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I suppose you think it is easy to smuggle SAM's onto an airport. Let alone set up a firing position, let alone get a supply iof them and training in their use.

You also forget a basic principle of ranged weaponry, if the weapon has a range you don't need to be right there. Any terrorist with a SAM need not enter the airport at all, just stand outside within the low flight zone where aircraft make their approach runs.

Even better, you don't need to shoot outgoing planes. Shooting inbound planes allows you to ground the outgoing ones (because, sensibly enough, THEY aren't gonna take off when someone's shooting down planes nearby), setting up a chance for a suicide bomber in a truck to get those.

Any terrorist incident at an airport would ground that airport and divert all traffic.

But for the record I did mention setting up the SAM's in approach lanes rather than take off lanes. On take off an aircraft is accelerating and has more freedom to move quickly , it has more fuel, but that doesnt really make much difference.

An aircraft on low approach is slowing down with flaps lowered so it would take more effort and time to make any form of evade. Also as they are head to a point rather than away from one thier vector is easier to predict.

Both are easy targets for a missile IMHO to the point why I wonder why this isnt happening.

Its not like there arent enough crazies.

I remember Auston. They were talking ALQ-144. Way to expensive to outfit every bird with one on the civilian side of the house. Actually a terrorist will wait on an aircraft taking off. Missile hit. Airliner crashes in a populated area. Man portable SAM's have a couple mile range and first selection is heat seeking on a missile.

Also, if the terrorists are that well connected that they can get explosives in soft drinks shipments going into airport tax-free zones, wouldn't it make more sense to poison the soft drink with a slow-working poison or some kind of biological agent?
No more tricky infiltration of airport personnel or suicide bombers necessary; just lots of casualties.

HA, wait untill I tell my mum this.

she had a theory a while ago, about how to blow up a plane (she's not crazy, just flys ALOT and sees alot of security). it requires ~4 people and quite a bit of prep time.



So yes, in most cases it's a load of noncence, yes I actually agree that the TSA/other equivilents are a bit OTT. However if it was your mum/dad/brother/sister/wiener dog on a plane that was attacked by terrorists, it would be a totally different story

Ok, When i went on a train Last Summer, theres was no security, we brought our own food and drinks, and a fully loaded Tain car could have hold as much a plane. Why is there no securities at trains? The TSA is nothing more then a security blanket for amricans to think they feel safe.

Give them time.

 AustonT wrote:
As early as 2008 DHS publicized that commercial jets were being outfitted with jammers, it's not as visible as the TSA so maybe they abandoned the idea of actually doing something useful. At the time firm plans were in place to outfit 24 planes and claims were made that thousands of planes would get them. I have doubts that ever happened.
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/05/rep_israel_introduces_new_coun.php

Yeah, that's talking about a small number of planes, most likely for use in "high risk" areas. And even if you could get jammers on the entire airline fleet, you've still got two problems:

1) Countermeasures aren't 100% effective, MANPADs are cheap, and anything less than 100% safety is unacceptable when you're talking about fully loaded airliners. Even if the first attack is stopped by the countermeasures, it's the end of airline travel. If the government doesn't shut everything down, people just aren't going to fly when there's a substantial risk of getting shot down by the next missile.

2) Flares and IR jammers can stop the simplest "fire and forget" missiles, but good luck stopping a radar homing missile, or, worse, a command guided/beam riding missile with a skilled operator. In the end, you're still talking about a huge target flying low and slow with no ability to evade, which is about the easiest possible target for a missile.

 Orlanth wrote:
I suppose you think it is easy to smuggle SAM's onto an airport. Let alone set up a firing position, let alone get a supply iof them and training in their use.

You also forget a basic principle of ranged weaponry, if the weapon has a range you don't need to be right there. Any terrorist with a SAM need not enter the airport at all, just stand outside within the low flight zone where aircraft make their approach runs.

Err, what? Where did you get the idea that I was talking about getting the missiles onto airport property? Obviously that would be stupid when you can shoot from miles away, in an area with no security at all.

As for being easy to get a supply of missiles, let's not forget that we're talking about 1950s technology or earlier, not modern weapons designed to deal with fast and maneuverable targets carrying effective countermeasures. If the terrorists were really as sophisticated and well-equipped as the government's scare tactics claim, they could just build their own missiles within the US. Instead, we see crude suicide bombs, the last resort of an enemy with few skills beyond willingness to die for god.

 Orlanth wrote:
Also as they are head to a point rather than away from one thier vector is easier to predict.

Oh, it's worse than that. Approach routes to every airport are published by the FAA, and easily available for under $5 (or free online). If you know how to read the charts (and it's not exactly hard), you know exactly where every incoming plane has to fly, and the vast majority of that path (all but the last few seconds) goes over land outside the airport fence where no security at all exists.

Of course the same is true of departure routes, but controllers will release a plane to leave the departure route and turn towards its destination a lot earlier, so the time in the predictable area is a lot shorter.

An aircraft on low approach is slowing down with flaps lowered so it would take more effort and time to make any form of evade.

Well, evasion just isn't going to happen in any meaningful way. We aren't talking about fighter jets pulling high-G turns here, even if an airliner had the thrust/roll rate/etc to take evasive action, any maneuver that could avoid a missile would result in instant structural failure. The real reason to shoot a landing aircraft, besides predicting where it will be, is that all passenger aircraft can still fly with an engine missing, and the steep takeoff climb means the target is quickly gaining altitude and therefore time for the pilot to get the plane under control. A plane close to landing just has a lot less margin of error before crashing.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, When i went on a train Last Summer, theres was no security, we brought our own food and drinks, and a fully loaded Tain car could have hold as much a plane. Why is there no securities at trains? The TSA is nothing more then a security blanket for amricans to think they feel safe.

It's hard to fly a train into a building. Or into anything unless it's on the tracks. Switching from one track to another is no simple task. Also, there are these things called de-railers what would end your "heist" really quickly.

If you open the window on a train, you get a nice breeze. If you open a whole in a plane at 35,000 feet, people die.

Did you honestly just compare the two?

Much easier to derail a train though. The ghost of Jesse James can show us the way.

Jesse James was a lad that killed many a man,
He robbed the Glendale train,
He stole from the rich and he gave to the poor,
He'd a hand and a heart and a brain.
Well it was Robert Ford, that dirty little coward,
I wonder how he feels,
For he ate of Jesse's bread and he slept in Jesse's bed,
And he laid poor Jesse in his grave.
(chorus)
Well Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life,
Three children, [now] they were brave,
Well that dirty little coward that shot Mr. [Mister] Howard,
He laid poor Jesse [Has laid Jesse James] in his grave.
Jesse was a man, a friend to the poor,
He'd never rob a mother or a child,
There never was a man with the law in his hand,
That could take Jesse James alive.
Jesse was a man, a friend to the poor,
He'd never see a man suffer pain,
And with his brother Frank he robbed the Chicago bank,
And stopped the Glendale train.
It was on a Saturday night and the moon was shining bright,
They robbed the Glendale train,
And people they did say o'er many miles away
It was those outlaws, they're Frank and Jesse James
(chorus)
Now the people held their breath when they heard of Jesse's death,
And wondered how he ever came to fall
Robert Ford, it was a fact, he shot Jesse in the back
While Jesse hung a picture on the wall
Now Jesse went to rest with his hand on his breast,
The devil will be upon his knee.
He was born one day in the County Clay,
And he came from a solitary race.
(chorus)

 kronk wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, When i went on a train Last Summer, theres was no security, we brought our own food and drinks, and a fully loaded Tain car could have hold as much a plane. Why is there no securities at trains? The TSA is nothing more then a security blanket for amricans to think they feel safe.

It's hard to fly a train into a building. Or into anything unless it's on the tracks. Switching from one track to another is no simple task. Also, there are these things called de-railers what would end your "heist" really quickly.

If you open the window on a train, you get a nice breeze. If you open a whole in a plane at 35,000 feet, people die.

Did you honestly just compare the two?

What happens if you release the brakes and speed up coming into a station, or go too fast around a corner and deliberately come off, or just go down he train shooting people as its moving.

 FM Ninja 048 wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, When i went on a train Last Summer, theres was no security, we brought our own food and drinks, and a fully loaded Tain car could have hold as much a plane. Why is there no securities at trains? The TSA is nothing more then a security blanket for amricans to think they feel safe.

It's hard to fly a train into a building. Or into anything unless it's on the tracks. Switching from one track to another is no simple task. Also, there are these things called de-railers what would end your "heist" really quickly.

If you open the window on a train, you get a nice breeze. If you open a whole in a plane at 35,000 feet, people die.

Did you honestly just compare the two?

What happens if you release the brakes and speed up coming into a station, or go too fast around a corner and deliberately come off, or just go down he train shooting people as its moving.

Not the same thing that happens if you fly an airliner into the Empire State Building.

But also keep in mind that pure kill counts are not the only concerns though. Making people scared is also part of terrorism.

 kronk wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, When i went on a train Last Summer, theres was no security, we brought our own food and drinks, and a fully loaded Tain car could have hold as much a plane. Why is there no securities at trains? The TSA is nothing more then a security blanket for amricans to think they feel safe.

It's hard to fly a train into a building. Or into anything unless it's on the tracks. Switching from one track to another is no simple task. Also, there are these things called de-railers what would end your "heist" really quickly.

If you open the window on a train, you get a nice breeze. If you open a whole in a plane at 35,000 feet, people die.

Did you honestly just compare the two?

Do the 7/7 bombings in London ring any bells? I think that's a fair comparison.

They didn't bother redirecting the trains into buildings, they just set off explosives.

EDIT - Frazz, was that a Bruce Springsteen song or is there another version?

Thats the Ballad of Jesse James. Its a 100 year old song.

I thought it was a cover

Brucie's is the only version I've really listened to though...

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, When i went on a train Last Summer, theres was no security, we brought our own food and drinks, and a fully loaded Tain car could have hold as much a plane. Why is there no securities at trains? The TSA is nothing more then a security blanket for amricans to think they feel safe.

Here in the UK, they've started a program of issuing guns to the British Transport Police.

Tibbsy wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, When i went on a train Last Summer, theres was no security, we brought our own food and drinks, and a fully loaded Tain car could have hold as much a plane. Why is there no securities at trains? The TSA is nothing more then a security blanket for amricans to think they feel safe.

It's hard to fly a train into a building. Or into anything unless it's on the tracks. Switching from one track to another is no simple task. Also, there are these things called de-railers what would end your "heist" really quickly.

If you open the window on a train, you get a nice breeze. If you open a whole in a plane at 35,000 feet, people die.

Did you honestly just compare the two?

Do the 7/7 bombings in London ring any bells? I think that's a fair comparison.

They didn't bother redirecting the trains into buildings, they just set off explosives.

So do we set up random bomb searches everywhere then? After all, a bomb in a van could easily kill as many people as a bomb in a train.

Here we go with VBIED's and IED's.......financially impossible to do that in the US. but ever seen what a hydrostatic breaching charge can do though?

 Jihadin wrote:
Here we go with VBIED's and IED's.......financially impossible to do that in the US. but ever seen what a hydrostatic breaching charge can do though?

No but I've seen what Mexican food do to a bathroom. Its pretty terrifying.