Imagine this...

[nebula]

You are traveling in a Boeing 747, cruising thousands of feet in the skies above Washington DC.

You look down at the city. From that height, everything appears to be indistinguishable specks of dirt. How do you tell which one of these specks of nothing is the Pentagon?? The Pentagon would be especially hard to spot, being a low-lying building no more than a couple of stories high.

And if by some amazing feat you are able to accurately distinguish this speck of 'dirt' as being the Pentagon, how do you manage to accurately maneuver, aim and fly this massive Boeing 747 aircraft into the side of this speck of dirt called the Pentagon, which is thousands of feet below you and miles away??

How does an amateur pilot/terrorist with limited flying ability and whose only piloting experience is in a Cessna, manage to accomplish such a spectacular feat?? :wtf:

The more you think about, the more laughable the OCT becomes.

[dailykoff]

1. Yes, it does become laughable.

In fact I concluded a while ago that the whole damn thing is a crock of shit. None of it holds up under the mildest scrutiny.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. Is as though they didn't really even care...

...if we knew they were lying.

How could the people that planned and carried out the demolition of WTC 1, 2, and 7 think it wasn't going to be so transparently obvious as to be laughable? How could ANYONE with even the most rudimentary observation, analysis, and reasoning skills honestly believe those towers were brought down by anything other than controlled demolition?

[nebula]

3. Yeah, would be extremely difficult to pull off

with a tiny, but highly maneuverable aircraft such as a Cessna.

Imagine trying to do it with a full-size airliner like a 747, which would be infinitely LESS maneuverable than a Cessna. The task is now virtually impossible.

[greyl]

19. You speak as though you think some small exact target was hit.

Where did you get that idea? Thin air, correct?

[JackRiddler]

4. exaggeration does not serve your argument

Yes, it would have been a difficult maneuver and the OCT starring Hani Hanjour is laughable.

Nevertheless... the Pentagon is one of the largest buildings in the world. It may only stand five stories, but there are no obstructions to seeing it from the air. It takes up several acres and is surrounded by lawns, parking lots and highways. It is very, very easy to spot - as easy as an airport runway, for example. It certainly is not a "speck of dirt"!

[nebula]

5. From the ground it is easy to spot

From a low-flying helicopter, the Pentagon is easy to spot.

But from thousands of feet in the air, from the cruising altitude of a 747, NOT AT ALL easy to spot.

And like I said in my OP, there is a big difference between spotting an object on the ground, and maneuvering into a head-on collision of said object with a MASSIVE BOEING AIRLINER TRAVELING AT HUNDREDS OF MILES PER HOUR.

THATS NO EXXAGERATION.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. No less

be able to do a death defying spiral descent and still go straight into just the right spot.

[Kingshakabobo]

23. Another gross exaggeration. It wasn't a "spiral." But I'm sure you 'really' know that.

It was a descending right turn. IIRC, it took three minutes to execute that turn. The flight data recorder simulation was posted here by a CTer.

[DoYouEverWonder]

33. How fast was the plane going

and how fast did it descend?

Even if it was just a 360, it must have been a hell of ride down and to line up exactly with just the right spot of the target, would be an amazing fete even for an experienced pilot.



The only gross exaggerations are your putdowns.

[Kingshakabobo]

35. See this NTSB re-enactment from the FDR.

A three minute turn and descent. Not unlike landing an airplane.

No steep banks or overspeed....until the final moments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzR-q0ijbV0

speeds 265-300 knots prior to pushing the throttles all the way in on the final approach.

[jberryhill]

20. What makes you say that?

Can you look up and see a 747 at its cruising altitude?

Yep.

What is it about looking down that makes you think a much larger object would not be as readily visible.

Go ahead and tell me the visual angle subtended by something 1000 feet across from a distance of 20,000 feet.

Let's make it easy without all of the big numbers. Can you see an object that is 1 foot wide from a distance of 20 feet?

[mirandapriestly]

6. It's preposterous, - almost everything is.

I agree

[greyl]

7. Failure of imagination plus bogus "facts". nt

[jberryhill]

8. I gather you don't fly much

I logged 66,000 seat miles last year on USAirways. I prefer window seats since I enjoy picking out lots of things in the ground features. If you are really serious with this comment, I guess I'll have to get around to posting my collection of "neat stuff I took pictures of through airplane windows".

Even if we were talking about a cruising altitude of anywhere from 20-35 thousand feet, the Pentagon would be readily distinguishable, as are such features as individual formations at Monument Valley, Shiprock Arizona, casinos in Las Vegas, the Queen Mary at Long Beach on approach to LAX. The Pentagon is larger than RFK stadium across town on the Anacostia River. Even if you were lost and flying on visuals, you couldn't mistake the pattern of the Tidal Basin and the bridges across the Potomac right next to it.

Since you don't fly much, let me ask you this:

From the ground, can you pick out a cruising 747 traveling 500 MPH at 25,000 feet? Can you see craters on the moon? That's 250,000 MILES away.

If so, what makes you think that ground features are any less distinguishable from the air, than an airplane is as viewed from the ground?

The Pentagon is one of the largest and most easily recognizable structures on the planet.

[greyl]

15. You must have misunderstood or replied in the wrong spot, eh? nt

[jberryhill]

18. wrong spot

[nebula]

37. So spotting a building on the ground

is equivalent to ramming a commercial airliner into it?

Anyone who can spot an object on the ground from an airplane is now qualified to ram a commercial airliner into said object. Gotcha. There's no difference between the two at all.

I once spotted the Empire State Building from the passenger seat of a United Airlines flight. Does that make me qualified and capable of flying an aircraft into it?

[jberryhill]

39. No

But get back to me after you have taken flight lessons and spent time in a simulator for the relevant plane.

Your point was about being able to see the Pentagon at an altitude that was never even reached by Flight 77. Do you have some reason to believe it impossible for Hani Hanjour to crash a plane into the Pentagon other than saying "I don't believe he could have done it"?

I gather you aren't interested in really discussing this stuff as much as just stirring the pot. Starting from an assertion that the Pentagon is invisible at "cruising altitude", and having that shown to be ridiculous, you then claim that anyone showing that the Pentagon is indeed distinctive from quite a distance is claiming that "anyone who can spot an object on the ground from an airplane is now qualified to ram a commercial airliner into said object". Nobody made that assertion.

What was your point in the original post?

[treestar]

69. It's still flat in appearance and looks hard to crash into

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

11. Never have I heard a more apt description...

...of the 9-11 Commission's report -- thanks for sharing it.

[jberryhill]

9. Imagine trying to find a runway..

...which is thinner than the Pentagon. Somehow even bad pilots manage to find them.

[dailykoff]

24. How about a runway that doesn't exist?

Like the one supposedly used to make that horizontal entry a couple of feet off the ground?

[KJF]

10. It wasn't a 747...

... it was a 757 and the plane was at 7,000 feet when it started to manouvre for final approach. There's also the fact the Pentagon is near Ronald Reagan National Airport, which must have some sort of beacon or something, as well as the river. He is also supposed to have done a little recon flying around the area in various cessnas, so he could have improved his knowledge of landmarks using that.

I don't buy the Hani story either, but, like Jack said, exaggeration is not a good idea.

[Kingshakabobo]

13. Wow. The OP is so chocked full of inaccuracies it SHOULD.....

.......be an embarrassment to the CTers, but it isn't, judging by some of the usual suspect's responses.

First of all, it wasn't a 747. Hey, why bother with accuracy?

Second. He wasn't traveling at cruise altitude. He was between 7 and 8 thousand feet - a fairly standard altitude for someone with mostly general aviation experience. MORE than low enough to spot ONE OF THE LARGEST BUILDINGS IN THE WORLD from several miles away.

Third. He was a COMMERCIAL RATED LICENSED PILOT with large jet aircraft simulator training.

While his flight experience was limited, it was certainly enough to pull off the rudimentary maneuver he did to approach the pentagon. He maneuvered quite like a general aviation pilot would approaching an airfield.....he approached, identified his target, made a descending right turn and set the plane up as if he was going to land - quite like entering an airport traffic pattern - only applying full power at the very end.

BTW, I'm a licensed private pilot. Most of what he did could have been handled by a pilot with his ratings. The simulator training would be necessary for hands-on control management as well as throttle/jet-engine management.

Was he qualified to fly and land the plane safely? NO! but it was enough to get his dastardly deed done.

[SidDithers]

16. Now, don't you go injecting reality into this debate...

Was hoping you'd chime in on this one.

I don't have access at work, but using Google Earth to see what the Pentagon looks like from 8000 ft would be a good exercise. I bet it's pretty easy to spot.

Sid

[Bolo Boffin]

21. I was using Google Maps but can't tell altitude

Even high enough to make the Pentagon indistingishable, though, the Potomac is unmistakable. It forks, and the left fork is where the Pentagon is. Right above the Pentagon it narrows considerably.

So by flying to that geographical feature, you can descend until you can see the Pentagon.

[Ezlivin]

31. I disagree with your assessment of Hani's skills

And I'm a licensed private pilot as well.

I'll skip your first point (747-vs-757).

As to your second point ("He wasn't traveling at cruise altitude."). When Hani allegedly took control of the aircraft he was indeed at cruising altitude. Did Hani use all of his purported "commercial rated license" skills to flight via IFR? Keep in mind where the aircraft was when he "turned around":



Or did he fly via VFR?

Either way you're going to have to do a lot of explaining. If he did it via IFR you have to attribute a hell of a lot more skills and preparation to him. If he couldn't solo a Cessna (see below), he certainly couldn't have programmed a Flight Management System. Compare the difference between the cockpits of a Cessna and a 767 (very similar to a 757).



Regarding the value of that Commercial Rating, please explain Hani's failure to pass a simple check ride in a Cessna 172 only a month prior to 9/11? "Instructors at the school told Bernard that after three times in the air, they still felt he was unable to fly solo and that Hanjour seemed disappointed...." As well he might, considering that he was going to have to overpower a pilot and slip into his seat and fly a plane he'd never flown before and in which he was not type-rated. Plus he had to do this under extreme duress, knowing that he had only one shot at pulling off his task.

CFIs rule. Neither you nor I could have soloed unless our CFI said we were ready. And CFIs said that Hani was not ready to solo, despite having 600 hours listed in his log book! (I'll bet you soloed in less than 15 hours, right?)

And a lot of ink has been spilled over "jet simulator training." What does a type-rated 757/767 pilot have to say about this? "No. It's not that simple," whatever many laymen might think. "That wouldn't work. An amateur is not capable of steering a large commercial airliner anywhere with accuracy, neither with the automatic pilot, nor, with his hands on the controls. He would need training for that, and that does not necessarily have to last three years, the way normal pilot training in a flight school goes, but it has to go on for a certain amount of time. He needs basic training in the specific type of plane or on a jet in general, and through that he has to learn to fly manually. With a PC you don't get the same feeling, for example for the trim tabs, for the steering yoke, for the change of situations. If you put your foot on the gas, then a jet rears up, because it has its engines under the wings, and that would be too much for an amateur, that can't be done without training."

And if you believe that "large jet aircraft simulator training" is good enough, please list all of the currently pilots you know that have earned their IFR/Commercial/ATP ratings without actually flying the aircraft.

If he could not fly or land a Cessna, what makes you think he had skills "enough to get his dastardly deed done"? Are you in disagreement with professionals who performed hands-on evaluation of his skills?

[Kingshakabobo]

34. "You are traveling in a Boeing 747, cruising thousands of feet in the skies above Washington DC"

That's a quote from the OP. If we can't all stay on the same page we can't have a discussion. Really, the OP was referring to the height at which he could/couldn't identify the "target". He was CLEARLY implying that the plane was at cruise altitude when he approached. Let's not waste time splitting hairs. Please don't waste our time. Sure, the plane was, at one time, at cruise altitude....see below.


>>>>>>Either way you're going to have to do a lot of explaining. If he did it via IFR you have to attribute a hell of a lot more skills and preparation to him. If he couldn't solo a Cessna (see below), he certainly couldn't have programmed a Flight Management System. Compare the difference between the cockpits of a Cessna and a 767 (very similar to a 757).<<<<<<<<<<<

Btw, the NTSB simulation, IIRC, reflects the FMS being turned off and on at different phases of the flight.

You are arguing in circles. YES HE HAD ADDITIONAL PREPARATION above and beyond the "cessna." Also,,,,Are you saying programming an FMS requires the same skill-set as piloting(take offs and landings) an aircraft? That doesn't make any sense. I'm sure there are plenty of people that can operate an FMS with instruction/simulator time.....not to mention someone with a commercial ticket. Would I trust him taking a flight around the globe? No. But he certainly could have managed a course change and new GPS coordinates.


As for this statement:

>>>>If he could not fly or land a Cessna, what makes you think he had skills "enough to get his dastardly deed done"? Are you in disagreement with professionals who performed hands-on evaluation of his skills?<<<<

Again, waste of my time. Clearly he could land a Cessna because he had a commercial ticket. Are you disputing that fact? If so, present some evidence. Otherwise don't waste my time.

Certainly, passing an exam/checkout is different than getting checked-out by the guy responsible (read: owner/insured/LIABLE) for the equipment you wish to sign-out. Are you discounting the check-outs he received from the FAA check-out pilot? In other words, it's not impossible to get checked out and get a ticket only to be denied by the person who ACTUALLY owns the equipment you wish to rent. I know, because I was a new pilot once that was refused rental - initially by the FBO at Lewis Lockport (LOT) in Illinois. On top of being new, I was a little rusty and COMPLETELY blew a simple approach - by a mile. Even after I was eventually checked out, I remember being denied rental on a windy day due to high cross-winds.


Here is another waste of a paragraph. You post this whole paragraph that refers to PERSONAL COMPUTERS. He had time in a multi million dollar jet simulator. Why is that so hard to understand? Can we see the source and context so it can be debunked further? I mean further than the debunking YOU did by highlighting the "PC" portion of this paragraph:

>>>>>>And a lot of ink has been spilled over "jet simulator training." What does a type-rated 757/767 pilot have to say about this? "No. It's not that simple," whatever many laymen might think. "That wouldn't work. An amateur is not capable of steering a large commercial airliner anywhere with accuracy, neither with the automatic pilot, nor, with his hands on the controls. He would need training for that, and that does not necessarily have to last three years, the way normal pilot training in a flight school goes, but it has to go on for a certain amount of time. He needs basic training in the specific type of plane or on a jet in general, and through that he has to learn to fly manually. With a PC you don't get the same feeling, for example for the trim tabs, for the steering yoke, for the change of situations. If you put your foot on the gas, then a jet rears up, because it has its engines under the wings, and that would be too much for an amateur, that can't be done without training."<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

WTF? Why are we discussing a PC???????????? When we know he had simulator time????




>>>I'll bet you soloed in less than 15 hours, right?<<<

As a matter of fact, I think I DID. I'll have to find my old log. It was 1984. I was in a University program so I was training every week. I received my private in 42 hours. Way below the national average because I was in a structured program ...versus.."flying once in a while" like a majority(?) of students.

Edit to add:

>>>>>And if you believe that "large jet aircraft simulator training" is good enough, please list all of the currently pilots you know that have earned their IFR/Commercial/ATP ratings without actually flying the aircraft.<<<<<

Your straw-man is showing. No one is saying he earned his IFR/Commercial by simulator only. No one is saying he had an ATP ticket. Show me where they did.

Please save the straw-man.....he's needed for more bunny cage experiments.

[Ezlivin]

40. Thanks for continuing to stray from the OP

And since you're on a tear, I'll go on one.

"Would I trust him taking a flight around the globe? No. But he certainly could have managed a course change and new GPS coordinates."

What you are doing is attributing a skill-set to Hani that he did not demonstrate. You are asking us to believe that the guy who could not fly a Cessna around the patch successfully in August is able in September to take control of a 767 at altitude and operate it like a type-rated commercial pilot. Where did he log all the necessary hours in a commercial jet simulator and an actual aircraft* to accomplish this upgrading of his skills? (*You admit that no one can learn to fly a large heavy solely with simulator training.)

And the demand isn't simply that he manage "a course change and new GPS coordinates." You have to demand that he can fly a large commercial jetliner manually, that he can program a FMS, that he can make numerous altitude and course corrections and find his target all without any help from ATC and all under extreme duress.

You simply cannot say that a CFI's judgment of his flying skills was inaccurate because he had a "bad day" when attempting to check-out a Cessna. Any pilot with 600 hours in their log book should show composure and professionalism when in the left seat. There is no excuse to fail a check-ride with that many hours of PIC time.

Hani visited the Maryland Freeway Airport three separate times to try to rent a Cessna. It wasn't just a "bad day" with crosswinds and nervousness. It was three separate attempts to pass a check-ride. The CFI was right to be leery of his skills.

"Clearly he could land a Cessna because he had a commercial ticket. Are you disputing that fact?"

Yes I am. If all he needed was a commercial license to fly, the CFI would have happily handed the keys to the Cessna to Hani. But what is required is PROOF that you can actually fly, not just a license. I have two friends who are professional pilots with thousands of hours. Guess what? They have to PROVE they can fly before they can rent an aircraft. They have to climb into a Piper/Cessna with a CFI (who may have less hours as PIC) and actually fly around the patch, do a take-off and a landing to PROVE they indeed have the skills. If they can't do that, they walk, regardless of how many licenses they have or hours in their logbooks.

I have legs. Can I walk?

Trick question: I'm paralyzed from the chest down.

Hani had a commercial license. Could he fly? Every single professional pilot who did a hands-on evaluation of his skills 30 days before 9/11 said unequivocally NO. It doesn't matter what he did in 1996 or 1999.

"Are you discounting the check-outs he received from the FAA check-out pilot?"

No. But how long in the past had that been? Published reports said that Hanjour obtained his pilot's license in April of 1999, but it expired six months later because he did not complete a required medical exam. He also was also trained for a few months at a private school in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1996, but did not finish the course because instructors felt he was not capable.

"Here is another waste of a paragraph. You post this whole paragraph that refers to PERSONAL COMPUTERS. He had time in a multi million dollar jet simulator. Why is that so hard to understand?"

It's not hard to understand if someone would simply provide proof that he had time in a "multi million dollar jet simulator". Too bad there is no proof that he ever sat in one of the airlines jet simulators. He may have used a PC simulator, but even you have to admit that is simply not enough.

You speak as if the mere act of setting your ass down in a "multi million dollar jet simulator" will suffice to impart the skills needed to pilot a large commercial aircraft. It's not and it never is. That's why it's imperative to actually fly the aircraft. Which he never did, not even once.

[Kingshakabobo]

48. The OP states he was at cruising altitude over the pentagon.

If I strayed from that non-sense you'll have to forgive me.

Your logic leave a lot to be desired.

Hanni was ONLY a real person when he went for a checkout on the cessna and failed?.....Failed, BTW, by the Chief Flight Instructor - a real person - who believes he could have pulled it off.

What was he when he attended flight school and simulator training??? A ghost? A plant?

That he attended flight school and received his commercial ticket is not up for debate. Or at least it shouldn't be. There is plenty of eyewitness testimony to that effect. I'm not going to debate it with you unless YOU have some evidence to the contrary.

In other words, if you want to rely on the testimony of the people who said he sucked as a pilot, you have to accept all the other testimony that says he took training and received a commercial ticket AND simulator time.

[Bolo Boffin]

51. As you point out, the guy who wouldn't rent him the Cessna thinks he could have done it.

Accept his testimony on one part, accept it on all...

...or give valid reasons why you can impeach Marcel Bernard on part of his testimony alone.

(Not you, King)

[Ezlivin]

112. A week after 9/11 Bernard says this - and he wasn't the CFI that checked him out

Bernard was relating what his CFIs told him: Hani was not competent enough to fly. Based upon what his CFIs told him Bernard refused to rent his Cessna to Hani. As the Chief CFI, Bernard basically told Hani to get lost.

Bernard never flew with Hani and did not personally evaluate his skills. Yet he trusted the judgment of his CFIs when they told him that Hani was unqualified to fly.

Yet one week after 9/11, Bernard says "although Hani was rejected to rent a 172, i have no doubt he could have hit the Pentagon."

Why would a man who trusted the judgment of his CFIs suddenly say this? What could possibly have swayed his opinion during this time? :shrug:

If you're not suspicious over this "flip-flop" then you're not paying attention.

Particularly when the FAA suggested a way to help Hani!

According to Fox News (5/10/2002):

"I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had," said Peggy Chevrette, the JetTech manager."

"The operations manager for the now-defunct JetTech flight school in Phoenix said she called the FAA inspector that oversaw her school three times in January and February 2001 to express her concerns about Hanjour. "

"Chevrette, the flight school manager, said she told Anthony she believed Hanjour could not write or speak English fluently as required to get a U.S. commercial pilot's license."

"The thing that really concerned me was that John had a conversation in the hallway with Hani and realized what his skills were at that point and his ability to speak English," Chevrette said.

Chevrette said she was surprised when the FAA official suggested the school might consider getting a translator to help Hanjour.

"He offered a translator," Chevrette said. "Of course, I brought up the fact that went against the rules that require a pilot to be able to write and speak English fluently before they even get their license."

[jberryhill]

42. Here's the part I never get....

...in the "he couldn't have done that" assertions.

What makes anyone assume that what he did is exactly what he intended to do.

Just offhand, assuming his primary target was the Pentagon at all - and not the White House or Capitol, and he ended up not being able to see them but figured the Pentagon was a bigger target - then what makes anyone think he intended to come in that low in order to strike an outer wall?

Maybe he wanted to put it down on top of a ring section coming in from above and parallel, but screwed up and struck where he did instead.

There is a fallacy of conditional probability at work here. If I deal a sequence of 52 cards from a deck, the odds against dealing THAT sequence of cards are astronomical. But it remains a fact that I am going to deal SOME sequence of 52 cards. After I deal it, you can marvel all you want to about how I couldn't have actually dealt that sequence because it was a one-in-a-billion shot.

But one thing I know. There are 999,999 one-in-a-million events that DIDN'T happen today, and there are just as many that won't happen tomorrow.

So, what I want to know, and since there seems to be point/counterpoint between pilots on this subject whenever it comes up, is this - do you think he could have hit ANY part of the Pentagon AT ALL if he was trying to? That to me seems a whole lot more relevant than arguing over whether he could have specfically planned to hit how and where he did.

[Ezlivin]

46. Turning a large heavy is tricky

People who've only flown simulators think it's easy. It's not.

In General Aviation one of the most common fatal accidents occurs in the pattern as a plane is turning. Too many pilots let their airspeed drop and when they turn their inside wing is moving too slow to sustain lift; that wing stalls (quits developing lift) and the plane falls from the sky. If you have sufficient altitude you have a chance to recover, but in the pattern you generally too close to the ground to recover.

We have to believe that a man who was incapable of flying a Cessna a month earlier was able to fly a large commercial aircraft at or near its highest airspeed and then enter into a 270° descending turn to strike a target. It's not that the Pentagon would be a hard target to hit, it's just that your asking a man who had never flown a 757 to get into the left seat and do a descending banking turn without stalling a wing. He had to precisely manage his airspeed, bank and trim. There was no "luck" involved.

It's best to recall what ATC said about the maneuver to ABC News: ""...all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane...You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe...This must be a fighter."

[Bolo Boffin]

55. The guy who wouldn't rent him the Cessna says that he could do it. n/t

[Ezlivin]

111. A week after 9/11 Bernard says this - and he wasn't the CFI that checked him out

Bernard was relating what his CFIs told him: Hani was not competent enough to fly. Based upon what his CFIs told him Bernard refused to rent his Cessna to Hani. As the Chief CFI, Bernard basically told Hani to get lost.

Bernard never flew with Hani and did not personally evaluate his skills. Yet he trusted the judgment of his CFIs when they told him that Hani was unqualified to fly.

Yet one week after 9/11, Bernard says "although Hani was rejected to rent a 172, i have no doubt he could have hit the Pentagon."

Why would a man who trusted the judgment of his CFIs suddenly say this? What could possibly have swayed his opinion during this time? :shrug:

If you're not suspicious over this "flip-flop" then you're not paying attention.

Particularly when the FAA suggested a way to help Hani!

According to Fox News (5/10/2002):

"I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had," said Peggy Chevrette, the JetTech manager."

"The operations manager for the now-defunct JetTech flight school in Phoenix said she called the FAA inspector that oversaw her school three times in January and February 2001 to express her concerns about Hanjour. "

"Chevrette, the flight school manager, said she told Anthony she believed Hanjour could not write or speak English fluently as required to get a U.S. commercial pilot's license."

"The thing that really concerned me was that John had a conversation in the hallway with Hani and realized what his skills were at that point and his ability to speak English," Chevrette said.

Chevrette said she was surprised when the FAA official suggested the school might consider getting a translator to help Hanjour.

"He offered a translator," Chevrette said. "Of course, I brought up the fact that went against the rules that require a pilot to be able to write and speak English fluently before they even get their license."

[Kingshakabobo]

125. So, the chief CFI wasn't "in on it" when he refused rental....

.....but he WAS "in on it" when he claimed that he COULD pull of the strike?

Is that you position?

Some CTers claim Hanjour didn't exist UNTIL, of course, they want to impugn his flying skills using eyewitness reports from people that are IN/NOT-IN on it(depending on what CTers are arguing at the moment). It doesn't make sense that Hanjour wasn't a commercial pilot, as you suggest, but there is plenty of testimony/evidence from flight schools that trained him, rented planes, and rented simulator time.......Oh yes, those people are only speaking truth(or exist) when they are discussing what a shitty pilot he was.....but for the matter of a trail/paper trail, they are "in on it."

Did it ever occur to you that he was a marginal/shitty pilot that could barely speak english AND THAT'S WHY they didn't advance him and/or rent him their equipment???? I figured it did since you highlighted it and it's mentioned all over the 911 report.

Did it ever occur that racism or his shitty/arrogant attitude played a part in him being refused equipment?

[Ezlivin]

127. Speculate as you wish

All I know is that Bernard said Hani was unqualified to fly before 9/11 but a week after he said he was able to fly a 767. Draw your own conclusions.

What occurs to me is this: The FAA regulation is very clear and specific about a pilot's command of the English language. Every single pilot, regardless of income/race/sex, has to meet these BASIC requirements.

If a man or woman wishes to become a licensed pilot they must meet these BASIC requirements. When I earned my pilot's license, the FAA check pilot didn't give a damn that I had to bolt-on hand controls and pull my wheelchair up into the aircraft. He didn't give a damn that I had a disability. None of that mattered. All that mattered was that I meet the FAA requirements. (And I did, despite not using my legs at all.)

Did it ever occur to you that lack of qualifications was the reason he was refused rental on three separate occasions? Did Hani attempt a check-ride at any of the dozens of other FBOs?

Every single person who flew with Hani, who evaluated him first-hand and who saw him fly said the same thing: He was unqualified.

[Bolo Boffin]

128. No speculation: the guy who wouldn't rent him the Cessna said he could pull off the 9/11 attack.

You can point to irregularities in his licensing (as if you have to speak English to fly a plane!), and you can say that he said Hani could have pulled off the 9/11 attacks after 9/11 (when else would he have had occasion to remark on it?), but the simple fact remains:

The guy that wouldn't rent Hani a Cessna said he could pull off the 9/11 attack.

[Ezlivin]

130. Fine. One guy who did not fly with Hani said this

Everyone else who sat in the right seat said he was unqualified.

So we have one CFI who changed his story about Hani's qualifications and everyone else who didn't.

And since you don't know this I'll quote the FAA on pilot's qualifications concerning the English language, first for "lowly" student pilots, then for what Hani supposedly was (commercial).

Am I eligible for a student pilot’s certificate?
You are eligible if:
You are at least 16 years old. If you plan to pilot a glider or balloon, you must be at least 14 years old.
You can read, speak, and understand English
AND
You hold at least a current third-class medical certificate. If you plan to pilot a glider or balloon, you only have to certify that you have no medical defect that would make you unable to pilot a glider or balloon.( Link )

An applicant must be able to read, write, and understand the English language. The applicant must be able to speak English without having an accent or an impediment of speech that is so extreme that it would interfere with two-way radio conversation. If there is doubt about an applicant’s ability to read, the inspector shall have the applicant read aloud a short paragraph from an appropriate source, such as an airport operating manual. If there is doubt about the applicant’s ability to write in English, the inspector shall read a short statement and have the applicant write it in English. If on the basis of these tests, the inspector has reason to believe the applicant is not able to read, write, understand, or clearly speak the English language, the inspector shall not issue a knowledge test authorization. Instead, the inspector shall refer the matter to the immediate supervisor who shall make a final determination of whether the applicant meets the English language requirement. ( Link )

So before you scoff at the language requirements, read the FAA regulations. (And ask yourself why it is that every single pilot in the world speaks English when talking with ATC. Check into it. That's the power of the American aviation industry—we set the standards for the world.)

[John Q. Citizen]

142. Kicking ass and taking names, Ezlivin. Well done. Thanks for the lesson!

I didn't know that.

That's why I love DU. I'm always learning something new!

[William Seger]

144. Really?

"Kicking ass and taking names..."

I think "disingenuous dodge" would be a better description. Or do you also think speaking English is a necessary requirement to be able to fly a plane, and that "unqualified" means the same thing as "incapable?"

[John Q. Citizen]

145. Really! Honestly! Yes! Exactly! English is a requirement for a license. Truly.

Why would he attend flight school? So he couldn't get a license? Or did his buddy tell the school for him he just needed to learn the basics so he could fly a plane into a building? He wasn't interested in a license?


How did they teach him on the simulator? Sign language?

English is necessary to attend flight school in an English speaking country, one would think. If one were thinking. How else would communication take place?

You are joking, right?
:rofl:

Good one William!

I wonder if that school charged him double the going rate like the Venice Beach, Florida schools were charging the accused hijackers who attended there. You know, the terrorist surcharge.

[William Seger]

146. Ah, I see the problem

You don't quite grasp the conceptual difference between "fly a plane" and things like "attend a flight school" and "be an FAA certified pilot." Interesting.

Did you borrow that smiley from dailykoff?

[John Q. Citizen]

148. No, I don't think you see the problem.

How did he learn to fly a plane?

Sign language?

How did he get a licence? How could he try to rent a plane without a license?

Do people rent planes to people who don't have a license?

[William Seger]

150. Oh, another problem there

I thought we were talking about the general necessity of speaking English to fly a plane. But if you are under the misconception that Hanjour couldn't speak English, so he couldn't have learned to fly a plane in a U.S. flight school... well, you're just wrong. Hanjour could speak English.

Any other problems I can help you with?

[John Q. Citizen]

152. So how did he get and keep a license?

April 15, 1999: Hanjour Gets Pilot’s License Despite Dubious Skills

When Hani Hanjour attended flight schools between 1996 and 1998 he was found to be a “weak student” who “was wasting our resources” (see October 1996-December 1997), and when he tried using a flight simulator, “He had only the barest understanding what the instruments were there to do.” (see 1998) Yet, on April 15, 1999, he is certified as a multi-engine commercial pilot by Daryl Strong in Tempe, Arizona. Strong is one of many private examiners independently contracted with the FAA. A spokesperson for the FAA’s workers union will later complain that contractors like Strong “receive between $200 and $300 for each flight check. If they get a reputation for being tough, they won’t get any business.” Hanjour’s new license allows him to begin passenger jet training at other flight schools, despite having limited flying skills and an extremely poor grasp of English. At the next flight school Hanjour will attend in early 2001, the staff there will be so appalled at his lack of skills that they will repeatedly contact the FAA and ask them to investigate how he got a pilot’s license (see January-February 2001). After 9/11, the FBI will appear to investigate how Hanjour got his license and questions and polygraphs the instructor who signed off on his flying skills. The Washington Post will note that since Hanjour’s pilot skills were so bad, how he was ever able to get a license “remains a lingering question that FAA officials refuse to discuss.” After gaining the license, Hanjour returns to Saudi Arabia for a few months in late April

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a041599hanjourlicense#a041599hanjourlicense


The FAA may refuse to discuss it, but I'm sure you will be happy to clue me in.....

[William Seger]

154. So ...

... you're throwing in the towel on the silly English argument, and would like to change the subject back to him not being very good?

Fine, but let me ask you a question first: I assume that even though Hanjour was considered to be a bad pilot, how many times did he completely miss the runway on a landing?

[John Q. Citizen]

156. See below. So how did he get his commercial licence? You haven't yet explained.

[William Seger]

157. Please answer my question first

That seems to be more to the point of this thread. (And in fact, your question seems to be more of the "just asking questions" variety.)

[John Q. Citizen]

159. Somebody got that boy his license, sir.. And it wasn't

Osama, cause Osama don't work for the FAA. (or maybe he does?)

Or do you have a better answer? (and pleease don't insult me by saying that Hani must a got lucky.)

[William Seger]

160. So, Hanjour never missed a runway, huh

Why would you expect him to miss the Pentagon?

[John Q. Citizen]

161. I'll take that as a no, you don't have a better answer.

[William Seger]

162. And I'll take that as a consession that you'd really like to change the subject again

How did Hanjour get a commercial license? How should I know? How do you work that into your "theory" anyway? BushCo decided they needed a crappy pilot, for some inexplicable reason, so they helped him get a commercial license? As little sense as that makes, why the hell would he need a license to do what he did?

[John Q. Citizen]

163. He needed a commercial license to get trained on 757s and so that there

was a trail to identify after the crime.

There's no point in having a patsy who couldn't conceivably do the crime.

Yet here you are conceiving of it. Why?


Find out who got him that license and kept that license for him, and you will find out who in our government was his handler.

Osama couldn't make the FAA give him a license. Magic didn't get him the license. Qualifications didn't get him that license. Some American with the power to do it got him that license.

Your contention that it's somehow not important how a guy who ended up being an accused hijacker with near zero flight skills and English skills got a commercial pilot license makes no sense.

[Kingshakabobo]

165. You answer is in your own posts:

>>>>he is certified as a multi-engine commercial pilot by Daryl Strong in Tempe, Arizona. Strong is one of many private examiners independently contracted with the FAA. A spokesperson for the FAA’s workers union will later complain that contractors like Strong “receive between $200 and $300 for each flight check. If they get a reputation for being tough, they won’t get any business.” <<<<

[John Q. Citizen]

167. So what about the 5 complaints from the flight school after that? What about

the FAA guy who suggested the school "hire a translator for Hani?" What about the fact his license expired and US law requires he be retested?

Do you see a pattern here?

What is painfully obviuos is that people in the US governmet were protecting all the accused hijackers all the way up to 9/11, including Hani.

There's the FBI agent who made 75 requests for a warrent to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer, all ignored or denied.

There are the FBI agents in Minnisota, thrawted in there efforts by their superiors, there's John O'Niel who has a case and suspicians thawrted by his superiors.

There's the Venice Beach, Florida Flight Schools owned and operated by CIA connected drug runners and protected by somebody in the US government, there's the white wash 9/11 commission, described as "Compromised," period, by Sen. Cleland.

Somebody got that boy Hani his license and somebody made sure he kept that license. and it wasn't some flunky.

Does that appear to be a possibily to you? Or do you view that as impossible?

[Kingshakabobo]

174. Do I view it as impossible? No.

Is it possible they had handlers? Yes.

But that's not what we have been discussing.

Hanjour was a real person. Hanjour took flight lessons. Hanjour attempted to rent airplanes and was rejected. hanjour spoke some English.

Where we disagree:

It's possible for someone with Hanjour's training to to handle the FMS and locate the pentagon. The final turn and descent was NOT some kind of spectacular acrobatic maneuver. The pentagon, being one of the largest buildings on the planet, is quite possible to locate @ 7000ft on a sunny day. It's possible to set up a final, from 2000ft run and strike a large builsding.......much like a landing(except full power in the last minute)

[John Q. Citizen]

176. Exactly, the help from the inside Hani received allowed him to live the life of a

lone cadre hijacker. In one way or another. Hani may very well have flown a jet into the Pentagon, because somebody inside who has power over the FAA basically illegally trained him to do it knowingly full well they were training him for an illegal purpose. Or maybe Hani didn't do it, but someone inside constructed enough of a cover for the flight and language challenged Hanjour to play the patsy.

Either way, it's an inside job.

1.Somebody with power inside the FAA made damn sure Hani was able to take 757 simulator training.

2. Hani was a lousy pilot by all standards. (Academically, language, demonstrated piloting skill, simulator)

3. Who knows if or how he spotted his target? I bet his inside helper knows something about that though.

[William Seger]

168. "There's no point in having a patsy..."

"... who couldn't conceivably do the crime." And yet, that's exactly what you're accusing those idiot/geniuses of doing? I see.

> He needed a commercial license to get trained on 757s and so that there was a trail to identify after the crime.

Well, he also needed a commercial licence if he was a radical Islamist martyr candidate who wanted to get just enough experience in a 757 simulator that he could point a plane at the Pentagon, wouldn't he? Have you ever heard the term "confirmation bias?" Kingshakabobo already point out that you already posted the basic answer to your own question, but here's more from an AP article, since it seems to be such a 9/11 Unsolved Mystery to you who got him that license:

Report: 9/11 Hijacker Bypassed FAA
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/homefront.html

D A L L A S, June 13 — A suspected Saudi terrorist believed to have piloted the plane that crashed into the Pentagon bypassed the Federal Aviation Administration for his flight licenses, according to a published report today.

Sources and agency records cited by The Dallas Morning News showed that Hani Saleh Hanjour obtained certification by using private examiners who independently contract with the FAA. That certification allowed him to begin passenger jet training at an Arizona flight school despite having what instructors later described as limited flying skills and an even more limited command of English.

The jet training enabled the 30-year-old Hanjour to take the controls of American Airlines Flight 77 on the morning of Sept. 11 and crash it into the Pentagon, killing 188 people including all passengers aboard.

Certification of Hanjour illustrates a flaw in the federal system, one official said.

An FAA inspector in California who spoke on condition of anonymity told the newspaper a pilot now "could go all the way through to become a 747 captain, if you will, having never gone before the FAA."

Agency records show that Hanjour was certified as an "Airplane Multi-Engine Land/Commercial Pilot" on April 15, 1999, by Daryl Strong, a designated pilot examiner in Tempe, Ariz. It was the last of three certifications Hanjour obtained from private examiners.

Strong, 71, said his flight logs confirm that he conducted a check ride with Mr. Hanjour in 1999 in a twin-engine Piper Apache but that he remembers nothing remarkable about him. Strong, with more than 50 years of flying experience that included a commercial crop duster, said until recently he conducted about 200 such check rides each year, at $200 per flight.

FAA officials confirm one of their inspectors, John Anthony, was contacted by Pan Am International Flight Academy in Miami in January and February about Hanjour and, at the request of the school, checked Hanjour's commercial pilot's license to ensure it was valid.

"There should have been a stop right then and there," said Michael Gonzales, an FAA inspector speaking as president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists chapter in Scottsdale that represents FAA field inspectors. He said Hanjour should have been re-examined as a commercial pilot, as required by federal law.

—The Associated Press

So, those idiot/geniuses who so badly wanted a crappy pilot for a patsy were clever enough to leave it to a private certifier to get him a license and a private school to fail to re-examine him.

[John Q. Citizen]

177. Exactly, The FAA inexplicably didn't yank Hani's license and instead

confirmed the validity of his commercial license so the school woundn't re-examine him for a basic commercial license. In fact, according to the eyewitness, the FAA suggested, in opposition to federal law, that the school get Hani an interpretur. Is that amazing or what?

This has nothing to do with whether Hani was an evil Islamist suicide martrer or whether he was a patsey.

This is about inside protection of the accused hijacker, which is obvious in the Hanjour license example, just as stated in the story you excerpted.

Has the FAA gone back over all the pilots certified by Strong to insure he didn't pass other unqualified applicants? And Strong was yet only one failure to occur. The flight school attempted to get FAA intervention on 5 occassions and Hanis license should have expired when he didn't take a physical, hmmm, where have i heard that before, and then he was certified by the FAA again as well. So we have 7 times total that Hani somehow fell through the cracks of the system to license commercial pilots? Co-inky Dink?

Somebody wanted that boy Hani to have a commercial license, and it wasn't the big man upstairs, it wasn't the goddess, and it couldn't have been Osama.

As I keep pointing out to you, this was a continuing pattern with all the hijackers. The hijackers motives and intentions, whatever they were, are quite beside the point that they repeatedly benefited from FBI agents being pulled off cases or tharted in their investigations that concerned the accussed lone cadre and their friends. In Florida it's obvious too that the accused hijack trainees benefited from inside the governemnt special treatment for the flight schools they attended and that the accused highjackers likely were pre-aquainted with the operators of the schools prior to attending and were close.

Im sure if Hani's handler with the strings into the FAA wanted Hani to have a map and training on locating the pentagon by air, he could have arraigned it. Whether he did or not, I can't say.

But I can say that somebody got that kid Hani a commercial license and made sure he kept it, against all odds. That's the definition of an inside job.

[William Seger]

179. No, you're misreading that article

Instead of re-examining Hanjour as it should have, the flight school in Florida simply called the FAA to check on Hanjour's previous license. The FAA told them it was still valid, i.e. not expired, which was true.

And with that, the last straw you're clinging to becomes waterlogged and sinks.

[John Q. Citizen]

180. From the article:

"FAA officials confirm one of their inspectors, John Anthony, was contacted by Pan Am International Flight Academy in Miami in January and February about Hanjour and, at the request of the school, checked Hanjour's commercial pilot's license to ensure it was valid.

"There should have been a stop right then and there," said Michael Gonzales, an FAA inspector speaking as president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists chapter in Scottsdale that represents FAA field inspectors. He said Hanjour should have been re-examined as a commercial pilot, as required by federal law."


The Michael Gonzales, the person speaking is saying that when the FAA checked Hani's license status they should have required re-testing right then as required under federal law. The FAA for some inexplicable reason didn't require that testing, as required by law, and so Hani was able to study on the 757 simulator.


Someone got that boy his license and helped him keep it. Pass it on.

[William Seger]

181. Yes, I understand that's what you WANT it to say

... but it doesn't. The previous paragraph says the Florida school called the FAA to check if the license was valid, and it was. Why would you possibly think that the law requires re-examination everytime someone calls to check a license? What Gonzales appears to be saying -- and I have no way of knowing if he is right or if he's perhaps trying to push responsibility back on the school -- is that if the school had questions about Hanjour's ability to fly a plane, then THEY should have required re-examination before allowing him training. While it's true that paragraph is ambiguous, I can't read it the way you want to and get it to make sense, unless you can find another reference that says Gonzales claims Hanjour's license was invalid, so the FAA shouldn't have told the Florida school it was.

What you're implying is that virtually everyone at the FAA had been instructed to cover for Hanjour if anybody should call and ask. Is that what you're claiming?

[Kingshakabobo]

151. It's funny how you can take a little scrap and run with it....

.....when you, CLEARLY, have no idea what you are talking about.

Ezlivin CLEARLY concedes there WERE flight instructors and check-out pilots that flew with Hanjour.

Now you are claiming Hanjour didn't speak ANY english.....or at least enough to take lessons.

Tell me, how did Hanjour manage to make it up on the 3 check-rides when he attempted to rent equipment when he couldn't speak ANY English?

You can't have it both ways. Either you accept the witness evidence and their interactions with Hanjour that included check-out rides or you don't. If you don't, you don't get to cherry-pick pieces of the witness evidence that suits your purposes.

edit to add:

Even the evidence put up by Ezlivin concedes that he had some english skills. It was clearly a matter of degree and opinion as to his english qualifications.

Question for you: Now that you have read the FAA rules pertaining to speaking english WITHOUT an accent.........Do HONESTLY believe NO ONE passes that has a accent????

Be honest now......note: "FLUENTLY"

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


"Chevrette, the flight school manager, said she told Anthony she believed Hanjour could not write or speak English fluently as required to get a U.S. commercial pilot's license."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Chevrette said she was surprised when the FAA official suggested the school might consider getting a translator to help Hanjour.

"He offered a translator," Chevrette said. "Of course, I brought up the fact that went against the rules that require a pilot to be able to write and speak English fluently before they even get their license."

[John Q. Citizen]

153. He had a 0.26 grade point average in English.

In January 2001, the Arizona flight school JetTech alerts the FAA about hijacker Hani Hanjour. No one at the school suspects Hanjour of terrorist intent, but they tell the FAA he lacks both the English and flying skills necessary for the commercial pilot’s license he has already obtained. For instance, he had taken classes at the University of Arizona but failed his English classes with a 0.26 grade point average. A JetTech flight school manager “couldn’t believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had.” A former employee says, “I’m still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all.” They also note he is an exceptionally poor student who does not seem to care about passing his courses.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0101hanjourwarnings#a0101hanjourwarnings

Yeah, he was a real good talker and piloter

an 0.26 GPA?

ha ha.

And you do know what you are talking about? Please, get a clue. You are being duped. This info is there. You can find it and read it yourself. You don't need me to or 9/11 myths to learn about it. You can do it!

You know, King, when you said you were a pilot, I was kind of impressed. Now I know it ain't no big thing. Anybody can be a pilot.

"Only in America can george w. bush be president and Hani Hanjour get a commercial pilots licence; And both for the same reason!" -JQC

[William Seger]

155. You're desperately deluding yourself

... but I understand. It's all you've got to cling to. Hanjour had enough skill to point the plane at the Pentagon -- barely missing a bridge and the lawn -- and that's all he needed.

[John Q. Citizen]

158. A Chair If I only had a chair. He's one heck of a Jihadist, that's for sure. Boy, when

you guys say that US intel were incompetent, you mean really really really incompentent i guess.

Hani sure pulled the wool over on those guys. But I have to admit, the terrorist were brillent using a guy like this. No one would suspect!

Ha ha ha ha....

[Kingshakabobo]

164. Believe it or not, I think we are getting somewhere...

At least you admit:

A) He spoke SOME english...hopefully, you realize enough to at least attend flight-school and/or attempt renting an airplane.

B) You admit he was a real person.

If we could just get you to admit that "unqualified" doesn't equal "unable to fly a plane" I would be happy.


Take a look at this essay(link below). This guy is an Italian (I know, part of the Illuminati?) pilot and simulator/flight instructor. Like everyone else, he has an opinion but listen to his reasoning behind the opinion...it makes a lot of sense. His insights regarding the simulator's and "autopilot" operation difficulty make a lot of sense.

http://www.911myths.com/Another_Expert.pdf

[John Q. Citizen]

166. Who got him his license? Find out that and you will find out who his US

handler was.

[William Seger]

143. Silly arguments

Boloboffin said: "(as if you have to speak English to fly a plane!)"

You posted a reference about needing to speak English to be an FAA certified pilot.

That's not quite the same thing, is it, or are you seriously arguing that one needs to be FAA certified (and therefore needs to speak English) to be able to fly a plane?

And, are you seriously arguing that "unqualified" (to safely fly a plane) means the same thing as "incapable" (of flying it into the side of a building)?

[Bolo Boffin]

147. Unqualified to do what? Rent the plane. n/t

[Kingshakabobo]

58. Correction...

Not checked out does not equal "incapable of flying "

Or do you have some evidence to the fact that the CFI had to wrestle the controls from Hanni to prevent a stall/crash???


>>>It's best to recall what ATC said about the maneuver to ABC News: ""...all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane...You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe...This must be a fighter."<<<

Can you PLEASE tell me what was "fighter-like" about that maneuver. Pretty please?

The NTSB re-enactment is posted in this thread. Please view it and point out the "fighter-like" portions.

[jberryhill]

60. I agree with the ATC

It seems tautological to say "You don't flay a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe..." It sure as heck was unsafe - he hit a building.

Looking at the replay from the flight data recorder, it doesn't seem that he banked all that much.

Is 260 knots or so the "highest airspeed" for a 757?

I know zip about this particular subject, and have no opinion. If the point is that some particular Hani Hanjour was not the pilot, then fine. If the point was that Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon with someone flying it, then I find that hard to believe. All of the machinations involved in no-plane, two-plane, missile shots, disposing of the passengers, etc. make zero sense to me.

[AZCat]

64. You can type in a simulator.

I worked for a flight simulator training facility for a few years as an undergrad. I think you misunderstand what is involved - these machines aren't like the PC-based simulators you might see in stores. You can actually complete training in a simulator and perform significant parts of the flight tests in them, especially the "C" and "D" class simulators. Type ratings can be earned, although part of the rating (the aircraft walkthrough) must be performed on an actual aircraft (for obvious reasons).

[nebula]

36. From a commercial airline pilot:

"American Airlines Flight 77 crossed the highways, knocking down light poles, entered ground effect, didn't touch the lawn and got a 44 foot high target (Tail height of 757) into a 77 foot target completely, without overshooting or bouncing off the lawn, or spreading any wreckage at 460 knots. With a 33 foot margin for error. Wow, impressive. Takes a real steady hand to pull that off. I know it would take me a few tries to get it so precise, especially entering ground effect at those speeds. Any slight movement will put you off 50 feet very quickly. I'm sure we all would agree."

[Kingshakabobo]

38. Can you provide a link? Source? Anything?

For the sake of intellectual honesty? Pretty please???

Here, for the sake of intellectual honesty, I'm not prepared to say the final-final approach and strike was a piece of cake. He probably had a 60/40?? 50/50?? 70/30?? 40/60?? chance of making it? I tend to think of it as a landing approach..and that's how it appeared....prior to the full power-up at the end.



I'm assuming the asshole tried REALLY hard and PRACTICED.

My biggest beef is with the complete mis-representations of the turn.......death spiral....acrobatic maneuver,, etc. And/or the misrepresentation of his skill level. Now we have people posting quotes "debunking" the ability of someone with "PC" flight (MSFT Flight??) experience....as if his only jet experience was on a home computer. It's ridiculous.

[nebula]

41. The paragraph quoted...

is toward the lower portion of the page.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/pentagon.html


Interesting perspective from an commercial pilot.

It really is amazing how Hani Hanjour managed to maneuver a commercial airliner (whether it was a 747 or 757) into the face of a building with a 33-foot margin of error. And he managed to strike this bullseye dead-on on his FIRST pass. Without bouncing the aircraft off the ground or overshooting the target at all.

As if Allah himself were in the pilot's seat! I think we have all witnessed another miracle here.

[Bolo Boffin]

43. What 33-foot margin of error? The Pentagon was 90 feet high. n/t

[nebula]

47. You misunderstand the point

He's not saying the Pentagon is 33 feet high.

33-feet is the MARGIN OF ERROR. Which means the pilot can only be off by 33-feet in either vertical direction.

If the pilot is off by more than 33 feet UP, then he will fly over the Pentagon and misses it.

If the pilot is off by more than 33 feet DOWN, then he misses the Pentagon and crashes into the ground.

[Bolo Boffin]

53. Again - the Pentagon is 90' high.

Even divided in half, that's 45' in either direction, up or down.

But that does change the fact that Hanjour had 90' of wall to hit, up or down.

[nebula]

61. You're not taking into consideration

the vertical length of the plane.

You're assuming that the margin of error is 90 feet because the building is 90 feet tall.

That's wrong.

You have to take into consideration the height of the object (an airplane) striking the building. Whatever the width or height of the airplane is, you subtract it from the eight of the building to get the margin of error.

Simple logic. The larger the striking object is, the smaller margin of error you have.

For example, it is easier to throw a ball through a 3-foot wide hoop when the ball is only 6-inches in diameter than if the ball is 2-feet in diameter.

The 6-inch ball gives you a margin of error of 2.5 feet.

But the 2-foot round ball gives you only 6-inches of room to miss, a much smaller margin of error.

[jberryhill]

74. How much training did Kamikaze pilots have?

Seriously.

They were going after smaller targets at comparable speed.

You think Japan was using its best pilots for kamikaze missions?

[Kingshakabobo]

81. Their simulators consisted of a wooden box seat and a broom handle yoke.

......the graduation consisted of a white scarf and a point in the right general direction.

[nebula]

169. Kamikaze pilots were trained on small, highly

maneuverable fighter aircraft.


So that somehow makes them qualified to fly Boeing 757's as well?

Seriously, what are you smoking?

[Kingshakabobo]

175. No they weren't. Post #81 wasn't a joke.

[nebula]

56. By the same token

The margin of error was also exceedingly SMALL for the Twin Towers in the horizontal direction.

Because the wingspan of the plane is nearly as wide as the width of each of the Twin Towers. Only a few feet off in either the right or left direction and the suicide pilot would miss the Tower entirely. Or just clips it with his plane's wing.

How amazing is it that BOTH, no less, of these pilots managed to smack right dab into their WTC targets on their very first attempts? WOW!

No need for neither of them to turn around and try again (like most pilots attempting such a feat would require). They've got Allah on their side!

[Kingshakabobo]

44. Is that from the guy that posts here?

The guy who had a YouTube profile saying he was 26 years old.....with twenty years flight experience? It was subsequently changed to 105 years old???? when Greyl called him on it. That guy?

The guy who quotes, on the link you provided, the chief CFI (the guy who refused rental)thinks he could have pulled it off. That guy?

The guy that says:

>>>did the maneuver described above, a 400 knot 330 degree spiraling dive at 2500 fpm, only gaining 30 knots, then 30 knots more descending from 2200 feet at full power, with a very steady <<<<<

Clearly a mis-representation of the NTSB-FDR info that HE POSTED to the net....

spiraling dive my ass......400 knots my ass........

That guy?

Zero credibility.

[nebula]

49. You got the wrong guy

I never heard of him.

[Kingshakabobo]

52. Nice edit.....it's the same guy...and he DOES, contrary to your pre-edit post...

.......say this:

>>>>>>So, to sum up. Hani Hanjour, took a 757, with zero time in type, did the maneuver described above, a 400 knot 330 degree sprialing dive at 2500 fpm, only gaining 30 knots, then 30 knots more descending from 2200 feet at full power, with a very steady hand as to not overshoot or hit the lawn, inside ground effect, at 460 knots impact <<<<<<<<<<

Or am I missing something????? It's from your link.

[Kingshakabobo]

54. Can I ask you why you edited the post....

....to remove the part where YOU say he never used "400 knots" or "spiraling dive" in the link you provide?

Wouldn't if be more ....ahem....fair to edit and say "oh it DOES say that"?.....insted of editing while someone is posting a reply?????

What say you?

[nebula]

59. I haven't studied that part about the spiraling dives or 400 knots

as a layperson I may not be qualified to.

That is why I decline to address those areas and deleted them.

But how about you addressing the points made in my ORIGINAL QUOTE of the pilot before we jump to other topics, hmmm? Or are you trying to avoid doing that for some reason?

[Kingshakabobo]

62. Please don't deflect.

You posted a link.

I, making a case for your source's lack of credibility, pointed out an inaccuracy in the link.

You denied the inaccuracy was there.

As I was retrieving the inaccuracy from YOUR link you deleted your denial.

I was merely pointing out that it is rude to edit out material information in YOUR POST without referencing it and/or pretending it never existed.

I'll have to take another look at the quote to which you are referring...stand by.

[nebula]

45. I would compare the amazing stunt executed at the Pentagon

with such precision

...in its degree of difficulty...as akin to successfully landing a large plane onto the deck of an aircraft carrier...by an amateur pilot who doesn't know how to land a Cessna on dry land.

The side face of the Pentagon would certainly be comparable in size to the deck of an aircraft carrier. From the seat of a speeding jet-powered aircraft, both are exceedingly small targets .

So I wonder how many amateur, marginal pilots can land a jet-powered plane onto the deck of an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean, and on the first pass/attempt no less?

[Kingshakabobo]

50. Try again.

Why? Because landing on an aircraft carrier presents a WHOLE different problem in that you have a VERY defined/short runway in which to start/stop your landing. Not to mention that the pentagon is much wider than an aircraft carrier. The threshold/touchdown piece would be the real difficult part, IMO.

Turn on the military channel and watch a carrier landing....shouldn't be hard. Pay attention to why most landings are aborted - not because they miss left to right....it's because they land too far past the arresting hooks.

It appears Hanni set the approach up and "flew" the plane, at a shallow angle of attack, in to the side of the building....thereby removing the landing threshold/touchdown piece of the equation. Also, not having to stop at a certain point kinda makes things "easier."

Note: I don't know the first fucking thing about aircraft carrier landings but I figure I can comment just as much as nebula......LOL

[nebula]

70. You don't have to know anything about quantum physics

to know that it is an exceedingly difficult field of study.

Like aircraft carrier landings, there aren't a whole lot of people in the world that have mastered it.

[Kingshakabobo]

73. I know enough about carrier landings to not try and compare......

....them to the pentagon strike. A more accurate comparison might be flying a jet aircraft under a 90 foot high bridge........since we are mentally masturbating???

[William Seger]

65. Sure about that?

Watch this amateur do it three times in a row in a commercial simulator. (It's in Dutch, but you'll get the idea.)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KZ5zZk9oj6A

And sorry, but I trust absolutely nothing coming from pilotsfor911truth.org. Those are the guys trying to sell a video that shows the NTSB simulation of AA77 hitting the Pentagon, but it has the Pentagon graphic misaligned. JohnDoeX knows that now, but he's still pushing that video as "proof" the the plane didn't hit the lightpoles on the bridge. They're just a bunch of hucksters.

Here are some quotes from some other professionals:

From http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/05/19/askthepilot186/

As I've explained in at least one prior column, Hani Hanjour's flying was hardly the show-quality demonstration often described. It was exceptional only in its recklessness. If anything, his loops and turns and spirals above the nation's capital revealed him to be exactly the shitty pilot he by all accounts was. To hit the Pentagon squarely he needed only a bit of luck, and he got it, possibly with help from the 757's autopilot. Striking a stationary object -- even a large one like the Pentagon -- at high speed and from a steep angle is very difficult. To make the job easier, he came in obliquely, tearing down light poles as he roared across the Pentagon's lawn.

It's true there's only a vestigial similarity between the cockpit of a light trainer and the flight deck of a Boeing. To put it mildly, the attackers, as private pilots, were completely out of their league. However, they were not setting out to perform single-engine missed approaches or Category 3 instrument landings with a failed hydraulic system. For good measure, at least two of the terrorist pilots had rented simulator time in jet aircraft, but striking the Pentagon, or navigating along the Hudson River to Manhattan on a cloudless morning, with the sole intention of steering head-on into a building, did not require a mastery of airmanship. The perpetrators had purchased manuals and videos describing the flight management systems of the 757/767, and as any desktop simulator enthusiast will tell you, elementary operation of the planes' navigational units and autopilots is chiefly an exercise in data programming. You can learn it at home. You won't be good, but you'll be good enough.

"They'd done their homework and they had what they needed," says a United Airlines pilot (name withheld on request), who has flown every model of Boeing from the 737 up. "Rudimentary knowledge and fearlessness."

"As everyone saw, their flying was sloppy and aggressive," says Michael (last name withheld), a pilot with several thousand hours in 757s and 767s. "Their skills and experience, or lack thereof, just weren't relevant."

"The hijackers required only the shallow understanding of the aircraft," agrees Ken Hertz, an airline pilot rated on the 757/767. "In much the same way that a person needn't be an experienced physician in order to perform CPR or set a broken bone."

That sentiment is echoed by Joe d'Eon, airline pilot and host of the "Fly With Me" podcast series. "It's the difference between a doctor and a butcher," says d'Eon.

From http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_1253.shtml

Some prominent 9/11 skeptics claim that the flight path of the jet that hit the Pentagon would have been humanly impossible in a 757, while others admit it might be possible for an expert pilot, but not for hijacker Hani Hanjour, the inexperienced pilot believed to have commandeered Flight 77.

In Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack, Eric Hufschmid says: "I would say it is absurd to believe an inexperienced pilot could fly such a plane a few millimeters above the ground. The flight path of this plane is enough to convince me that no human was in control of it. I think only a computer is capable of flying an airplane in such a tricky manner. If terrorists flew the plane, they would qualify as the World's Greatest Pilots since they did tricks with a commercial aircraft that I doubt the best Air Force pilots could do."

Ralph Omholt's "skydrifter" website claims: "No pilot will claim to be able to hit such a spot as the Pentagon base � under any conditions � in a 757 doing 300 knots. As to the clearly alleged amateur pilots: IMPOSSIBLE!"

"Impossible"? "No pilot will claim...?" Well, we did not have any difficulty finding pilots who disagreed. Ronald D. Bull, a retired United Airlines pilot, in Jupiter, Florida, told The New American, "It's not that difficult, and certainly not impossible," noting that it's much easier to crash intentionally into a target than to make a controlled landing. "If you're doing a suicide run, like these guys were doing, you'd just keep the nose down and push like the devil," says Capt. Bull, who flew 727s, 747s, 757s, and 767s for many years, internationally and domestically, including into the Washington, D.C., airports.

Lamp posts taken out by Flight 77 were too far apart to have been done by a missile or a fighter jet, say witnesses and experts, including General Benton K. Partin.
George Williams of Waxhaw, North Carolina, piloted 707s, 727s, DC-10s, and 747s for Northwest Airlines for 38 years. "I don't see any merit to those arguments whatsoever," Capt. Williams told us. "The Pentagon is a pretty big target and I'd say hitting it was a fairly easy thing to do."

From http://www.911myths.com/Another_Expert.pdf

In my opinion the official version of the fact is absolutely plausible, does not require exceptional circumstances, bending of any law of physics or superhuman capabilities. Like other (real pilots) have said, the manoeuvres required of the hijackers were within their (very limited) capabilities, they were performed without any degree of finesse and resulted in damage to the targets only after desperate overmanoeuvring of the planes. The hijackers took advantage of anything that might make their job easier, and decided not to rely on their low piloting skills. It is misleading to make people believe that the hijackers HAD to possess superior pilot skills to do what they did.

In short, this entire thread is really lame.

[LARED]

14. Imagine this.....

your posting on a forum without a single freakin clue what your talking about, and no one notices.

[greyl]

17. We could also imagine the same stupid points haven't been destroyed here before

The impossibility of mere humans to fly heavy aircraft into huge buildings-5-3-06

The Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training-4-13-06

Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training-2-28-06

The Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training by Nila Sagade-2-17-06

The Ground Effect: Why a 757 Going 500 mph Couldn't Have Hit the Pentagon-6-14-05

It's amazing how many people (dis-info jerkoffs) involved in these threads have been tombstoned.

[jberryhill]

22. imagination in progress....

This is the Pentagon from directly overhead:


On my monitor, each 921 foot long wall is 2 inches across.

Rounding to 1000 feet for convenience, I am going to simulate a cruising altitude of 20,000 feet. That puts my head 40 inches away from the monitor.

Yep. I can still see it clearly.

Your point?

(Go ahead and measure it on your screen, then multiply by 20 to get the distance to put your own head)

[dailykoff]

25. Thanks, now the OP makes more sense.

I didn't realize that from the air the Pentagon is nearly indistinguishable from the parking lots and roads around it.

[jberryhill]

26. Considering that

We are talking about I-395 and some of the largest parking lots in Northern Virginia, those roads, parking lots, and the Potomac River all provide convenient visual navigation aids.

Download Google Earth and give it a whirl. I can zoom in on it from orbit by hand with no problem.

[dailykoff]

28. One problem is the skimpy shadow line.

The Pentagon may be big, but it's short, and it doesn't cast enough of shadow to make it very distinguishable from the air.

[sgsmith]

27. Easy to spot

I travel fairly frequently from Atlanta to Newark, NJ on business, and if I'm in a window seat on the correct side of the airplane, it's easy to see the buildings and other landmarks of Washington DC from altitude. If someone is familiar with an area, once you recognize any particular landmark, recognizing additional landmarks becomes easier and easier.

As an example, one flight I'm was in seat something-A on the left side of a Delta MD-88. Looking out the left window, I notice a big airport, with large parallel runways. Knowing that I'm about in the DC area, it's easy to guess that I'm looking at Andrews AFB, which means that DC is North and west. North and west is further away from me, to the left. And once you see the Mall, all of the other landmarks start jumping out. The Mall, the Capital, the Washington Monument, the Potomac river, National airport, the Pentagon, Arlington cemetary.

But a hijacker wouldn't necessarily use pilotage to navigate. Airplanes have these wonderful things called radios, which tune into stations that transmit signals, and the stations are often located on airports and are used to navigate to the airport. And there's a great big airport sitting right next to the Pentagon, with every navaid known to man transmitting signals.

As mentioned elsewhere, a commercial rated pilot, with familiarization time in simulators, could easily fly the profile.

Airplane, single engine land rated. And you, my friend, aren't!

[William Seger]

29. Not so "spectacular"

This is the view he would have had from 7000 feet, from approximately where the spiral began:

[Kingshakabobo]

30. That's probably fairly accurate.

One point. It wasn't a "spiral". It was a descending right turn that took 3 minutes to execute. Airspeed ranged from 265-300 kts.


See: Simulation of final turn...from the NTSB data.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzR-q0ijbV0

[William Seger]

32. Yup, just a simple turn to kill the altitude

I'm sure that was the plan: Stay at about 7000 feet until he saw the Pentagon, then do that turn to kill the altitude. Trying to dive on the Pentagon from that altitude without picking up so much speed that the wings ripped off would have required some real skill; turning like that did not.

[vincent_vega_lives]

126. Diving

Not just that. When diving you increase airspeed over the wings, that increases lift, which means it is very easy to overshoot, so you must start the dive short of the target, but not too short.

[SidDithers]

57. THAT'S the view I was hoping for...

Nicely done! :applause:

Sid

[Kingshakabobo]

63. Even THAT view seems a little .....distorted????

Everything looks so gray. Doesn't it.

9/11 was a very clear/sunny day.

edit to add: buildings/pentagon would have stood out more from the surround green spaces. No?

[William Seger]

66. It's from Google Earth, not a true perspective

It's Google Earth's satellite image looking almost straight down, but Google will let you view those images from a synthetic perspective at a given altitude. So, the real building would be even easier to see with true 3D and realistic color. All this picture proves is that the Pentagon is a big-assed building, which Hanjour could have easily seen from the altitude and distance where he started his descent.

It would be nice if CTers did at least a little homework before posting their latest amazing "insights."

[nebula]

67. Again, spotting an object on the ground from an airliner

is not the same thing as maneuvering a 400-mph jumbo jet into a head-on, dead-on collision with said object. Particularly when your piloting ability is limited to a Cessna, and you've been flunked out of flight school for failing performance. Even a seasoned, expert commercial pilot would be hard pressed to accomplish such a feat by striking the (90-foot high) target on the very first pass.

You don't seem acknowledge the distinct difference in difficulty between these two things.

[William Seger]

110. "Imagine this"

At least you picked an appropriate title for your thread. You imagined that Hanjour couldn't have seen that tiny little speck of Pentagon, and you're still imagining that it's virtually impossible to point a plane at that speck. I see you didn't have any comment on my post above with the video that showed that Dutch amateur doing it three times in a row, and no comment on the quotes from many pilots familiar with that plane who directly contradict what you're saying and say it just isn't that hard. (That was just a small sample, by the way; I've read many similar statements.) Which do you think is more convincing: your imagination, or the opinion of pilots who know that plane?

Have you ever played with Microsoft Flight Simulator? Their slogan is "As real as it gets" because of the accuracy with which it models aircraft dynamics and controls. From "flying" several of the large commercial jets in that sim, with no training at all, my opinion is that safely landing jets that size on a narrow runway is pretty hard, but flying them into the side of a building the size of the Pentagon is not very hard at all. Provided that you get the plane lined up before you get too close to correct very much, it doesn't matter that planes that size are not as maneuverable as a Cessna, because they definitely go right where you point them!

So, given what commercial pilots say, from watching that amateur do it, and from my own impressions from Flight Simulator, I'm sorry, but it's going to take a lot more than your imagination to convince me that it was as impossible as you imagine.

[treestar]

68. The thing that is remarkable from most of these pictures is

how flat it is. It is a low building in the long run, and he'd have needed to have been very close for it to have even looked three dimensional.

I don't pretend to know what happened at the Pentagon, but the official story on that one is the one that stinks the most.

I could buy the other three as being a pure terrorist plot. But it is Flight 77 that makes me really suspicious.

[nebula]

71. And by the time you got close enough to the Pentagon to see it

you would have little or no time to maneuver your jumbo aircraft into a precise position that allows it to collide with the Pentagon head on. All the while keeping a rock steady hand on the controls because nudging the flight stick even a centimeter in the wrong the direction is enough to throw your plane 50 feet OFF of your target.

[jberryhill]

72. What makes you think he hit his "target"

For all you know, he wanted to bring it in onto the roof and missed because he was too low.

His target, which you now seem to understand is visible from low earth orbit, was the largest office building on the planet.

[treestar]

113. But who cares how large it is when it is not tall?

It is not high, so it is not even three dimensional to the pilot until he is very close, possibly too close to even do anything.

If it can be explained, then someone could do it.

Maybe it could all be mapped out in advance so that he was landing there as if it were the airport and could just be sure it would go straight into the side of the Pentagon.

That is a good point about the target though. Maybe the target was the Capitol or something else and he just didn't make it.

Though if there was any "logic" to the attack it was to try to cut off the US at the head - the Arabs did not "get" the sentimental value might be greater, or they'd have taken off the Capitol Rotunda and the Statue of Liberty rather than the WTC and the Pentagon.

It was as if they thought that taking out the Pentagon would disable the military and the WTCs would take out the economy - which is why I would argue their fourth destination was the WH, thinking that taking out the President would be another way to cut off the head - they would just be too ignorant to realize the President might not even be home and that the whole scheme would not bring down the US.

[jberryhill]

118. Now you're thinking...

"Maybe it could all be mapped out in advance so that he was landing there as if it were the airport and could just be sure it would go straight into the side of the Pentagon."

Very good. Now, do you know what is on the OTHER side of the Pentagon? You don't have to say "as if"... there IS an airport - right there.


"Though if there was any "logic" to the attack it was to try to cut off the US at the head"

How do the WTC towers figure into that "logic". Nothing in them was the "head" of the US government or the economy. That's not to say there wasn't important stuff in them, but that's true of every large office building. Hitting something like the NYSE would have been more economically significant.

They tried and failed in 1993. So they tried again.

Just as an aside since I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the various theories, is the 1993 attack also touted as an "inside job"?

[John Q. Citizen]

129. The FBI had an informant on the inside of the cell, according to

Peter Lance

Here's blurb about his book:

Triple Cross: How bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him (Regan Books), contains the most stunning revelation yet -- that al Qaeda had a top-notch operative named Ali Mohamed who infiltrated U.S. intelligence agencies, and instead of disclosing this information to the public the U.S. government chose to intentionally bury it in a major cover up. The book also contains a fascinating, illustrated timeline about Ali Mohamed and his relation to the events leading up to 9/11.

His time line starts prior to the 1993 tower bombing.
http://www.peterlance.com/TRIPLE%20CROSS%20Timeline.pdf


I'm consistently at a lose why apparently not one of our "incompetency" embracing OCT posters on this forum are ever familiar with the work of people like Lance or Hopsicker. Both of these authors/journalist don't believe the 9/11 attack was an inside job. They believe it was solely the work of Islamic terrorists. Yet for all their claims to possessing an education, I have yet to see one, even just one, of the OCT posters here reference either Hopsicker or Lance.

What's up with that?

All I can conclude is that our no-inside-jobbers also buy the 9/11 report hook line and sinker and believe it to be a complete and in depth account of everything 9/11. I know that some have said they don't buy the whole thing, but apparently they don't know which parts they don't buy.

[William Seger]

140. Another one bites the dust

> All I can conclude is that our no-inside-jobbers also buy the 9/11 report hook line and sinker and believe it to be a complete and in depth account of everything 9/11.

Ah, another John Q straw-man. All I can conclude is that absurd exaggeration is the only way you have of pretending to debate anything.

Yes, indeed, there are serious unanswered questions about 9/11. Why would you expect them to be discussed on this particular sub-forum?

[John Q. Citizen]

149. Hey, I encourage reading. Have you read Hopsicker or Lance? If not, you

really should.

You might learn something! I know I did.

Google -Lance Triple Cross- and check out his timeline. or you might read Welcome To Terrorland, Mohammad Atta and the 9/11 Hijackers in Florida. You can read it for free at at americanbuddha.com online lending library.

Let me know if you do and we can discuss it.

And don't be afraid. Both those authors hold the Oops theory, so you don't have to feel like you are reading some L/MIHOP stuff.

Have a good day.

Oh, yeah, the post I replied to asked about the 1993 truck bombing. Lance has some in depth stuff on that. Which is why I knew it was being discussed on this sub forum. -FYI

[Kingshakabobo]

76. "And by the time you got close enough to the Pentagon to see it"

Exactly!

That's why he approached at 7k altitude, made a descending right turn, lined up on his target -- much like a field approach-- and nosed it in at full power once he was close enough.

[Kingshakabobo]

75. Think nine story building........ If that helps.

The pentagon, at 90 ft. high, is not a very small target.

[nebula]

77. A 90 foot tall building is a very small target

when the object hitting it is nearly the same height.

[Bolo Boffin]

78. First, an apology: the Pentagon is 77 feet 3.5 inches high.

That's my bad.

Second, the object hitting it was still not nearly the same height. A 757-223, from the top of the fuselage to the bottom of the engines (the landing gear was up) is 17 feet 8 inchs high.

[nebula]

79. Tail height of 757 is 44 feet.

[jberryhill]

84. WELL THEN ITS A GOOD THING FOR HIM HE WASN'T FLYING BACKWARDS!

The Energizer Bunny of Irrelevant Observations...

[Bolo Boffin]

85. That's irrelevant.

If the tail had been one inch above the height of the Pentagon, the fuselage would have hit it just the same.

[Kingshakabobo]

87. What about with the gear up? Minus what? 10-15 feet?

Now take away the tail and what do you get? A cylinder about, what?, 15-16? feet high in which Hanjour was placed at the tip. In other words, Hanjour only had to aim his windshield, a relatively small "world", at the 77 foot high wall.

edit:punctuation

[treestar]

115. The question is how long did he have to do that?

If he were slowing down for a simile of a landing at that point, maybe. But did he have room for that? Studying the airplane parts and the building parts might reveal the speed of impact, but I take it that hasn't been bothered with because "everyone knows what happened."

[Kingshakabobo]

116. I'm not sure what your question is? Time to do what?

If you are referring to the gear, it was never down.

[jberryhill]

121. Why do that?

The flight data recorder has the speed he was going. Why study the debris to figure out the speed?

[treestar]

131. Where is the flight data recorder?

I thought there were none except for Flight 93, but if I am mistaken, great. What did is show as the speed at impact?

[jberryhill]

135. Yes, you are mistaken - AA77's FDR was recovered

Here's the raw data taken from the flight data recorder:

http://www.911myths.com/AAL77_fdr.pdf

Aside from the snarky editorial comments, that data plays out like this:

http://www.jonhs.net/911/american_77_final_maneuver.htm

What's odd is that the snarky comments contradict what is going on. It is a badly done turn, and if you watch the yoke, he was making all sorts of adjustments on the way in.

The reason I raise the question of "what was he TRYING to do" as opposed to what he actually did, is that I doubt he planned to hit a bunch of light poles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVDdjLQkUV8

And, if the comment about the altimeter bothers you, there are some quite longwinded discussions on that point concerning the data rate of the FDR, altimeter lag, and ground position relative to the data (the flight data recorder records the plane's operating parameters and doesn't care where the plane is).

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=66047

I personally do not profess any expertise in flying other than my physics background and MS Flight Simulator. On that limited understanding, though, Kingshakabobo's comments on "bleeding speed" with that long, flat spiral instead of nosing in, make a lot of sense to me. It appears from the animation that the pilot was trying to avoid going faster than his ability to aim the plane, and then tried to make up for it by pegging the throttle and nosing in from a lower altitude at the end. Watch the speed during the turn and then once he is on a straight track.

If you watch the instruments during the descent, the pilot appears to be trying to keep the speed within a narrow range, while his roll and the rate of descent are all over the map. I would expect a much smoother loss of altitude and maintenance of speed from someone with a better idea of what they were doing, but that's just my non-expert opinion.

[nebula]

88. My mistake

even the 44-ft. tail height of a 757 is not nearly as tall as a 77-foot tall building (which you have also corrected).

In any case, the height of a 77-ft. tall building cannot be considered large or small without considering other factors, such as the speed and size of the aircraft that is attempting to collide into it.

For example and argument sake, a Fighter aircraft traveling at the speed of sound is probably going to be a lot harder to control and maneuver into collision with a 77-foot tall building than is a much slower moving and much more maneuverable aircraft such as a twin-engine propeller Cessna.

I don't think the 77-ft. tall face of the Pentagon can be considered a 'small target' when the object trying to strike is a jumbo jet moving at 400 miles an hour.

Not to mention one that is flown by a mediocre pilot who couldn't even manage to land a Cessna for Christ sake.

[greyl]

82. There's still no reason to believe the target was the side of the Pentagon.

Until that point is finally acknowledged, the discussion will barely progress.

[nebula]

92. Thats ridiculous

if the target was not the side of the Pentagon, then the angle of approach of the 757 would be much more pronounced. Instead, the actual angle of approach was nearly LEVEL, indicating that indeed the target was the SIDE of the building.

How the hell could you even hope to hit the top of the Pentagon when your plane is approaching at almost LEVEL position??

[jberryhill]

107. Now you're thinking...

You see, he WAS a bad pilot after all.

[AZCat]

80. Your logic doesn't make sense.

The bigger the plane, the easier it is to hit the target.

[Kingshakabobo]

83. I don't get that either......

I guess it's easier to hit the side of a barn with a small car versus a large truck??:shrug:

[AZCat]

86. I don't know how this happens.

Is public education in such bad shape that it can't teach critical thinking skills anymore?

[Kingshakabobo]

89. Were you around for the OPs "combustible steel" sub-thread yesterday?

"throw another steel log on the fire"

That only took a half day.:shrug:

edit: yep, you were there.

[AZCat]

90. I think I saw it after the fact.

I was shaking my head the whole time while I read, it was that painful.

[greyl]

141. Did it ever teach critical thinking skills? nt

[nebula]

91. You're wrong

It is easier to hit the target with a small plane than a large plane.


First of all, the large plane needs to be moving faster than a small plane in order for it to maintain lift without falling from the sky. And you know as well as I do that control decreases with speed.


Secondly, a large plane like a 757 is going to be MUCH LESS maneuverable than a small craft such as a twin-prop Cessna.

[Kingshakabobo]

93. Are you saying the faster the plane travels, the less maneuverable it is?

[nebula]

95. Are you denying the fact

that a 757 is much less maneuverable than a twin-prop Cessna??

That's what you seem to be implying.

Have we entered the Twilight Zone? How could anyone in their right mind argue such a thing?

[AZCat]

98. That's exactly what we were wondering yesterday...

when you proposed that steel could combust. I could almost hear the theme song playing as I read through that thread.

[Kingshakabobo]

99. YOU said control DECREASES with speed.

Are you saying the faster a plane travels the less maneuverable it is?

[AZCat]

94. You probably should read up on this stuff...

before making statements like these - it doesn't reflect well on you. I'd recommend anything that covers the concept of "lift" - something that seems to escape you at the moment. A little fluid dynamics wouldn't hurt, although you'll need to know something about aviation in order to understand how it applies to control surfaces of aircraft.

Good luck, and get back to me when you know what you are talking about. I look forward to our future productive discussion.

[nebula]

96. You speak nonsense

I stated an elementary fact that a 757 requires more lift to remain in flight than a twin-engine Cessna.


What part of that do you not understand??

[AZCat]

97. That's not what you claimed at all.

Those goalposts get pretty heavy when you carry them that far, don't they?

[nebula]

100. Let me quote it for you...

From my original post (#91) where I first brought up the concept of 'lift.'

"First of all, the large plane needs to be moving faster than a small plane in order for it to maintain lift without falling from the sky. And you know as well as I do that control decreases with speed."




Perhaps you should invest in a pair of decent reading glasses.
Jesus Christ.

[AZCat]

101. Except that's not what you said in post #96.

Perhaps you should invest in a few classes on this stuff - I don't think reading texts on your own is going to be enough.

[nebula]

102. What exactly did I say??

Please explain how the meaning of lift is different in 96 than in 91???


For the love of God, put down the crack pipe!

[AZCat]

103. You really can't tell the difference between the two statements?

My g*d, what have we done to our children?

Maybe you should sleep on it and look at them again in the morning with fresh eyes.

[nebula]

104. I beseech you

to step away from the crackpipe.

[AZCat]

105. And with that, I'm done.

I leave it up to others to see for themselves how ridiculous your statements are - it shouldn't be difficult.

[nebula]

106. Explain to me what the difference is

Otherwise, I suggest you go seek professional treatment for your crack addiction.



Post 91:
"First of all, the large plane needs to be moving faster than a small plane in order for it to maintain lift without falling from the sky. And you know as well as I do that control decreases with speed."


Post 96:
"I stated an elementary fact that a 757 requires more lift to remain in flight than a twin-engine Cessna."

[AZCat]

178. If you can't see the difference...

when both posts are side-by-side, then I can't help you. It should be quite obvious that in post #91 you are talking about velocity in relation to lift (something that isn't as cut-and-dried as you seem to think), and in post #96 you just mention the relative lift between a B757 and a "twin-engine Cessna".

Unfortunately for you, the term "twin-engine Cessna" is a bit wider in scope than I imagine you supposed. Do you mean something like

a Cessna 310, or were you referring to

the Citation 5, perhaps? I think we would all agree that these two planes, while both fitting the criteria (twin-engine Cessna) are quite different. But I digress...

It should be understood that lift is not just a function of velocity - the particular shape of the aircraft has a strong influence on lift as well. The application of control surfaces can change that shape, thereby generating more or less lift depending on the nature of that change.. It is not uncommon for larger planes to be designed as "lifting bodies", where the shape of the fuselage is such that it creates lift independent of other surfaces. Certainly a heavier plane requires more lift than a lighter one, but how this lift is generated is more complicated than merely velocity.

[jberryhill]

108. Make up your mind

First you say:

"All the while keeping a rock steady hand on the controls because nudging the flight stick even a centimeter in the wrong the direction is enough to throw your plane 50 feet OFF of your target.

Then you say:

"a large plane like a 757 is going to be MUCH LESS maneuverable than a small craft such as a twin-prop Cessna."

The bottom line is that hitting a 77 foot target at 300-400 mph scales as hitting a 7 foot target at 30-40 mph. Go stand in front of my car, I'd like to run the experiment on that one.

[nebula]

109. A vehicle that is very 'maneuverable' describes

one that is relatively easy to direct where you want to go.

'Maneuverable' does not describe, as you suggest, the sensitivity of the controls.

A small, slow-moving twin-engine Cessna with propellers is going to be a lot more maneuverable than a giant Boeing 757.

A Honda Civic is going to be a lot more maneuverable than an 18-wheel cargo truck.

[Kingshakabobo]

123. 'Maneuverable' does not describe, as you suggest, the sensitivity of the controls."

Yes, it does. In this case it does. Maneuverability DOES suggest the sensitivity of the controls. The faster air travels over the control surfaces, the more maneuverable the aircraft is. You seemed to be suggesting that maneuverability DECREASES with increased airspeed - that's wrong.

You brought up a Cessna......Question: Which plane is more maneuverable? The larger F-16 or the smaller Cessna?........sure the Cessna has a tighter turn radius OVER DISTANCE than the F-16........but we are not talking about turn radius when referring to the pentagon - it was a mostly straight in approach.

[jberryhill]

138. You misunderstood him, King

By "burning" he means "melting".

By "maneuverable" he means "can't be aimed in a straight line by a commercial rated pilot".

[treestar]

114. I know that, but am thinking in perspective

From the pilot's perspective it is practically flat. Naturally at nine stories tall it is a "high" building to a person standing next to it. But that person isn't trying to find it from the air.

[William Seger]

117. You should try it yourself in Flight Simulator, with NO training

Then, at least you'd have something to base your opinions on.

[Bolo Boffin]

119. I don't know, Seger.

That could be like asking OJ to try on the gloves.

[treestar]

132. Then explain to us how he had time to do it

If you know so much more. If you don't plan on explaining it, then don't expect to convice us ignorant masses.

[Kingshakabobo]

120. What are we talking about? Finding it or hitting it?

You are aware that he approached the building, turned around, bled altitude and set up a final approach.....aren't you?


The fact that people on this thread are arguing that one of the largest buildings on this planet is "impossible" to locate from the air is stunning and, quite frankly, leads me to believe they are being disingenuous......

That's what pilots do - especially general aviation pilots! Locate things, like airports, from the air using visual references. Think of the pentagon as an airstrip if that helps.

The frickin building wasn't camouflaged.

He's a better picture than the google satellite photos. Even this doesn't do justice to how the building would look on that sunny morning.



edit:spelling

[piobair]

122. What is so frustrating

is that so many of these posts get started by folks that have absolutely no knowledge of the subject matter that they wish to discuss. This thread for example starts out,"just imagine". It's hard to rebut feelings and "common sense" when you are dealing with science and measurable physical parameters. It is the same with the chemtrail folks. They "just know" but have nothing to back it up with. The other frustration is once confronted with a reasonable explanation based on observable science they just move on to the next crackpot theory. Even Emily Lattela on the old Saturday Night Live as played by Gilda Radner had the decency to utter "never mind" when shown that her rants were based on incorrect information.
Based on many of the posts that show up here I'm afraid the short busses must be filled to capacity.

[Kingshakabobo]

124. Yep. I just took another look at the OP......

The pentagon is described as "a speck of dirt".........This, from the same poster that argued, for half of a day, that WTC steel "burns" and fuels itself.

[nebula]

170. This from an OCTer who claims

that a Boeing 757 is more maneuverable than a twin engine prop Cessna.


:rofl:

[treestar]

134. I guess you're not very good at getting your opinions and ideas

across - and have to resort to calling the people you can't convince stupid. Of course, that doesn't work.

No, we don't "just know" but what have you done other than just claiming that you "just know" and that you are superior to us stupidheads? Do you get so much deference in whatever job you do that you don't ever have to try to get anyone to go along with anything? Everyone you work with just does your bidding at your word? Who are you, the decider?

[treestar]

133. I'm curious; why don't you just explain it to us ignorant masses

If you were a teacher would you approach the class by insulting them because they don't know the things you are trying to explain?

If you were a lawyer, you would tell the jury what to find and then abuse them as stupid if they found against your client, because you didn't bother to explain?

You inflame the conspiracy theories by simply not having any way to get your ideas across.

[jberryhill]

136. Read post 135

It's nobody's job to deal with willful ignorance. This is just a hobby after all.

Saying you don't think it is possible, while admitting that you thought the flight data recorder was not recovered and asking what the impact speed is, to someone who would prefer an informed discussion, saying, "I'm too lazy to even Google basic facts about the situation on which I am asserting an opinion".

I have been a teacher and I am a lawyer, and if I were either one of those here the first thing I'd be asking is where is my check? Since I've been accused here of being part of the conspiracy, I MUST be missing out on the swag.

You want education from teachers, and argument from lawyers... Teachers are patient, and lawyers are persuasive - it's called work. What are you offering in return?

Also, if I was a teacher, I would expect the students to have taken the pre-requisite courses to the class. If you want to say "it was impossible" then I'd have to assume you at least knew the it you were asserting to be impossible. But then you turn around and say one would have to figure out speed from studying impact debris, when there was a perfectly good flight data recorder. You don't know even what is alleged to have happened, but you dismiss it for reasons which appear to be based more in your psychology than in objective reality.

Teachers are patient, but you still get an F if you don't do your homework.

[nebula]

172. You compared the difficulty of maneuvering a small,

WW2-era fighter aircraft to that of a Boeing 757 jumbo jet.




Now that is what we call willful ignorance. Either that or blatant stupidity.





"How much training did Kamikaze pilots have?
Seriously.
They were going after smaller targets at comparable speed.
You think Japan was using its best pilots for kamikaze missions?

--jberryhill"


:rofl:

[nebula]

171. Because OCTers have nothing but hot air and insults to go on

[jberryhill]

137. Perspective

You think a 80 foot tall thing is "practically flat" from 3000 feet up?

Okay, do you also think that an 8 foot tall thing is "practically flat" from 300 feet up?

Do you also think a 10 inch thing is "practically flat" from 30 feet up?

These are all the same question based on your understanding of basic perspective.

Let's run the experiment. Build an object in your yard that is ten inches tall, ten feet wide, and ten feet wide. Now, go up onto your roof, and see if you can spot it.

Or, do this. Stack two four by four pieces of lumber by a set of stairs somewhere. Come back and tell us how far you went up the stairs before they looked "flat" to you.

Also, check the altitude data from the Flight Data Recorder you didn't know existed until today, and take a look at the altitude when the straight run began. Then we'll talk about what the actual perspective really was. But you can build a model using basic math and household materials, and then run the experiment yourself instead of staring at a computer screen making non-reality-based assertions about visual perspective.

[jberryhill]

139. NEW SHOCKING DISCOVERY

I believe it is important to report the result which I have just obtained in my laboratory.

Using an ashtray with a 1 inch rim and a ten inch diameter, I attempted to navigate a cigarette into it from an altitude of 3 feet.

This is roughly the same scale as the pentagon from 3000 feet - the altitude from which AA77 began its descent.

Believe it or not, but from three feet up and at an angle, the ashtray was visible and LOOKED THREE DIMENSIONAL. That one inch rim clearly jutted up from the desk.

These pilots talking about how hard it is to "nose in" because of increased lift and speed are indeed full of BS. On several approaches, I was able to get the cigarette dead bang on into just about any spot in or on the ashtray I attempted - even at scale speeds that would have been supersonic.

[nebula]

173. That's got to be the goofiest analogy ever

So now piloting a Boeing 757 is as simple as putting out a cigarette in an ashtray.

Wow, you're a clever one, aren't you? A true product of the American educational system.

:rofl: