon practice crashes to master what allegedly occurred to the real Pentagon on 911.

Did a Boeing 757 crash into the Pentagon on 911 (assume a super pilot with 15 practice Pentagon crashes under his belt). No. That would have been impossible. Assuming that you had a super pilot that could have hit the Pentagon there is not enough wreckage (by a factor of 10) outside of the Pentagon, nor is there enough damage to the face of the Pentagon for a Boeing 757 to have crashed into it.

The story of a Boeing 757 crashing into the Pentagon is an urban myth not supported by the facts and certainly not supported by anyone who has flown the Boeing 757 and/or has an aeronautical engineering degree and/or has participated in any kind of large airplane accident investigation.

The story of a Boeing 757 crashing into the Pentagon is supported only by uneducated people who buy into the total erroneous proposition that the Boeing 757 distintegrated into a billion pieces. Hah.

I love you John Lear.

You should definetly make your own thread about this flight, and make all the official story believers dumbfounded.

Here a question to get back on topic a bit:

Is "wing in ground effect" realisticly simulated on Microsoft Flight Simulator?




[edit on 17-3-2007 by Connected]

Thanks for your answer Mr. Lear! very elucidative.

another thing no one said...I think...

The pentagon section that was hit by the "plane" was exacly the one that was freshly rebuilt.

As far as I know they were rebuilding the 5 sections one by one and this was finished or almost finished...

I found this to be a coincidence too, why this section?

How many people were on that section comparing to the people on the other sections?

Was this section already being used or it was more less empty?

fred

[edit on 17/3/07 by derfred33]

Mr Lear,

If only your last post would go out over the news wires, but that is assuming the news wires mean something. Sigh.

Just to cover all the bases, could it have been remotely possible with a programmed or remotely piloted 757?

Originally posted by Swampfox46_1999

I see we are back on the "there was no wreckage" kick again. There was plenty of wreckage from Flight 77, and plenty of bodies. Out of all the people on board the plane and in that part of the Pentagon, only FIVE sets of remains did not leave enough "biological" material for a DNA sample.

Swampfox46 this thread is about Learning to Fly Commerical Aircraft in Simulators not about your personal fantasies of "plenty of bodies".

If you would like to start yet another thread on the "plenty of bodies' I will come over and debate.

But for the meantime I would respectfully ask you to limit your posts in this thread to that which releates directly to Learning to Fly Commericial aircraft in Simulators." Thanks.