Let’s say you get intercepted by F16’s…

gearFX said:
Per National Geographic interview with Heather “Lucky” Penney, the aircraft were not armed (no time to wait), and the plan was she would ram the tail while her commanding officer would ram the cockpit of Flight 93.
Click to expand...


They had solid bullets in their guns. Pretty easy to fod an engine with those. I can’t understand why they thought they might need to ram the airliner.
 
Last edited:
Everything I read said they were unarmed. Where did you read the guns were loaded?
 
Jeff767 said:
Everything I read said they were unarmed. Where did you read the guns were loaded?
Click to expand...

Wild 01 had about 200 rounds of TP ammunition between the two of them. Lead didn’t have much confidence in the effectiveness of TP rounds, hence the discussion of ramming.
 
If that’s the case they were armed. I still can’t find any reference to this and in general it would be highly unusual to leave guns loaded on aircraft not on alert status or a combat roll.
 
That’s interesting, The Whole story about them being unarmed and willing to ram the airplane was a fabrication. I don’t believe for a moment the flight lead did not think he could bring a 757 down with 200 rounds of 20MM. With the F16 gunsight it would have been child’s play to put a burst into each engine. 20MM solids hit twice as hard as 50 CAL.
 
Jeff767 said:
That’s interesting, The Whole story about them being unarmed and willing to ram the airplane was a fabrication. I don’t believe for a moment the flight lead did not think he could bring a 757 down with 200 rounds of 20MM. With the F16 gunsight it would have been child’s play to put a burst into each engine. 20MM solids hit twice as hard as 50 CAL.
Click to expand...

Heroic war stories have been around forever. Looking back, you have things like "The Miracle at Midway", which was in no way a miracle. It was a planned ambush that (despite several mistakes) came off more or less as planned.

In the immediate post-911 world, the public needed some hero stories and "Unarmed fighter jets with heroic pilots defending the Capital" was a good story.
 
of course, but dare say s--t like that about a legacy hire with an innie and not an outie, and you'll catch brimstone for life. That's why said criticism is usually reserved for insider baseball.

But I've already euphemized (poorly) enough about this topic. It doesn't even matter anymore, as the people who stood to benefit from that narrative have loooooong ago harvested their intended livelihood/career accolade gains already. They're not unique in that particular grift, is the last thing I'll say about the topic.
 
kyleb said:
Heroic war stories have been around forever. Looking back, you have things like "The Miracle at Midway", which was in no way a miracle. It was a planned ambush that (despite several mistakes) came off more or less as planned....
Click to expand...

Shattered Sword does a good job of explaining how the Battle of Midway turned out the way it did, including a lot of research into events on the Japanese side that were previously not known in the U.S. It was not only about what the U.S. did right, but also what Japan did wrong, especially in the planning of the attack.
 
Last edited:
Palmpilot said:
Shattered Sword does a good job of explaining how the Battle of Midway turned out the way it did, including a lot of research into events on the Japanese side that were previously not known in the U.S. It was not only about what the U.S. did right, but also what Japan did wrong, especially in the planning of the attack.
Click to expand...

Yep, great book.
 
Palmpilot said:
Shattered Sword does a good job of explaining how the Battle of Midway turned out the way it did, including a lot of research into events on the Japanese side that were previously not known in the U.S. It was not only about what the U.S. did right, but also what Japan did wrong, especially in the planning of the attack.
Click to expand...
Never saw a five star book on Amazon with that many ratings. Must be outstanding.
 
hindsight2020 said:
a legacy hire with an innie and not an outie
Click to expand...

That gave me a chuckle.

Someone else on the thread mentioned shooting down an airliner with 20mm. F-16s are always fully loaded with 20mm rounds for CG purposes. But in a peacetime environment, the rounds are inert training rounds. Basically lead slugs. Not the stuff you take into combat. I spent several hours in our vault on 9/11 sorting out the best way to shoot down a 767 with training rounds. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Combat loads are armor piercing and high explosive incendiary for a reason. Our nearest live air to air ordnance was three hours away by truck. Things have changed obviously since 9/11. But strafing an airliner was not something we practiced before 9/11.
 
Last edited:
Rokke214 said:
That gave me a chuckle.

Someone else on the thread mentioned shooting down an airliner with 20mm. F-16s are always fully loaded with 20mm rounds for CG purposes. But in a peacetime environment, the rounds are inert training rounds. Basically lead slugs. Not the stuff you take into combat. I spent several hours in our vault on 9/11 sorting out the best way to shoot down a 767 with training rounds. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Combat loads are armor piercing and high explosive incendiary for a reason. Our nearest live air to air ordnance was three hours away by truck. Things have changed obviously since 9/11. But strafing an airliner was not something we practiced before 9/11.
Click to expand...

That's bizarre. So what happens when you actually expend the rounds? No CG problem in that case? (yes I realize the shells are retained) :)

Can't speak for the Viper since the ones I flew had the gun removed, but in the F/A-18, the only way you carried rounds you didn't intend to shoot was when the ordies electrically disconnected the gun (same gun). Unknown to me if the F-16 had the same mechanization, but if it did, it's entirely possible these folks got airborne with the guns disconnected but with rounds in the drum....which would have been impossible to shoot in that state....just thinking out loud
 
Rokke214 said:
That gave me a chuckle.

Someone else on the thread mentioned shooting down an airliner with 20mm. F-16s are always fully loaded with 20mm rounds for CG purposes. But in a peacetime environment, the rounds are inert training rounds. Basically lead slugs. Not the stuff you take into combat. I spent several hours in our vault on 9/11 sorting out the best way to shoot down a 767 with training rounds. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Combat loads are armor piercing and high explosive incendiary for a reason. Our nearest live air to air ordnance was three hours away by truck. Things have changed obviously since 9/11. But strafing an airliner was not something we practiced before 9/11.
Click to expand...

Don'cha think 100 rounds of 20MM lead into an engine would have given the hijackers about 10x what they could handle? The airliner doesn't have to come down in shreds for the intercept to be successful. You just (?) have to make it unflyable for the guys in the cockpit.
 
35 AoA said:
That's bizarre. So what happens when you actually expend the rounds? No CG problem in that case? (yes I realize the shells are retained) :)

Can't speak for the Viper since the ones I flew had the gun removed, but in the F/A-18, the only way you carried rounds you didn't intend to shoot was when the ordies electrically disconnected the gun (same gun). Unknown to me if the F-16 had the same mechanization, but if it did, it's entirely possible these folks got airborne with the guns disconnected but with rounds in the drum....which would have been impossible to shoot in that state....just thinking out loud
Click to expand...

The shells are retained. And in the Viper there’s a holdback tool that will keep the gun from firing until it’s removed. If it’s removed the gun is pinned until you get to the arming area. Not a huge operation to remove the holdback tool. So they probably took off with the gun armed.
But to touch on the question Kyleb asked about bringing down a 767 with TP rounds, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Without getting specific, it doesn’t take many rounds of HEI to bring down a fighter type aircraft. The goal is to sever control lines or hydraulic lines or possibly to kill the pilot. Exploding rounds REALLY help in that process. But the pilots on 9/11 didn’t have exploding rounds. Think about all those WW2 videos of fighters and bombers coming back from a mission full of shrapnel and bullet holes. A round that doesn’t explode passes right through aluminum. An engine hanging below the wing of a 767 is actually a challenging target. It’s tough to get a clear shot at it. The nacelle is large. The engine inside is much smaller. Especially when you and the target are moving. Taking out the pilots is a challenge because they are at the front end of a very large bullet sponge. And a high aspect head on gun shot has a low probability of kill. In short, while it sounds easy, the real world execution isn’t. Think about a cops and robbers car chase. Cars don’t maneuver in the vertical. They are generally confined to predictable roads. And in real life, the number of times cops are able to disable a vehicle they are pursuing with gun fire is rare to the point they don’t even try. Instead, they attempt a PIT maneuver to put the robbers out of control. That was the thinking on 9/11. I have limited rounds of training ammo. I have potentially very little time to get the kill. What’s the surest way to use what I’ve got to make sure that 767 can’t make it to its target? Collide with it. Would they have actually done it? I know one of the guys up there that day. He would have without a doubt. Ultimately, it wasn’t required.
 
Rokke214 said:
Think about a cops and robbers car chase. Cars don’t maneuver in the vertical. They are generally confined to predictable roads. And in real life, the number of times cops are able to disable a vehicle they are pursuing with gun fire is rare to the point they don’t even try.
Click to expand...

Mostly, Cops don't shoot at fleeing cars because of the risk of collateral damage.

In this case, the F-16 pilot pulls up 50 yards behind the airliner, which is flying straight and level, matches speed, then offsets to line up the shot at an engine. I'd put my money on the engine coming apart after a couple of rounds went through the blades. Of course, you still have to hit the engine.
 
I’m going to go out on a limb her and say you’ve never flown an F-16 50 yards behind a 767. Lined up with one of its engines long enough to take a gunshot at it. I’ve spent hours flying closely behind 767 sized aircraft. It’s fine if you’re below their wake turbulence. It’s a wild ride if you aren’t. But if you are below their wake turbulence, you aren’t in a position to take a stable gunshot at one of their engines.
Here’s another answer for you. The pilots flying that day were experts in using the F-16 as a weapon. It was their full time job. A guy like Raisin Caine was already a fighter weapons school graduate. That’s the Air Force version of Topgun. They determined using training ammo wasn’t an effective way to bring down a 767. What credentials do you have to say they are wrong? That’s not a jab at you. Your question is a fair one. But at what point do you accept the answer of a expert in the subject matter of the question you’re asking?
 
Rokke214 said:
I’m going to go out on a limb her and say you’ve never flown an F-16 50 yards behind a 767. Lined up with one of its engines long enough to take a gunshot at it. I’ve spent hours flying closely behind 767 sized aircraft. It’s fine if you’re below their wake turbulence. It’s a wild ride if you aren’t. But if you are below their wake turbulence, you aren’t in a position to take a stable gunshot at one of their engines.
Here’s another answer for you. The pilots flying that day were experts in using the F-16 as a weapon. It was their full time job. A guy like Raisin Caine was already a fighter weapons school graduate. That’s the Air Force version of Topgun. They determined using training ammo wasn’t an effective way to bring down a 767. What credentials do you have to say they are wrong? That’s not a jab at you. Your question is a fair one. But at what point do you accept the answer of a expert in the subject matter of the question you’re asking?
Click to expand...

This is all hypothetical, so there is no answer. The F-16 pilots never had a chance to engage the hijacked airliner. Given the chance, I'd bet the F-16 pilot(s) would have taken the opportunity to use their gun(s) to bring down the airliner before resorting to ramming, regardless of whether the 20MM was lead slugs, HE, or API. And they could have taken that shot from the most opportune position. Given that at least one of the pilots was a FWS graduate, you'd think his chances would have been pretty good against a non-maneuvering airliner.

And again, you don't have to destroy the 767 to succeed. You just need to damage it to the point to render it unflyable/uncontrollable for whoever is sitting in the left seat.
 
Rokke214 said:
The shells are retained. And in the Viper there’s a holdback tool that will keep the gun from firing until it’s removed. If it’s removed the gun is pinned until you get to the arming area. Not a huge operation to remove the holdback tool. So they probably took off with the gun armed.
Click to expand...

Yeah we had the holdback too in the Hornet/Super, I imagine it is common to all M61 equipped aircraft. We had a little peg that sticks out the left side of the jet that the ordies punch to arm it up in the arming area. They wouldn't be able to access the electrical connection from there though (it is behind the gun bay panel which is bolted shut by that point), which would render it just as useless. Just interesting to hear about different "norms" across communities; I hadn't heard that one before. Next you are going to tell me you guys flew around in config 3 too :)

Also Rokke is correct, gun shots aren't easy....they have a pretty low prob of kill, even with an experienced pilot on the trigger. 200 rounds are gone as quickly as you can say "one potato....two". You'd pretty much have one shot, maybe two if you adjusted the firing rate and had the time to circle around again. I'd also agree that I would have first given the gun a try, had it been me. But the idea that they would have discounted the limited load of TP rounds they had also isn't surprising.
 
kyleb said:
Given the chance, I'd bet the F-16 pilot(s) would have taken the opportunity to use their gun(s) to bring down the airliner before resorting to ramming, regardless of whether the 20MM was lead slugs, HE, or API. And they could have taken that shot from the most opportune position. Given that at least one of the pilots was a FWS graduate, you'd think his chances would have been pretty good against a non-maneuvering airliner.
Click to expand...
I should just let this drop but I’m fascinated. Do you have any experience flying a fighter? And why would you assume hijacked airliners being hand flown by terrorists aiming them at buildings would be non-maneuvering? Incidentally, all the actual pilots involved are on record saying the 20mm training rounds weren’t a viable solution for shooting down an airliner. Razin wasn’t the only FWS grad flying that day. So was the flight lead of the first two F-16s that got airborne with nothing but 20mm training rounds. He had 15 years experience flying F-16s at that point including two tours assigned to the Air Force’s F-16 weapons and tactics Test and Evaluation squadron. He was an absolute expert of experts in employing weapons from an F-16. And he disagrees with your assumptions. Again, I think your questions are valid. But given the expertise and testimony of the actual pilots involved that day, do you really think you are qualified to call them wrong?
 
Sending F16's to intercept light aircraft always reminds me of this scene from the Simpsons (start around 1:55):

 
Rokke214 said:
...I’ve spent hours flying closely behind 767 sized aircraft. It’s fine if you’re below their wake turbulence. It’s a wild ride if you aren’t. But if you are below their wake turbulence, you aren’t in a position to take a stable gunshot at one of their engines....
Click to expand...
I'm confused: I was taught to stay above the flight path of a large aircraft, due to its wake turbulence descending.
 
I would think an F-16 pilot, skilled in close formation, could easily slide into position to line up a shot very accurately. The terrorists in the cockpit would most probably never even know there was a fighter behind them.
 
Palmpilot said:
I'm confused: I was taught to stay above the flight path of a large aircraft, due to its wake turbulence descending.
Click to expand...

A matter of how close you are. In AA refueling off a boom you're maybe 20 feet below but well forward of any wingtip vortices. Go from port observation to the pre-contact postion via "down and over" at the same pretty close position so you're never really affected.
 
A couple of points. First I have a lot of experience shooting 20MM air to air and air to ground. I flew the F18 and the gunsight was incredible. With a radar lock the billets are going where the gunsight reticle is placed. It was easy to shoot the banner off the tow line air to air just positioning the sight on the swivel and that was a oblique shot. The F16 sight is just as good. As far as vortices off the aircraft making a trailing shot difficult it’s a non issue because you are not going to shoot from 100 feet. Your going to sit back at 1000 to 1500 feet. The vortices will be well below you at that range. A typical burst with the gun on high rate of fire was 50 rounds. With 200 rounds you would have 4 bursts on high rate or 6 if you select low rate. While the core of the engine is small the M61 puts out a shotgun type burst with some dispersion. Regardless it’s likely hits in the fan would disable the engine. I have watched 20MM solids tear into targets on the ground. It’s impressive! Exploding rounds are better but not needed in this case.
I am absolutely sure they planned to shoot the aircraft down and only if that failed would they attempt to ram. Somehow the narrative got changed to they were unarmed and ramming was their only option.
 
Pugs said:
A matter of how close you are. In AA refueling off a boom you're maybe 20 feet below but well forward of any wingtip vortices. Go from port observation to the pre-contact postion via "down and over" at the same pretty close position so you're never really affected.
Click to expand...
Make sense, thanks.

I once went on a Civil Air Patrol outing where we got to ride in a tanker during refueling practice, and 20 feet below is consistent with what I remember seeing.
 
You're standing outside a tent with no windows. There are 40 hostages and 4 hostage takers inside, but you can't see anyone and you can't go inside. You're given an M60 and a belt full of grenades and told to put ordinance into the tent from a distance until everyone inside is dead. Would you do it? I've never had the honor of serving, but I hope none of the men or women I know who have would follow that order, and I don't believe any of them would.

On September 11, the chain of command was circumspect enough that no such order made it to the interceptors. So while I've no reason to doubt the pilots may have thought about ways they might have downed an airliner, just like posters here are, it wasn't going to happen.
 
Lindberg said:
You're standing outside a tent with no windows. There are 40 hostages and 4 hostage takers inside, but you can't see anyone and you can't go inside. You're given an M60 and a belt full of grenades and told to put ordinance into the tent from a distance until everyone inside is dead. Would you do it? I've never had the honor of serving, but I hope none of the men or women I know who have would follow that order, and I don't believe any of them would.

On September 11, the chain of command was circumspect enough that no such order made it to the interceptors. So while I've no reason to doubt the pilots may have thought about ways they might have downed an airliner, just like posters here are, it wasn't going to happen.
Click to expand...

Only on Sept. 11, they weren’t taking hostages, and the tent was moving toward the Capitol or White House at 500 miles per hour.
 
Jeff767 said:
A couple of points. First I have a lot of experience shooting 20MM air to air and air to ground. I flew the F18 and the gunsight was incredible. With a radar lock the billets are going where the gunsight reticle is placed. It was easy to shoot the banner off the tow line air to air just positioning the sight on the swivel and that was a oblique shot. The F16 sight is just as good. As far as vortices off the aircraft making a trailing shot difficult it’s a non issue because you are not going to shoot from 100 feet. Your going to sit back at 1000 to 1500 feet. The vortices will be well below you at that range. A typical burst with the gun on high rate of fire was 50 rounds. With 200 rounds you would have 4 bursts on high rate or 6 if you select low rate. While the core of the engine is small the M61 puts out a shotgun type burst with some dispersion. Regardless it’s likely hits in the fan would disable the engine. I have watched 20MM solids tear into targets on the ground. It’s impressive! Exploding rounds are better but not needed in this case.
I am absolutely sure they planned to shoot the aircraft down and only if that failed would they attempt to ram. Somehow the narrative got changed to they were unarmed and ramming was their only option.
Click to expand...

Interesting points. They raise some questions.
1. Did you ever line up dead 6 o’clock behind a banner being pulled straight and level and pull the trigger? I doubt it. Any thoughts on why it’s a bad idea to line up 1000’ directly behind a large commercial aircraft and shoot 20mm rounds into it? And are you really so confident in your flying skills that you’d bet everything on being able to hit an 8 foot diameter circle on a moving platform from 1000ft aft? How many of your training gunshots would have been assessed as kills if the requirement was to put your rounds through a very specific 8’ diameter circle on the planform of a Hornet. Oh, and you only have 105 rounds available. Oh, and forget about standard kill assessment charts because they are based on HEI rounds. Not TP. Did you, in your Hornet career, ever discuss kill criteria for gunning a commercial aircraft? Based on your nickname here you must know that 767s fly very well on one engine. So all those things I just mentioned…you have to do them twice (remember, you’ve got a total of 105 rounds). On an airliner described as flying at low altitude and headed toward a major city. And as you are taking off you observe the dark black smoke cloud rising up from the Pentagon because it was already hit by an airliner.
2. You mention shooting 20mm rounds at the ground. Do you recall how many hits you’d score on a typical strafe pass? Keep in mind the standard strafe target (old drogue chute) is about 20’ in diameter. That’s more than twice the diameter of a 767 engine and the strafe rag isn’t moving. It just sits there while you fly a standard box pattern to put yourself on a perfect pass in a calm range environment where you aren’t thinking about the fact that you are shooting at a commercial aircraft full of passengers. Each F-16 that day had 105 rounds of TP available to fire. That’s a 1 second trigger pull in the F-16 and we can’t select a rate of fire. While it’s true that the bullets from an F-16 generally go where the pipper says they’ll go (although bullet dispersion and imperfect gun boresight are real issues), the challenge of any gunshot is keeping the pipper on the target. I don’t know about Hornet strafe accuracy, but the Viper isn’t a very accurate strafe platform. Nothing like the A-10.
3. If you are absolutely sure those pilots planned to shoot down an airliner that day with their 105 rounds of 20mm TP, then you are also absolutely sure they are now lying. Call them on it. They aren’t hard to find. One is a 3 star general serving as the Vice Chief to the Air National Guard. Another is a 2 star general serving as director of Special Programs and Special Access programs. Neither of those positions should be led by people who blatantly lie about the events of a day they both took part in. Man up and stand by your bold assessment of their poor judgement and lack of integrity. Give them a call and explain that based on your experience shooting towed banners, you know they are lying.
 
Rokke214 said:
Interesting points. They raise some questions.
Click to expand...

There are only three questions that matter:

1) Were the F-16's armed? A) Yes. With 20MM slugs.

2) Could the pilots have hit the 767? A) One was a FWS graduate and the other was a fully trained fighter pilot. Could they have hit a large stable target? Yep.

3) If they hit the 767, could they have done sufficient damage to bring it down or disable it to the point where the guy in the left seat couldn't manage the aircraft? A) Sure. A few hits on the fan, a couple of hydraulic lines severed, or 20 rounds into the cockpit and Johnny Jihadi is in over his head, assuming he still has one.

Don't take the discussion of the situation as a personal attack on your or your acquaintances (?). It isn't.
 
Lindberg said:
On September 11, the chain of command was circumspect enough that no such order made it to the interceptors. So while I've no reason to doubt the pilots may have thought about ways they might have downed an airliner, just like posters here are, it wasn't going to happen.
Click to expand...

Over central PA? No. After you followed it to the capital past the burning pentagon and watched it line up on the capital and descend on the national mall? Different answer and glad they didn't have to make that decision.
 
It’s not a personal attack on me. I wasn’t there. But I do have 15 years experience flying F-16s and I was directly involved in fighter operations during 9/11. Like I said before, I’d be better off just dropping the subject matter altogether. But it’s like trying to not look at a train wreck.
I think it’s safe to infer you have zero time in an F-16. I have zero time driving Formula 1 race cars or conducting open heart surgery. So if two Formula 1 race car drivers gave a blow by blow account of why they chose not to try to pass each other on a particular turn, I can’t imagine stepping forward and telling them why they were wrong and what they should have actually done. Same thing with two doctors describing the outcome of open heart surgery. I’d listen and ponder what they said. But I can’t imagine telling them they didn’t know what they were doing based on my experience putting band aids on my kid’s knee.
Cirrus pilots and fighter pilots are frequently accused of being arrogant a holes. In many cases it’s probably a supportable accusation. But as someone who is both, even I am appalled at the arrogance I’m reading on this thread. And it’s arrogance based in ignorance. Ignorance isn’t an insult. I’m ignorant of the skills required to drive a Formula 1 race car. But being so arrogant that you don’t even know the boundaries of your ignorance is pretty bad. I’ve already explained the qualifications of the F-16 flight lead that day who decided ramming an airliner was a more certain way of destroying it than trying to take it out with 105 rounds of 20mm TP. He was one of the most credible and experienced F-16 pilots flying at the time. Yet you believe you know better than him with what I expect is zero time in a fighter aircraft. His name is Marc Sasseville. He works in Washington D.C. Drop him a note and educate him. He might appreciate it.
 
Flight 93 was at several altitudes. Depending on where they could have intercepted may have had an impact on their decision making. If you could disable both engines at FL41 how far could they glide? I’m betting far and long enough to cause real problems on the ground. I’d imagine using the TP rounds was 100% part of the plan but not all of it. When they descended below 10k it may have been a different story
 
Rokke214 said:
It’s not a personal attack on me. I wasn’t there. But I do have 15 years experience flying F-16s and I was directly involved in fighter operations during 9/11. Like I said before, I’d be better off just dropping the subject matter altogether. But it’s like trying to not look at a train wreck.
I think it’s safe to infer you have zero time in an F-16. I have zero time driving Formula 1 race cars or conducting open heart surgery.
Click to expand...

How much experience do you have shooting down 767's with 20mm? I think it is safe to infer the answer is zero.

Instead of acting ****y, why not just talk through it objectively?

Seasoned pilots flying first class equipment. 20MM ammo. 767 flying straight and level. Clear and a million.

If the conclusion isn't "Yeah, there's a pretty good chance of success.", we've wasted a lot of money on pilot training, Gatling guns, and HUD's.
 
ateamer said:
Only on Sept. 11, they weren’t taking hostages, and the tent was moving toward the Capitol or White House at 500 miles per hour.
Click to expand...
There's no one in the Capitol or White House who couldn't be evacuated before the plane would have gotten there.

Shooting down that plane would 100% have been intentionally killing 40 of our own innocent civilians in order to kill 4 terrorists. We don't even do that in wartime on the battlefield.
 
kyleb said:
Instead of acting ****y, why not just talk through it objectively?
.
Click to expand...

That’s my point. I actually am talking through it objectively. You don’t even realize that because you have almost no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve got assumptions and maybe a Hollywood image of what it’s like to shoot something down. And based on that, you’ve decided you know more than the experts who actually flew that day. So are you being objective? Not at all. There’s no reason at all that you should be an expert on this stuff. But have just a bit of humility and acknowledge that the experts who were there that day might have made the correct decision. Even if it doesn’t make sense to you.
 
Rokke214 said:
I actually am talking through it objectively.
Click to expand...

There are fighter pilots in this thread who have a completely different opinion than yours. There are others who give credence to your point of view. All of them can discuss it without all the drama and personal attacks.

You still haven't tried to address the situation and question(s) at hand: Armed? Yes. Capable? Yes. Decent setup? Yes.

Is your conclusion that the pilots couldn't hit the critical areas of a 767, despite all the technology and training? Is it that 20MM slugs couldn't have done enough damage to neutralize a relatively fragile target like an airliner? I struggle mightily to think that it couldn't be done. Might not be successful? Maybe. But no way, no how? C'mon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top