Military jets without missiles

[Racer X]

As everyone in Western Washington, and the Portland, OR area on Aug 17, 2010 now knows, there ARE fully loaded alert planes 24/7.

A pair of F-15s screamed up from Portland Int'l Airport, where the Oregon Air National Guard has their alert planes. Pres Obama was in Seattle, and a small general aviation plane was NOT responding to radio calls about the 10 mile no fly zone. The alert aircraft took off and went to full military afterburner for the entire 200 mile hop to Seattle for the intercept. They would have dropped the plane if they didn't reach the pilot and get it to divert. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/fighter-jets-scramble-sonic-booms-rattle-puget-sound-area/

 

[Beemerguy53]

I don't understand why some folks insist on playing Monday-morning quarterback with situations like this.

Prior to 9/11, knives were allowed on airplanes. I flew both domestically and internationally before 9/11 with my Leatherman in my carry-on bag, and my folding knife clipped to my pocket. The hijackers were in compliance with all FAA screening restrictions in place at the time. (In many or perhaps most other countries small knives are still permitted.)

Prior to 9/11, airlines instructed flight crews to cooperate with hijackers, since they invariably wanted ransom or wanted to be taken somewhere. Hijacking an airliner to fly it into a building was unimaginable to most people. Hence, when the hijackers seized control of those airplanes that morning, the passengers and crew rightly assumed that they were going to be inconvenienced, not killed.

The threat of Soviet bombers attacking the USA had not existed for more than 10 years, hence there was no perceived need to keep interceptors locked and loaded, with pilots waiting to scramble.

The hijackers were clever and ingenious, to be sure, in exploiting these vulnerabilities...but those vulnerabilities do not exist today. Knives are prohibited in the cabin. Flight deck doors are armored. Flight crews are taught to resist and fight back. And, I presume, our air defenses are always available.

Perhaps the biggest single change in airline safety is the creation by TSA of the Secure Flight program. Prior to 9/11, anyone could simply buy an airplane ticket, without having to provide an ID, and could fly anywhere. Virtually anyone could enter the USA by air from another country. That has all changed. Today, in airports around the world, there are people who have bought tickets to fly here, but who are denied boarding and not allowed to come here, because Secure Flight has identified them as a risk. It's no accident that foreign actors have not been able to stage another terrorist attack here since 9/11.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 were a terrible lesson...but we did learn from them.

DHS/TSA/PIA 018 TSA Secure Flight | Homeland Security

 

[Farmer17]

I would bet a paycheck there are armed aircraft ready to go in a heartbeat to defend Washington DC. Just because it isn't public knowledge doesn't mean that it does not exist.

 

[Mainsail]

You don't remember the unarmed "guards" protecting the barracks in Beirut? It's nothing new, only human memory is short lived.

When we were flying support missions into Sarajevo we were told by intel that there were snipers watching us through their scopes the entire time on the ground, and our airplane was targeted coming and going. They didn't believe we'd be fired on due to the expected overwhelming response that would bring.

Still, despite being briefed about all this I occasionally flew a mission with an aircraft commander who didn't want us to arm up, didn't distribute the blood-chits, and believed that if things went sideways there would be time to do both.

A few weeks after our rotation ended a Travis C-141 goth shot up on approach. They landed and instead of combat-offloading the 50K of cargo, turned around at the end of the runway and took off again - right along the same path. They got shot up again on departure but made it back to Germany OK. That was the end of the C-141s in Sarajevo.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Others have mentioned serving in Germany in the 1970s-1980s, being on Guard Duty with maybe a broomstick or mattock handle. Quite a few Vietnam vets have told me they were put on Guard Duty with just the 3 rounds. Unfortunately Uncle Sam's military always needs a bloody nose to remind them that their real inspiration should be the Minuteman, and, as Jeff Cooper might say, they have to be ready to go from Condition White to Condition Red in a flash.

 

[ACORN]

A friend told me about being sent to Pittsburgh’s Hill District during the 1968 riots with the National Guard with an empty M14. ‘cept he kept a few .308 rounds on his person if thing got ugly.

 

[Eagle 477]

Spent many hours TDY in Hardened Shelters manning 3 F-15 Eagles fully loaded At Osan AB Korea from 1987 to 1991. Scrambled Numerous times When the North Got a lil too close to the border. Impressive sight FULL AFTERBURNER at night.

Rob

 

[Trooperdan]

There was a lot of variability depending on location. I personally have walked interior guard in the mid-'60's at Ft. Bliss TX and FT Bragg NC armed with an M-14 and 5 rounds. Talk about an in-appropriate
weapon for the mission!

 

[skywag]

A friend, Abe Kardong (RIP).............was on standby with his crew seated IN THEIR B-58 Hustler during the Cuban Missile Crises. They were fully nuclear-armed.

Abe was also a test pilot for Lockheed on the SR-71 program. That is "Abe" on the left.

In fact, Abe crashed an SR-71 on takeoff, and the "official" reason is WRONG! He was instructed to take off with the computers "OFF." It crashed and the cockpit is now on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Lockheed never tried that experiment again.

 

[Jon42]

I used to pull Sergeant of the Guard on our companies Tanks when we went to the field for gunnery. Everyone went to get showers and they left us with one 1911 and five rounds. We had loaded Tanks and three people for a crew. Military thinking is baffling sometimes.

 

[tazaroot]

I'm not a pilot but wonder if, in the event they came across one of the planes that they could eject moments prior to ramming?

 

[jcelect]

The terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 were a terrible lesson...but we did learn from them.

DHS/TSA/PIA 018 TSA Secure Flight | Homeland Security

Is this a correct statement? We are bringing foreign nationals into the USA by the plane loads from a nation that is under attack by terrorists! How many terrorist's are imbedded in those refugees?

jcelect

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I recall hearing a news story in the Spring of 2000 in which the Air Force said that between1994 and 1999 it had lost 19% of its mechanics and its "maintenance" was little more than parts changing. So I suspect many of those pilots were more worried about being able to take off and land safely.

 

[Smoke]

I don't know for sure that this is true but a friend who was in the USAF told me once that because of their design Air Force fighters ALWAYS flew with the machine ammunition loaded because the weight distribution affected the trim characteristics of the planes.

IF that's true the jets would have at least had their machine guns to shoot down a plane with.

 

[Beemerguy53]

I'm not a pilot but wonder if, in the event they came across one of the planes that they could eject moments prior to ramming?

On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attack, the Washington Post interviewed the two F-16 pilots, Colonel Marc Sasseville and Lieutenant Heather "Lucky" Penney, who scrambled from Andrews AFB that morning, unarmed, to intercept Flight 93.

From the article:

"They screamed over the smoldering Pentagon, heading northwest at more than 400 mph, flying low and scanning the clear horizon. Her commander had time to think about the best place to hit the enemy.

“We don’t train to bring down airliners,” said Sasseville, now stationed at the Pentagon. “If you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target. My thought was the cockpit or the wing.”

He also thought about his ejection seat. Would there be an instant just before impact?

“I was hoping to do both at the same time,” he says. “It probably wasn’t going to work, but that’s what I was hoping.”

Penney worried about missing the target if she tried to bail out.

“If you eject and your jet soars through without impact . . .” she trails off, the thought of failing more dreadful than the thought of dying."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...8cddbc-d8ce-11e0-9dca-a4d231dfde50_story.html

 

[Beemerguy53]

Is this a correct statement? We are bringing foreign nationals into the USA by the plane loads from a nation that is under attack by terrorists! How many terrorist's are imbedded in those refugees?

jcelect

With all due respect, your own statements are incorrect, and your concerns are unfounded.

Many of the folks we brought into this country from Afghanistan are not "foreign nationals"...they are American citizens. Others are legal residents here who had gone back to Afghanistan for one reason for another and were trapped there when the country fell. Still others are folks who helped us -- at great risk to their lives -- during our two decades there.

The newly-arrived Afghans are being housed on military bases around the country, while the Department of Homeland Security investigates them and ensures they are who and what they appear to be. A large number of them are small children and adolescents...hardly terrorists.

The history of the United States is the story of people leaving some other country where things were pretty bad, and coming here to start a new life. That's exactly what happened in my family, and most likely your own as well. Those Afghans are going to assimilate into our culture and our society, just as my own foreign-born great-grandparents did. One hundred years from now, an American grandfather will be explaining to his grandson that his own grandfather came from Afghanistan on a C-17...