Exploring one of CITs claims

[PB&J]

I almost added this to "Challenge to CIT" thread, but this is addressing another facet of their claims.

When I first started watching some of CIT's interview with Steve Chaconas, I immediately thought this guy witnessed the C130. He's not sure of the color or type of plane, and the FP he describes matches the C130 on the RADES data.

I've been back and forth with Craig on this, and he keeps pushing his belief that Chaconas could not have seen the C130 bank due to the distance of the aircraft.

Of course, Craig provides no LOS calculations to back this up.. just a repetitive image with the words "BANK TO FAR TO SEE" over and over. Curiosity has gotten the best of me, and I wanted to try to see if Chaconas could have seen the bank of the C130, or if he would have lost sight of it before it banked.

I want to preface this by stating that if my calculations are wrong and he could not see the plane, then by no means am I inferring that he saw CIT's fantasy "decoy" jet. This is merely to satisfy my curiosity.

I am not a math whiz, but here is how I'm going about this:

Find the angle of the C130 from eye level, then find out how much of the field of view would be obstructed by the treeline/various geography, then see if the C130 fell into the "obstructed" area.

So far with a little pencil scratching, it looks like the angle needed to see the C130 is .075613642 degrees (C130 was 14,484 meters away, at a height of 1097.28 meters).

If we get a bit liberal and assume there was a solid wall rising 50 feet (15.24 meters) on the bank opposite of the Potomac from Chaconas, it looks like the angle needed to clear it is .013527313 degrees (Chaconas was ~1126.5408 meters from the opposite shore). This would leave the C130 within the visual range if i'm doing this/interpreting this correctly.

I have not yet taken into account the curvature of the earth (it's a minimal deduction when you're dealing with something at 3600 feet), nor have I done the calculations to find out how big the c130 would actually appear to him. These are just preliminary thoughts to see if i'm doing this correctly.

Any suggestions or corrections are more than welcome. I don't claim to be an expert on this

Thanks

 

[beachnut]

Any suggestions or corrections are more than welcome. I don't claim to be an expert on this

Thanks

There is a thing pilots use for quick angles. 60 to 1 rule.

At 60 nautical miles, one degree is 1 nautical mile off.

I did a quick look at the C-130 and had it at least 6 degrees the whole time or higher above the horizon and that is visible. He saw it turn right, and he saw it turn over Crystal City, 77 was too low to see behind Crystal City. I looked out and could see behind Steve and see the Washington monument. It is 555 feet or so. That is two degrees above the horizon.

The tower people saw 77 to the west and lost 77 when Crystal Cities buildings got in the way.

BTW, you can take google earth and put up walls and objects and look at them.

This is how you can see Morin could see the Tail at the Pentagon impact, or real close. p4t did something like that but got it wrong.

You could place the object out there and look at it.

You can put polygons on google earth. Like things in DC, and the KDCA tower at the airport. The path of 77 goes lower than the buildings in Crystal City from Steve's position, so he can only see the C-130 turn over the Pentagon. They messes up and have Steve talking about the plane turning at the end, over Crystal City. I think the CIT is dyslexic or into massive drugs; they do not listen. Their videos clearly support the real events of 9/11, not the made up "drug induced" fantasy. Seriously, they seem to have problems thinking.

Looking at the video of Steve (better save it, as soon as the figure it out, they will have to destroy the interview!) you can see the tower and Washington's Monument. I put a building in Crystal city and it blocks 77's final path.

 

[uruk]

I noticed that also. The RADES data of the C130 shows that it passed the river at the same location Chaconas saw his plane flying from the east.

Of course Craig et. al wave off the RADES path data as a plant. Seems kind of a stretch of the imagination that the govenrment would go through that trouble to fake that data for Who?

Also if you look at the map. crystal city only blocks the view from the approach to the hilton to the just before the Pentagon. the river past the Pentagon is pretty clear of obstacles except for the bridge.
Some one posted some video captures of crystal city from some point two mile north of Chaconas position on the river. You had a pretty clear view of what was over the river.

If the plane had flown up over the river, there waouldhave been a very good chance of chaconas viewing the airplane as it passed over the river.


I really do believe that the plane Chaconas was watching flying over the river was the C130.

 

[ktesibios]

I am not a math whiz, but here is how I'm going about this:

Find the angle of the C130 from eye level, then find out how much of the field of view would be obstructed by the treeline/various geography, then see if the C130 fell into the "obstructed" area.

So far with a little pencil scratching, it looks like the angle needed to see the C130 is .075613642 degrees (C130 was 14,484 meters away, at a height of 1097.28 meters).

If we get a bit liberal and assume there was a solid wall rising 50 feet (15.24 meters) on the bank opposite of the Potomac from Chaconas, it looks like the angle needed to clear it is .013527313 degrees (Chaconas was ~1126.5408 meters from the opposite shore). This would leave the C130 within the visual range if i'm doing this/interpreting this correctly.

I think you've made some errors. Let's take the first one- finding the altitude angle. You take the altitude in linear units and divide by the ground track distance in the same units.

1097.28/14484=0.075758. So far not bad.

Now, to find the angle you need to find the angle whose tangent is equal to (altitude/distance). arctan(0.075758)=4.332 degrees.

Similarly, for the angle subtended by your assumed 50 ft. wall we have;
15.24/1126.5=0.01352 and arctan(0.01352)=0.775 degree.

It still shows that a wall of that height at that distance would not block the LOS to a plane at the height and distance given, but your numbers themselves are incorrect.

 

[Reheat]

An aside note to the subject, but not exactly answering the OP is the 84 Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) based at Hill AFB in Utah. They are composed mainly of enlisted personnel with very young Officers in supervisory roles.

To believe that they would FAKE anything at the direction of ANYONE is utterly absurd. It is even more preposterous to believe that if ANYONE ELSE faked the data that it would not be noticed, leaked, or reported.

The RADES data is FACT. It is not the most precise system in the world, but it is ACCURATE RADAR DATA.

 

[leftysergeant]

The arguement that a C-130 would not be clearly discernable in the sky for miles upon miles is absurd, almost to the p[oint of the twoofer argument that a witness in Chelsea could not have identified an airliner slamming into the WTC.

I live almost next door to McChord AFB, and I can make out C-130s dropping troops 25 miles away. Before I developed cataracts, I couldcount the individuals going out the door before their chutes opened.

A C-130 flying low enough not to be visible for 50 miles in such reasonably flat terrain would have to be so low that people would have been asking just what he was up to.

I do believe twoofers would try to hide an elephant in a K-Mart with hopes of getting away with it.

 

[jaydeehess]

I have worked at several high arctic weather stations. At one of them our resupply plane was a C-130 that came in once a week. On many occassions it came in from the south , which was almost 90 degrees off from the runway alignment. The pilot would turn to line up at about 10 miles out over the ocean. This turn was very visible, one could easily make out the bank. If the C130 that Chaconas saw was only 14 kilometers away, that is less than 9 miles.

 

[jaydeehess]

A C130 is not as big as a 757 but it is a cargo plane, it is 'fat' ( we had a grader delivered by one in Mould Bay) and has very wide wings.(that's not the right term... engineers, what is the term for the distance from leading edge to trailing edge? chord?)

That makes it a very visible aircraft.

 

[Reheat]

what is the term for the distance from leading edge to trailing edge? chord?)

Yep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(aircraft)

 

[jaydeehess]

Thanks,
score one for this old guy's memory.

 

[PB&J]

I think you've made some errors. Let's take the first one- finding the altitude angle. You take the altitude in linear units and divide by the ground track distance in the same units.

1097.28/14484=0.075758. So far not bad.

Now, to find the angle you need to find the angle whose tangent is equal to (altitude/distance). arctan(0.075758)=4.332 degrees.

Similarly, for the angle subtended by your assumed 50 ft. wall we have;
15.24/1126.5=0.01352 and arctan(0.01352)=0.775 degree.

It still shows that a wall of that height at that distance would not block the LOS to a plane at the height and distance given, but your numbers themselves are incorrect.

This makes sense with what Beachnut was saying (thanks to you too Beach!). I felt that my initial numbers for the 'angle' were incredibly small, but you have shown the final step needed for the true angle, thanks for clearing this up!

 

[PB&J]

I really do believe that the plane Chaconas was watching flying over the river was the C130.

As do I. They're trying to stretch this guy's testimony beyond belief.

An aside note to the subject, but not exactly answering the OP is the 84 Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) based at Hill AFB in Utah. They are composed mainly of enlisted personnel with very young Officers in supervisory roles.

To believe that they would FAKE anything at the direction of ANYONE is utterly absurd. It is even more preposterous to believe that if ANYONE ELSE faked the data that it would not be noticed, leaked, or reported.

Yeah, you'd think that if they really went to the trouble to fake it.. it would be pretty much bullet-proof. I would definitely indiscernible to the likes of CIT. I have a copy of the .ISO they released, and they did a bang-up job of making the data very easy to understand, even for someone who has never looked at radar data before.

Thanks everyone for all the anecdotal support and input. I've watched planes take off/land hundreds of times, but never had a frame of reference as far as distance goes.

 

[Boone 870]

Even though a 767 is larger than a C-130, the controllers in Newark Tower didn't have any problems seeing Flight 175 impacting the south tower from 8 miles away.

Isn't Craig the one claiming that the C-130 was sent there to "confuse" eyewitnesses with Flight 77, and yet, says that there's no way anyone could confuse a C-130 with a commercial airliner?

It's not surprising really. CIT claims that the controllers in Washington Tower would have lost Flight 77 in the clutter of buildings in Washington, DC after Flight 77 flew over, even though the Pentagon is less than 1.5 miles away.

 

[TC329]

The arguement that a C-130 would not be clearly discernable in the sky for miles upon miles is absurd,

correct, especially to someone who sees planes all day everyday at their job like Chaconas.

 

[TC329]

As do I.

well you and uruk are wrong like always.

 

[jaydeehess]

correct, especially to someone who sees planes all day everyday at their job like Chaconas.

Thanks for clearing that up TC. So you disagree with Craig on the matter of whether or not Chaconas could see the C130 bank.

 

[sts60]

Even though a 767 is larger than a C-130, the controllers in Newark Tower didn't have any problems seeing Flight 175 impacting the south tower from 8 miles away.

I grew up in Tucson, where C-130s were extremely common flying in and out of D-MAFB. They are quite easy to see from 8+ miles away.

Isn't Craig the one claiming that the C-130 was sent there to "confuse" eyewitnesses with Flight 77, and yet, says that there's no way anyone could confuse a C-130 with a commercial airliner?

If so, that would be an especially ludicrous claim. A C-130 looks very little like a 757. There are lots of people in Washington metropolitan area with defense-related backgrounds that are familiar with the Hercules, but you don't even need that to tell the two apart.

It's not surprising really. CIT claims that the controllers in Washington Tower would have lost Flight 77 in the clutter of buildings in Washington, DC after Flight 77 flew over, even though the Pentagon is less than 1.5 miles away.

That's ludicrous as well. The region all around is heavily populated, and it was a beautiful, clear fall-like day. Either the aircraft would have been high enough to track, or it would have been so low that it would have been scaring the bejeezus out of thousands of people.

The claim that the crash of AA77 into the Pentagon was faked is a particularly odious bit of mendacious insanity, and anyone who continues to believe such nonsense after actually looking into it needs professional help. I can't provide that; I'm an engineer, not a psychologist.

 

[TC329]

Thanks for clearing that up TC. So you disagree with Craig on the matter of whether or not Chaconas could see the C130 bank.

Do you get dizzy from all the spinning you do?

 

[leftysergeant]

You are hoist on your own petard, TC.

 

[PB&J]

Do you get dizzy from all the spinning you do?

Do you or do you not agree that Chaconas was perfectly able to see the C130 bank at it's altitude from his location?