Way OT (was RE: OT somewhat. China, our aircraft, delays.)

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Tue Apr 10 10:30:45 2001

At 05:36 PM 4/9/01 -0700, Dwight wrote:
>
>Hi Allison
> The age of the plane has little to do with what
>was on board. Looking at the picture of the plane,
>it at least had a phase array antenna on it. The electronics
>used on those planes simply plugs into bays. This means
>that any level of gear could have been on the plane.

   Absolutely correct.


> They landed about 20 minutes after the hit. They, like
>any similar operations, would have a destruct list.

  Dwight, I hope you're right. But I spent three years on a survilence
aircraft and I never saw or heard of a destruct list. SOME of the manuals
did have destruct instructions that went something like "Prevent from
falling into enemy hands by destruction by means of smashing, destroying
with explosives, burying, etc". Big help, huh? If they were lucky,, they
may have been able to remove some of the gear and throw it overboard while
they were still over water but it's doubtfull that they had time to do
much. Just too much gear and it wuld have been well mounted and then too
there probably weren't a lot of tools around to use take stuff out with.


It
>is more likely that most of the sensitive gear is at
>the bottom of the ocean with most of its guts fused into
>a ball by a thermite pack.

   NOT a good idea for use on an aircraft in flight!

   Joe
Received on Tue Apr 10 2001 - 10:30:45 BST