The End of private Aviation?

Wayne

Wayne

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On the news right now is breaking news of a private airplane crashing into a building in Austin, TX. Conflicting reports run the gamut between "not a terrorist act" to "an accident" to "the guy torched his house, then got in his plane and pulled a kamakazi on the IRS building"....

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586581,00.html

If the latter, I would have to say it signals the end of private aviation in this age of overreaction and personal rights abridgement.

Wayne
 
Wayne said:
If the latter, I would have to say it signals the end of private aviation in this age of overreaction and personal rights abridgement.

Wayne
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That would be a huge thing to shut down and counterproductive politically. They would need a "worthy cause" to shut down private aviation and a single rogue flier isn't enough and would play very poorly with the public, I would think. Very few people actually fly but I think a lot of people like the idea that they are free to fly if they should ever choose to and a plane crashing into the IRS is not necessarily a threat to the guys that run the country.

On the other hand, if the pilot can be tied to any "radical" group - anything threatening to the interests of the powers that be - then watch for a crackdown on "radicals".
 
Nah, they'll just start putting more effort into making buildings plane proof.
 
Glaucus said:
Nah, they'll just start putting more effort into making buildings plane proof.
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There is a lot of truth to this statement actually. I am the building manager of a gov occupied facility.
 
Glaucus said:
Nah, they'll just start putting more effort into making buildings plane proof.
Click to expand...

Plane proofing is old hat.
The WTC towers were engineered to withstand plane impacts and they were built back in the 70s. But they were built like that because they were tall and more likely to be hit.

However, all buildings are already over built with quite large safety factors, which is OK for buildings because they don't have to go anywhere so using more materials than necessary is only a cost of materials thing and not an ongoing expense.

But then you are in the realm of diminishing returns. How often are buildings going to get hit by planes? There's one every few years. What kind of plane can you build for? Cessna? Sure, OK, they aren't that big. Military jet fighter? They crash into buildings too and are much harder to stop. Passenger airliner? Where do you stop spending money on something that likely won't happen anyway?

Sure, there are certain obvious targets that you would harden, like the Pentagon, which they had just started hardening back in 2001 and which was the mostly empty wing that the airplane hit - unfortunate for the terrorists and unfortunate for us too because if they had just flown straight into the building instead of flying around it to the other side then they would have hit a non hardened target and driven straight into Rumsfeld's office.

But harden every IRS office? Every government office of any kind? It would be better to just more and smaller offices so that an attacker would be discouraged from even bothering and the losses would be less if they did.
 
WTC and the Empire State were designed to withstand a plane collision. At the time planes were smaller and didn't travel as fast. The architects also didn't consider intentional crashes. But now it's a possibility and one could argue it would be negligent to not take that into consideration.

But you're right, not every building can be hardened, but I suspect high risk buildings will be. I'm no architect but I'm guessing there's many techniques one can use to limit the damage a plane can cause. Perhaps all that's needed is changing the overall shape of the building, give it more angled edges so that a head on crash is less likely to occur - stealth fighters are all angular instead of rounded so that radar waves only bounce back to sender when the surface is perfectly perpendicular to the source and tank armor is all angular so that incoming shells are easily deflected unless they just happen to come in at the perfect angle to hit the armor head on. This would make buildings look weird, but I already know of one such building:

10.jpg


Ok, not the best example, but you get my point. That's the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) btw in Toronto.

Cars used to be very much hardened back in the early part of the last century, but get into an accident in one of those and there would be a good chance the steering wheel column would push your head through the roof. Now we have cars designed to crumple and absorb the energy. Could architects use similar techniques? Don't see why not. Not sure I'd want a windows office though. :mrgreen:

Anyway, my thinking is that they can make them earthquake with just a few key design changes, that may be enough for making them plane proof too. I just don't think it was ever a real consideration until now.
 
or just get rid of the IRS


:mrgreen:
 
Fade said:
I thought Fluffy had just shuffled off his mortal coil. :cry:
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Thanks for the thought.

So, now we have the target for the clampdown. Private aviation is off the hook. People who hate the government and taxes will be visited by the Department of Homeland Security (because, you know, people who hate the IRS are just the kind of people that the average citizen has to be protected from).
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
So, now we have the target for the clampdown. Private aviation is off the hook. People who hate the government and taxes will be visited by the Department of Homeland Security (because, you know, people who hate the IRS are just the kind of people that the average citizen has to be protected from).
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That was my first thought.
 
Glaucus said:
Ya, but that's everybody.
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Well, it's anyone who talks out loud about it. Remember, an oppressive state cannot eradicate dissension. The best it can do is make sure people don't find out that their neighbours agree with them.
 
I hear, but can't verify, that "Joe Stack" groups keep popping up on Facebook but get taken down.

Forget the tea party, maybe it's time for the Stack Pack. It seems to be engendering some kind of visceral response in some quarters.
 
Wayne said:
If the latter, I would have to say it signals the end of private aviation in this age of overreaction and personal rights abridgement.

Wayne
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You bring up a good point Wayne and as one of those who use to enjoy flying Cessnas and Aeroncas, I'd like to add my thoughts:

1. This very topic has been debated in the private aviation community for a very long time.
2. For now, private aviation is the only way to get around all of the over enacted TSA policies for flying into/around/out of the USA. Sure private pilots have to follow rules as well but they are no where near as convoluted or piled (volumes) deep in books.
3. Thankfully private aircraft (for the most part) cannot carry the payload necessary to do serious damage to buildings (typical useful load for most private aircraft like single engine Cessnas and Pipers is around 800-1000lbs but you still have to deduct weight for fuel and passengers) but that could change. I specifically call attention to the infamous "suitcase nuke", a biological device, or some sort of HE device.
4. The government has debated limiting private aviation in the past but has never gone through with major changes. This event will no doubt spark another government review.

Regards,
Ltstanfo
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Glaucus said:
Nah, they'll just start putting more effort into making buildings plane proof.
Click to expand...

Plane proofing is old hat.
The WTC towers were engineered to withstand plane impacts and they were built back in the 70s. But they were built like that because they were tall and more likely to be hit.
Click to expand...

Quite correct Fluffy. I've seen two documentaries on the WTC towers which both state that when designed, they were intended to survive an impact from a Boeing 707 (largest and most common aircraft at that time). I would imagine that the newer Boeing 757-767s not only can carry as much (if not more) more cargo / fuel but also travel faster so the safety margin designed into said buildings was overwhelmed (not to mention the absence of the asbestos coating halfway up one of the two towers (collapsed first).

For everyone else, most office buildings can survive an impact from a private aircraft (think single engine propeller). It's when you get into small jets or larger twin prop aircraft that structural integrity can be quickly overwhelmed by velocity at impact and combustibility/volume of fuel.

Regards,
Ltstanfo
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
I hear, but can't verify, that "Joe Stack" groups keep popping up on Facebook but get taken down.

Forget the tea party, maybe it's time for the Stack Pack. It seems to be engendering some kind of visceral response in some quarters.
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As of right now, there are three Facebook Pages and three Facebook Groups about Joe Stack. The largest page has 606 fans and the largest group has 22 members - which is quite small by facebook standards. One of the groups is called "Joe Stack == EPIC FAIL" while the other two seem to sympathize with him. Unless other groups have been created and removed, I'd say this is a small response on Facebook. I guess we'll have to monitor to see although I'm not planning on becoming a member or fan of any of them. Do we have any volunteers? :mrgreen:
 
Glaucus said:
10.jpg


Ok, not the best example, but you get my point. That's the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) btw in Toronto.
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Actually, that's brilliant. Make it look like it's already been hit by a plane! Kind of like the building version of playing dead.
 
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