New Aidan Monaghan Paper Considers Autopilot Operation

[WildCat]

RedIbis never ceases to amaze or disgust.

Nor does he cease to run away from direct questions, or claim he already answered it but provide no evidence.

Slippery bird, the RedIbis is...

 

[I Ratant]

It's been obvious to me since 2001 that the last turn was required to get a good hit on the building.. the plane would have just barely touched it with the left wing.
The correction could only have come from the cockpit of the plane.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Truthers always fail to realise that anyone servicing any of the aircraft incolced would have spotted all the extra equipment needed to remote control them. They don't seem to know what Type Certification is.

 

[9/11 Chewy Defense]

I wouldn't know for a fact but I'd imagine talking on the intercom to the cabin might not be covered extensively in a simulator. I'm sure adrenaline may play a role in that mistake too.

True, after all their blood pressure would've skyrocketed after killing the pilots & a few passengers.

 

[tsig]

Here's something that seems to me puzzling about the author's contention that UA175's behavior was the product of a pre-programmed flight path under automatic control.

Okay, I'm no expert on automated flight, but I do have quite a bit of experience with position and speed servos (from working on last-generation tape transports) and one thing that feedback control systems generally don't do is sudden, jerky, last-minute corrections- unless they're broken.

Such a system, acting to bring a controlled variable (e.g. the position of an object) to a desired value (a particular point in its travel), will generally do so smoothly, by means of a continuous process of minimizing error. OTOH, a tyro pilot realizing that he might miss his target is much more likely to make a sudden large change in attitude.

If the crash of UA175 was a pre-programmed flight path, then whatever evil conspiracy engineered the control system did a lousy job of ensuring adequate loop gain for acceptable error and adequate damping for stability.

He's got that covered:

A possible rationale for a final 18 degree roll under autopilot control would be to create an impression of active human control.


See it was an auto pilot but they made it look like a human pilot. So it looks like an AP because it was so precise and it also looks like an AP when it isn't precise.

 

[leftysergeant]

First of all, I think there are more possible explanations, such as pilot panicking at the last second, fearing he might miss altogether, or pilot intentionally banking more to impact more building floors.

The article presents no evidence that would actually and significantly favour one explanation over the others.

All three aircraft hit while banking. If you fail to bring a building down, it would seem that it would achieve some part of your mission to kill as many people as possible in the building. So you hit in a manner that will set as many fires as possible. Toatally logical measure.

 

[I Ratant]

Flying into the North Tower is easier than the South Tower, flying into that one from a banked turn...

 

[Oystein]

And how would the hijackers know which buttons/switches to hit to get the planes under autopilot (except from simulators)?

I'd read the manual.

 

[Oystein]

All three aircraft hit while banking. If you fail to bring a building down, it would seem that it would achieve some part of your mission to kill as many people as possible in the building. So you hit in a manner that will set as many fires as possible. Toatally logical measure.

Yes, and also without actual evidence, hence any of five or more possible explanations is ... well, possible, and we can't know which is true, since those making that decision to pull left sharply died a fraction of a second later without leaving a note detailing their intentions.

 

[Oystein]

Flying into the North Tower is easier than the South Tower, flying into that one from a banked turn...

Both are equally easy to hit, Atta in AA11 just did a better job approaching downtown Manhattan from many miles out.
I suspect Atta's job was a little easier, considering they all flew by vision: He came down the Hudson river and the entire length of the island of Manhattan, and had easily recognisable landmarks to guide him for many more miles than Marwan al-Shehhi.
I once tried on MS flight sim to repeat the approximate routes both had taken, and I, too, found the Atta path easier to do than coming in from south-east over less prominent terrain.

 

[RedIbis]

Both are equally easy to hit, Atta in AA11 just did a better job approaching downtown Manhattan from many miles out.
I suspect Atta's job was a little easier, considering they all flew by vision: He came down the Hudson river and the entire length of the island of Manhattan, and had easily recognisable landmarks to guide him for many more miles than Marwan al-Shehhi.
I once tried on MS flight sim to repeat the approximate routes both had taken, and I, too, found the Atta path easier to do than coming in from south-east over less prominent terrain.

I don't pretend to know how to analyze the particulars, but your insistence that the maneuvers were easy to pull off is basically just bare assertion. I think Monaghan and others are looking at the approach in totality. Consider the bank after this:

(8:58 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Controllers Watch Flight 175 Descending 10,000 Feet per Minute

Air traffic controllers at the FAA’s New York Center who are watching Flight 175 on the radar screen (see (8:57 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001) see the aircraft descending at an astonishing rate of up to 10,000 feet per minute. [The Learning Channel, 2005] From 8:58 a.m., Flight 175 is constantly descending toward New York. [National Transportation Safety Board, 2/19/2002 ] One of the New York Center controllers, Jim Bohleber, is looking at his radar scope and calls out the plane’s rate of descent every 12 seconds, each time the screen updates, saying: “It’s six thousand feet a minute. Now it’s eight. Now ten.” [Newsday, 9/10/2002; Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Dave Bottiglia, the controller responsible for monitoring Flight 175, will later comment that 10,000 feet per minute is “absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet. It is unbelievable for the passengers in the back to withstand that type of force as they’re descending. [The hijackers are] actually nosing the airplane down and doing what I would call a ‘power dive.’” [The Learning Channel, 2005] While Flight 175 is in this rapid descent, it heads directly into the paths of several other aircraft, and narrowly avoids a mid-air collision with flight Midex 7 (see (9:01 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 73-76]


http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timelin...

 

[DGM]

I don't pretend to know how to analyze the particulars, but your insistence that the maneuvers were easy to pull off is basically just bare assertion. I think Monaghan and others are looking at the approach in totality. Consider the bank after this:

(8:58 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Controllers Watch Flight 175 Descending 10,000 Feet per Minute

Air traffic controllers at the FAA’s New York Center who are watching Flight 175 on the radar screen (see (8:57 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001) see the aircraft descending at an astonishing rate of up to 10,000 feet per minute. [The Learning Channel, 2005] From 8:58 a.m., Flight 175 is constantly descending toward New York. [National Transportation Safety Board, 2/19/2002 ] One of the New York Center controllers, Jim Bohleber, is looking at his radar scope and calls out the plane’s rate of descent every 12 seconds, each time the screen updates, saying: “It’s six thousand feet a minute. Now it’s eight. Now ten.” [Newsday, 9/10/2002; Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Dave Bottiglia, the controller responsible for monitoring Flight 175, will later comment that 10,000 feet per minute is “absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet. It is unbelievable for the passengers in the back to withstand that type of force as they’re descending. [The hijackers are] actually nosing the airplane down and doing what I would call a ‘power dive.’” [The Learning Channel, 2005] While Flight 175 is in this rapid descent, it heads directly into the paths of several other aircraft, and narrowly avoids a mid-air collision with flight Midex 7 (see (9:01 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 73-76]


http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timelin...

You would almost think they didn't give a crap what happened to the aircraft.

 

[Reheat]

I don't pretend to know how to analyze the particulars

Yes, we know. That's why you're a twoofer and will believe virtually anything another twoofer (equally ignorant) posts on the interwebz!

 

[RedIbis]

Yes, we know. That's why you're a twoofer and will believe virtually anything another twoofer (equally ignorant) posts on the interwebz!

That's an uncharacteristically personal attack, and I suspect it's against the rules. I also suspect it belies some real frustration at the possibilities in the analysis.

 

[Reheat]

That's an uncharacteristically personal attack, and I suspect it's against the rules. I also suspect it belies some real frustration at the possibilities in the analysis.

No, it's the truth (not twoof) and you've just substantiated my opinion.

 

[I Ratant]

...: “It’s six thousand feet a minute. Now it’s eight. Now ten.” [Newsday, 9/10/2002; Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Dave Bottiglia, the controller responsible for monitoring Flight 175, will later comment that 10,000 feet per minute is “absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet. It is unbelievable for the passengers in the back to withstand that type of force as they’re descending. [The hijackers are] actually nosing the airplane down and doing what I would call a ‘power dive.’” ...
.
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timelin... Error 404

.
A good rate but not a fine rate.
There's no "force on the passengers"... other than gravity.

 

[Reheat]

.
There's no "force on the passengers"... other than gravity.

Correct. I could have easily been a 1G maneuver, same as straight and level accelerated flight.

 

[funk de fino]

That's an uncharacteristically personal attack, and I suspect it's against the rules. I also suspect it belies some real frustration at the possibilities in the analysis.

Analysis is junk. Someone has been duped again. Bravo.

 

[Oystein]

This is so highly typical of you and all truthers:

Several posters, including myself, replied to the OP (yours) and the paper linked to in it. But what did you reply to? My comment on someone else's side remark.

RedIbis, please be so kind and acknowledge and reply to my first post, (post #9)! It addresses YOUR OP and the paper at hand!




Now to the content of your reply:

I don't pretend to know how to analyze the particulars,

Yes indeed

but your insistence that the maneuvers were easy to pull off is basically just bare assertion.

No, it isn't. I have simulated their entire approach myself, including the power dive, and found it to be not difficult at all.

I think Monaghan and others are looking at the approach in totality.

No, this is precisely what they have NOT done! They have ONLY looked at two features during the final seconds of the flight and forgotten to analyse how and why the plane came in so high. In addition, they have failed to show how they arrived at their premises (e.g. of some steady turn rate for some seconds).

Consider the bank after this:

(8:58 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Controllers Watch Flight 175 Descending 10,000 Feet per Minute

Air traffic controllers at the FAA’s New York Center who are watching Flight 175 on the radar screen (see (8:57 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001) see the aircraft descending at an astonishing rate of up to 10,000 feet per minute. [The Learning Channel, 2005] From 8:58 a.m., Flight 175 is constantly descending toward New York. [National Transportation Safety Board, 2/19/2002 ] One of the New York Center controllers, Jim Bohleber, is looking at his radar scope and calls out the plane’s rate of descent every 12 seconds, each time the screen updates, saying: “It’s six thousand feet a minute. Now it’s eight. Now ten.” [Newsday, 9/10/2002; Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Dave Bottiglia, the controller responsible for monitoring Flight 175, will later comment that 10,000 feet per minute is “absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet. It is unbelievable for the passengers in the back to withstand that type of force as they’re descending. [The hijackers are] actually nosing the airplane down and doing what I would call a ‘power dive.’” [The Learning Channel, 2005] While Flight 175 is in this rapid descent, it heads directly into the paths of several other aircraft, and narrowly avoids a mid-air collision with flight Midex 7 (see (9:01 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 73-76]


http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timelin...

This only documents that the terrorists were poor pilots with little regard for the life and well-being of passengers or the integrity of the plane.

A power dive, while highly unusual in normal airliner operation, is by no means a difficult operation: Just push the yoke forward - done!
They had to cook off altitude rapidly. A very likely reason for this is that they were bad at navigation and realized at some point that they were much too high, and didn't want to fly a full circle like Hanjour had to near the Pentagon. So they did a power dive. Just push the nose down.

Please explain how this wild dive is indicative of a flight plan executed by a computer, rather than the bodacious maneuvering of a bad but determined pilot!

 

[Oystein]

That's an uncharacteristically personal attack, and I suspect it's against the rules. I also suspect it belies some real frustration at the possibilities in the analysis.

You give credence to a paper that you admit you are unable to assess, as you lack the required abilities and knowledge (math and how to fly a plane).
Therefore, what Reheat states is supported by evidence available in this very thread: "you ... will believe virtually anything another twoofer (equally ignorant) posts on the interwebz!"