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Airplanes Have Been Flown By Remote Control Since 1917
Airplanes have been flown by remote-control since 1917. As Wikipedia notes:
In 1917, Archibald Low as head of the RFC [Britain's Royal Flying Corps] Experimental Works, was the first person to use radio control successfully on an aircraft.
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There were also [during the 1930s] remotely controlled cutters and experimental remotely controlled planes in the Red Army. In the 1930s Britain developed the radio controlled Queen Bee, a remotely controlled unmanned Tiger Moth aircraft for a fleet’s gunnery firing practice. The Queen Bee was superseded by the similarly named Queen Wasp, a later, purpose built, target aircraft of higher performance.
As the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum notes, President John F. Kennedy’s older brother flew a secret mission involving the remote-control flying of a bomb-laden airplane to attack Nazi targets inside France:
On the 31st July 1944 a U.S.N. special air unit, codenamed Project Anvil, moved to Fersfield from Dunkeswell in Devon. The mission was to involve the use of explosive-laden PB4Y-1 Liberator bombers under radio control. The crew of two, Lt Joe Kennedy (pilot), and Lt. Wilford John Willy (radio control technician/co-pilot), were to take off with 21,150 lbs of Torpex in 347 boxes and establish radio control of the Liberator by a Ventura mother-ship. Once full control was established and tested, at a pre-determined point the crew would parachute from the aircraft through the nose wheel bay emergency exit and the bomber would continue the rest of its mission under radio control, finally crashing onto the target.
In addition, Norad has been able to fly planes remotely for many decades:
NORAD (the North American Air Defense Command) had at its disposal a number of U.S. Air Force General Dynamics F-106 Delta Dart fighter aircraft configured to be remotely flown into combat as early as 1959 under the auspices of a program know as SAGE. These aircraft could be started, taxied, taken off, flown into combat, fight, and return to a landing entirely by remote control, with the only human intervention needed being to fuel and re-arm them.
As Wikipedia explains:
The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was an automated control system for tracking and intercepting enemy bomber aircraft used by NORAD from the late 1950s into the 1980s. In later versions, the system could automatically direct aircraft to an interception by sending instructions directly to the aircraft’s autopilot.
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In normal operation, communications between the SAGE centers and the interceptor aircraft was relayed via radio equipment at the radar sites, which were more widely spread out than the SAGE centers themselves. A properly equipped aircraft, like the F-106 Delta Dart, could feed the SAGE directions into the autopilot and fly “hands off” to the interception.
NASA and the FAA flew a plane by remote control in 1984:
In 1984 NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) teamed-up in a unique flight experiment called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), to test the impact of a Boeing 720 aircraft using standard fuel with an additive designed to suppress fire.
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On the morning of December 1, 1984, a remotely controlled Boeing 720 transport took off from Edwards Air Force Base (Edwards, California), made a left-hand departure and climbed to an altitude of 2300 feet. It then began a descent-to-landing to a specially prepared runway on the east side of Rogers Dry Lake. Final approach was along the roughly 3.8-degree glide slope.
Indeed, prior to 9/11, remote-controlled planes could fly up to 8,600 miles (from the April 24, 2001 edition of Britain’s International Television News).
One day after 9/11, an article appeared on the top science and technology news service stating “hijackings could be halted in progress with existing technologies, say aviation researchers”. The article quoted a transportation expert as saying:
“Most modern aircraft have some form of autopilot that could be re-programmed to ignore commands from a hijacker and instead take direction from the ground . . . .”
See also this article, in which the former head of British Airways “suggested . . . that aircraft could be commandeered from the ground and controlled remotely in the event of a hijack.”
Some have speculated that remote control played a part in 9/11:
And some allege that the use of remote control could explain some of the strange behavior by the 9/11 planes.
Indeed, more than 40 years ago, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested shooting down a military drone airplane, pretending it was a real airplane, and then blaming the attack on the Cubans as a way to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.
Interestingly, NORAD - which is the military air defense agency responsible for protecting the U.S. mainland - had run drills for several years of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, and "numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft".
And coincidentally, Fox TV aired a fictional drama 6 months before 9/11, in which the U.S. government intended to fly a plane into the World Trade Center via remote control and blame it on terrorists.
Note: While some claim that remote control played a part in 9/11, a separate - but interesting - question, is whether remote control could and should have been used to safely land the hijacked airplanes. Given that Al Qaeda flying planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon was wholly foreseeable, and hijackings could be stopped using existing equipment, why wasn't the equipment used to stop this type of attack? In other words, why didn't ground control have the ability to override the hijacked airlines to safely land them and take control of the aircraft?
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You are a douche. Watch the movie Zero. The aerial manuevers could be done by Air orce pilots one out of twenty times. And the suppossed hijackers had never logged any flight hours in any jet.
ROTFLMAO !!!!!
You just made my point again !
Your words......"Watch the movie Zero. The aerial manuevers could be done by Air orce pilots one out of twenty times. "
LOL!!!! These pilots could not do it....while sitting in the cockpit of the actual jet. Feeling its inputs, clear vision all around....actually "wearing the jet" as pilots say.
And you believe somebody did a better job by remote control ?
LOL !!!1
What about COMPUTER control?
You are a complete idiot or a just a troll.
If you upload a new flight path into the autopilot, then you have 'remotely controlled' it.
Dolt.
Maybe if those computers ran UNIX.
Otherwise if it was Windows for Airlines then it would have blue screened out before the jet ever took off.
Really dude?
Are you that cosmically stupid?
So let me get this straight.....we allowed Muslims....or white guys painted up as Muslims to hijack 4 planes just to stick a usb stick into the flight control computer ala Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day and then sit back and enjoy the ride?
Ok,,,,I'll buy that......now....what are you going to do about it other than bitch?
That's what I thought.
You, my friend*, need a check-up from the neck up.
Look up Flight Management Systems, you dolt.
LOL!!!! These pilots could not do it....while sitting in the cockpit of the actual jet. Feeling its inputs, clear vision all around....actually "wearing the jet" as pilots say.
And you believe somebody did a better job by remote control ?
LOL !!!
This guy thinks that the only way remote control will work is with a guy standing by holding a little box with an antenna sticking out of it. Now that is an LOL. On 9/11 the planes were guided into beacons, no man with an antenna control needed. Dimwit.
Ahh...right....<Smack on the head> BEACONS!!!
And you have evidence of this....right? Did anybody see anything on their Mr. Wizard osciiliscopes on that day?
Any weird frequency patterns?
Hey....were the SETI guys at Aricebo finding anything fishy that day?
Beacons!!!
I would be ROTFLMAO, but after a few hours of this, I doubt I have any A left to L O !!!
LOL !
Um...what? You make no sense. I don"t know if it was remote control, but I know it was not done by a man with no flight experience.
You don't know shit. Only blind faith it what you think you know....which is simply blind faith in shit.
You're not a pilot so you believe that a 767 can fly at 550 MPH at sea level, nevermind piloted by amateurs, striking perfectly twice into a 215' wide target. Like I said, real pilots know this is impossible. I believe the targets had a homing beacon and the planes flew right into it. You pee yourself some more now but if you know a commercial airline pilot run the figures by him and don't forget the clocked speed 550 MPH. Impossible for the Cessna flunkees to do it.
Real pilots do it all the time. Ever heard of an approach? You are aware that at 550mph, it is easier to hit a 250' target than at 120mph with your gear, flaps, and spoilers down? I am a pilot and this argument of man vs remote is irrelevant. And that video cited is just nonsense.
Also, what did they do with the supposed passengers and crew from those flights? Where are they now if they weren't in the planes?
I have flown hundreds of times and it always seems like we land right in the middle of the runway. Every time.
Could a cessna junkie do that in a passenger plane - no, but I would have to think a real pilot could.
"You are aware that at 550mph, it is easier to hit a 250' target than at 120mph with your gear, flaps, and spoilers down."
Wrong!
I love it when people say things like "Wrong!" and leave nothing to back up a claim.
Next, please.
Real pilots do it all the time. Ever heard of an approach?
An approach occurs at slow speed. 767s don't land at 550 MPH, so real pilots do not do this all the time.
Can a 767 go 500 mph at 700ft? No. Can a 767 descend from cruse altitude at a steep angle at full power and level off at 700ft going over 500 mph, yes it can. Amateur Cessna flunkees do this maneuver twice and hit a 215' wide target perfect bullseye? Impossible.
edited as you at least admit that the planes did hit the towers with the passengers on board.
You would have a much stronger case on the pentagon than with the WTC on that point. Nevertheless, I propose that 3 people, fixed on their target in clear skies with good winds and a bloodstream full of adrenaline will absolutely be able to do that, even as "cessna flunkies". When I did my multi engine training, my mean ol' CFI made me do missed approaches with one engine out in bad winds flying a 70s vintage Seneca. If I could do that as a kid, with little time since graduating "cessna flunky" school, and holding the centerline of a 100' runway, while not rolling the bird to my death, I'd reckon those guys could do much the same thing in good flying weather and a perfectly functioning bird, even if it is heavy.
But here I ask a more fundamental question. Why haven't all the 76/75 pilots come out in force making your point?
"Also, what did they do with the supposed passengers and crew from those flights? Where are they now if they weren't in the planes?"
I, for one, eagerly await GW's followup to these burning questions.
I'm thinkin teleportation like on Star Trek...lol.
"I'm thinkin teleportation like on Star Trek...lol."
Clearly, the conspiracy is far greater than my imagination permits. The sad part of this is that there definitely is a conspiracy involving senior figures from the government and their actions over the preceding decades as well as actions/inaction on the day of the event. But approaching it with the sort of pseudo-science predicated by that video and this subject altogether simply serve to distract people from any real course of investigation. Perhaps this combined with the whitewash official investigation are why we're still asking this question today.
It's a corrosive issue that deserves appropriate attention and then closure. There will always be people imagining more than exists but at this point we've got thousands of architects, chemists, and other professionals pointing out severe discrepancies. When architects and scientists are derided as kooks something is wrong with the picture. We need a new investigation, an open discussion among professionals.
Personally, I think we should start by following the money. Cops do this all the time and with great results, when they aren't compromised. Sadly, though, this thing is just going to go down like JFK.
what did they do with the supposed passengers and crew from those flights?
The passengers were on the flights as the plane hit the target.
Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's Comptroller (in charge of the money) on 9/11, was co-author of the notorious "Project for a New American Century" September 2000 report that stated the US empire needed a "new Pearl Harbor" and that the US should seize oil-rich Iraq even if Saddam Hussein were deposed. His involvement with PNAC, his previous directorship of a corporation that manufactures remote control flight systems, and his inability to document how the Pentagon has spent our money suggests that real investigations into the crimes of 9/11 and the US invasion of the Middle East would put Mr. Zakheim near the top of the witness list if there is ever a real 9/11 investigation with subpoena power.
But, but -- a Tomahawk missle could never possibly hit its intended target aided only by SOLID STATE ELECTRONICS...
I mean, that would indicate computers were sophisticated enough to guide a high-speed flying projectile into a designated target without HUMAN AID? C'est impossible!
</TOTAL sarcasm>
Don't forget about the $2-3 Trillion that went missing....
walkure you are piece of shit not only do I hold an ATP, I know every system on the B757 and b767. Unlike you
Fuck off. A ragtag troupe of 19 Arab students with some flight school training has the ability to take over command of a jetplane and pinpoint their targets?
You really believe that? Especially since you claim to know the systems of said planes?
Maybe if the guys had been long term pilots themselves. If they were Mossad agents as another theory claims, then that's plausible.
Either way, to still accept the official story in the face of this discounting evidence across the web is fucked up.
Speaking of fucked-up....I want some of that Afghani heorin you're on.....
Let me guess......somebody flew a remote-controlled needle into your ass.
ROTFLMAO !!!!!!
You are in the payroll of which acronym?
R.E.A.S.O.N.
Really
Eager
Asshole
Sells
Official
Narrative
He forgot the 'T' for 'totally'.
I'm not selling anything.
Just not buyng your shit.
You are the ultimate douche. You are mean and stupid. Get fucked.
I'm mean and stupid against stupidity.
I have 5 kids. I've gotten fucked a lot. And all my kids test a grade to 4 grades higher than their peers. And they would understand that Truthers are full of shit.
As for being a douche.....well....I always like to smell fresh for my lady.
You have not offered one piece of evidence to back your opinion, and you have failed to show any stream of logic in your thoughts. Nobody cares what you think, or who you are. You are nobody, and you will always be nobody.
You care enough to respond....let's see.....8 times already.
It must be love ! LOL !
As far as being a nobody....I know my place in the world so I find peace at being a nobody.
As far as not presenting one piece of evidence.....I'm not an investigator and neither are you. We all just read and listen to various things and make up our mind ultimately based on faith. Until you actually go into business for yourself looking into this matter....this is just a faith based exercise.
However.....you have got me on one thng.
That tape of Flight 93 where that passenger exclaimed.....
"Let's Roll....against that Arab speaking remote controlled thingy in the fuselage installed by the Shadow Government that wants to rule our lives !!!"
Ok.....I give up....you're right. I'm a nobody.
"....you're right. I'm a nobody."
Never a truer statement out of yo mouth!
Maybe I was too harsh, yet you are ignorant and racist....so you think that the pilots would be taken out with boxcutters?
And where was the wreckage of flight 93 Mr Know it all???
Oh please....the whole racist rant is so Jessie Jackson, Maxine Waters, and Al Sharpton.
I may be politically incorrect....but I am not racist. I'd have to believe that somehow white people are superior. As someone who is white but with Chickasaw heritage I can simply ask my dead relatives who did not make it through the Trail of Tears about the superiority of my white heritage.
Still doesn't keep me from admiring a lot about Andrew Jackson and his stand against the banksters of his day. But part of me would still like to scalp his whtie ass for what he did to some of my relatives.
Twerp.
Or Troll.
Either way...
Do you know how many pounds per square inch it takes to puncture through the flesh of your neck to the carotid artery.
Neither did the pilots.
But in the panic and confusion of what was going on....I can see that happening much more so than some conspiracy theory about remote controlled jets or purposely detinated buildings or the best of them all the photographic evidence of a missle strapped to the underside of one of the jets.....about as good as the face of Satan in the smoke plume of one of the Towers.
Oh...about the wreckage of flight 93......it flew straight into the ground.
But allow me to introduce the eyewitness testimony of a first responder...ahem....government plant....
"I heard it for 10 or 15 seconds and it sounded like it was going full bore," said Tim Lensbouer, 35, Purbaugh's coworker.
The ground shook and the air thundered as the jetliner slammed into the ground about 300 yards away, Purbaugh said.
A mushroom of flame rose 200 feet and disappeared. Then there was a curtain of black smoke and finally a trail of fire as pieces of the fuselage shot hundreds of yards into the woods.
"My instinct was to run toward it, to try to help" said Nina Lensbouer, Tim's Lensbouer's wife and a former volunteer firefighter. "But I got there and there was nothing, nothing there but charcoal. Instantly, it was charcoal."
Alleged flight 77 (Pentagon) pilot Hani Hanjour had a history of great difficulties in his efforts to learn to fly. As late as Aug. 2001, he was unable to demonstrate enough piloting skills to rent a Cessna 172.
See for example this article from Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/ny-usflight232380680sep23.story
Certainly there is no evidence that Hanjour ever had any sort of practice flying commercial jetliners or any jet-propelled aircraft.
However, air traffic controller Danielle O'Brien, who tracked the radar signal from Flight 77, stated that it was flown like a fighter jet.
Apparently Hani Hanjour was a 5'4", slight man, yet he used force to gain control of a jumbo jet piloted by a badass Air Force veteran named Burlingame who had been trained in all sorts of combat and was a muscle-bound 6'3". How his family remains silent is beyond me. No chance he gave up his plane to some arab wimp.
Your claims are preposterous. The aircraft and the crew arrived in Bos the night before. Your technology would have had to be installed the night before and the 6 crew members kidnapped after signing in the computer for their flight. The push crew would have noticed no one in the cockpit who gave them a thumbs up or a salute before disconnecting the tug. The flight attendant who called the company from the back of the airplane was identified and gave the details before the aircraft hit the tower. I will debate this no more with fools who speculate wildly but have no idea how a airline works.
Or they landed these planes on a base, and flew other planes into the buildings. And so to make sure everyone knows where I stand, I do not have any answers, I have a tonne of questions that have never been answered. I do know some facts about the story, which I think gives my questions a lot of importance.
Why were there drills identical to 9/11 on the same day? What are the odds of that? Why did Cheney have NORAD stand down from his bunker at the White House? How is it that a 47 story building named Building 7 fall at free fall speed when it was not hit by a plane? Why did the 9/11 commision vote that there was not enough evidence to back the official government story? Why was the Partiarch of the Bin Ladin family visiting with George Herbert Walker Bush at the White house the night before? Do they always celebrate the Egyptian New Year together? Why is the Carlyle group owned by the Bushes, Sarkozys, and Bin Ladins? Is this not treasonist? Why did the hijackers never log any flight hours, yet were able to man jumbo jets with amazing precision? Why was Rumsfeld walking around the grounds of the Pentagon right after the plane hit? Wouldn't he be worried that the Pentagon was still a target? Why did George W. Bush have Air Force One stay in a holding pattern for the next few hours after the attacks? Why was he so worried- what other threats were there? What happened to the wreckage of flight 93, since there was none on the ground? Why did Giuliani have all the scrap buried out to sea instead of analyzing the crime scene? Where were the black boxes from the planes? How was it that people were ready to steal all of the gold under the WTC? How was it that people bought huge put options on airlines the day before? Does this not show there was inside knowledge of the attack? How did the CIA already have Recon in place in Afganistan? If there was inside knowledge, then that proves there was a conspiracey.
Who cares how an airline works? Do you care to learn how a modern jetliner works?
So who is remote-controlling your idiotic mind?
What a bum fuck loser !
Tyler....word of advice my friend....I appreciate that fact you let a diverse range of voices and opinions on your site. It is a true market place of ideas.
But this mentally distrubed piece of shit only devalues your site for no good reason.
The world is going to hell in a handbasket and Zero Hedge is one of the last bastions of truth and news that really matters. You do yourself and your readers a disservice with this alien space monkey, X-File, conspiracy bullshit.
There are plenty of conspiracies out there that are easily and readily verified that have real and real-time effects right now.
Bernanke and the world's central bankers. Who don't need remote-controls. And do not care a wit for the luinatic rantings of a fool but are quite happy that that fool is discrediting an outstanding site that has a large and growing influence on the news cycle and in people's lives.
You might want to tell this shit-head he can post on Zero-Hedge any and all economic news he wishes....even if it might be deemed conpiratorial. But birther, remote control 9/11 jets and alien space bats have plenty of other sites that would be better suited for his brand of mental instability.
sooo care to explain: why the planes weren't simply landed safely by remote control?
total usaf stand down? numerous weapons systems that protect the pentagon not used?
dancing israelis? crime scene wreckage quickly dispoed of?
'Bush lied about 9/11 terror attacks'
War by Deception (911 US Israeli joint operation)
Mohammed Atta Is Still Alive
How private firms have cashed in on the climate of fear since 9/11
WTC POWER-DOWNS BEFORE 9/11 - WTC EMPLOYEE INTERVIEWS
The "Dancing Israelis" FBI Report - Debunked CIA and 911 the Question of “Failures”- Deliberate or Incompetence?
9/11: Israel's Grand Deceptionamen