This will stop the terrorists in their tracks

[kallend 1,651]

Airports all around the country have been asked to improve their security with respect to private airplanes.

Gary(IN) and Reno(NV) now require fingerprinting and a background check of all private owners. That is going down really well with the doctors and lawyers whose Bonanzas are based there.

The most common requirement is a prop lock, which is usually a bicycle lock wrapped around the prop hub. I can't imagine any terrorist figuring out how to remove a bike lock in less than, say, 15 seconds.

What with that and the restrictions on model rockets, I feel so much safer now.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[newsstand 0]

Lets make sure that eveyrone has to register their bolt cutters, that will take care if it all!

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[Zenister 0]

heh... E5 board answer

Q: why do you want to be an NCO?

A: So i dont have to sign out the bolt cutters.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[rickjump1 0]

Some of the smaller airports are so loose, a thief or terriorist could pick or choose what kind of aircraft they might want. I remember visiting an airport that had both hanger doors open, security gate open, and nobody present. The FBO's kid just left for a few hours.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[ozthebum 0]

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Lets make sure that eveyrone has to register their bolt cutters, that will take care if it all!

They can take my bolt cutters when they pry them from my cold, dead, hands

[billvon 2,435]

Security at GA airports will continue to be nearly nonexistent until a serious incident occurs using an airplane that took off from a small airport. Then there will be cries of "no one knew this could happen!" and a consequent overreaction. This, of course, will merely ensure that the _next_ terrorist attack will be done via a Fedex box or a schoolbus.

[happythoughts 0]

In order to stop drug sales around schools, they established "zero tolerance" zones for the dealers who didn't realize that drugs were illegal.

How about a "zero tolerance for terrorists" zone around airports?

These airplanes in the hands of terrorists are obviously weapons of death. How about using the same tactic as assault weapons and just ban the darn things?

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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What with that and the restrictions on model rockets, I feel so much safer now.

You might take a moment to imagine how we gun owners feel about being subjected to background checks and waiting periods when we buy our sixth, seventh gun, and being told that it's to make sure we aren't terrorists, or that we don't plan to buy the gun in a fit of anger to go back and use it to shoot our wives. Couldn't we have done that with, say, our fourth gun?

Welcome to the club. All you had to do to join is be indignant at the SHEER STUPIDITY and MEANINGLESSNESS of the "we-have-to-do-something" crowd. (The gun-controllers are the ringleaders, by the way.)

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Some of the smaller airports are so loose, a thief or terriorist could pick or choose what kind of aircraft they might want. I remember visiting an airport that had both hanger doors open, security gate open, and nobody present. The FBO's kid just left for a few hours.

Um, if a terrorist wanted to crash an airplane in some sort of suicide attack, or use an airplane to do something drastically illegal like disperse chemical weapons from a cropduster, why couldn't he just RENT a plane? I mean, we're talking about someone who already knows how to fly, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to get hold of an airplane. They're planning on dying, so they're not even concerned with taking a plane anonymously -- what would that matter? So they could get around all the locks in the world by acquiring use of the plane legitimately.

So I don't get fazed by the "ease" with which people can get onto the grounds of a small GA airport. That's because we don't like in a POLICE STATE where in order to go anywhere you have to be subject to the secret police questioning you and keeping track of everywhere you go. Is that what you want? When you bemoan the "lack of security" of these airports, that's what it sounds like you want.

Let me ask you this: how often, and out of how many total operations, do terrorists commandeer and use GA aircraft for nefarious purposes? How many GA aircraft terrorist attacks have there been? If there have been any, were they done with aircraft that were stolen because there was lax security?

If the answer is "none," or "very few," then why would you want to address a non-problem with restrictions that will inconvenience the general public and treat them daily as though they are criminal suspects? And how, even, would doing so defeat them in attempts to do misdeeds through legitimate aircraft rental, anyway?

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Security at GA airports will continue to be nearly nonexistent until a serious incident occurs using an airplane that took off from a small airport. Then there will be cries of "no one knew this could happen!" and a consequent overreaction. This, of course, will merely ensure that the _next_ terrorist attack will be done via a Fedex box or a schoolbus.

Or with an aircraft rented legitimately, by someone authorized to be on airport grounds.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[billvon 2,435]

>Or with an aircraft rented legitimately, by someone authorized to be on
>airport grounds.

That could happen, but the proposals suggested in the original post (fingerprinting, background checks) would indeed help prevent such attacks at some airports. They would not, however, affect a plane based at Freddy Lufker's private grass strip, stored in one of the decaying old T-hangers. There is no one at that airport at _all_ usually, much less anyone who will check fingerprints or backgrounds. And it's within 20 minutes flying time of Wall Street in Manhattan.

[PhillyKev 0]

This is Tom Ridge. We now have more pseudo-specific information regarding terrorist attacks that may or may not be planned and may or may not have already been canceled, just being considered, or possibly to occur in 18.3 years.

A lot of chatter has been intercepted discussing Freddy Lufker's private grass strip.

CODE ORANGE!!! CODE ORANGE!!!

[rickjump1 0]

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Some of the smaller airports are so loose, a thief or terriorist could pick or choose what kind of aircraft they might want. I remember visiting an airport that had both hanger doors open, security gate open, and nobody present. The FBO's kid just left for a few hours.

Um, if a terrorist wanted to crash an airplane in some sort of suicide attack, or use an airplane to do something drastically illegal like disperse chemical weapons from a cropduster, why couldn't he just RENT a plane? I mean, we're talking about someone who already knows how to fly, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to get hold of an airplane. They're planning on dying, so they're not even concerned with taking a plane anonymously -- what would that matter? So they could get around all the locks in the world by acquiring use of the plane legitimately.

So I don't get fazed by the "ease" with which people can get onto the grounds of a small GA airport. That's because we don't like in a POLICE STATE where in order to go anywhere you have to be subject to the secret police questioning you and keeping track of everywhere you go. Is that what you want? When you bemoan the "lack of security" of these airports, that's what it sounds like you want.

Let me ask you this: how often, and out of how many total operations, do terrorists commandeer and use GA aircraft for nefarious purposes? How many GA aircraft terrorist attacks have there been? If there have been any, were they done with aircraft that were stolen because there was lax security?

If the answer is "none," or "very few," then why would you want to address a non-problem with restrictions that will inconvenience the general public and treat them daily as though they are criminal suspects? And how, even, would doing so defeat them in attempts to do misdeeds through legitimate aircraft rental, anyway?

-

Actually when I found the airport wide open I was more concerned about theft than terrorism. On that particular day there was also 5 or more aircraft on the ramp not even tied down. Over reaction is going to change things. Hate it or not, its coming in the name of national security.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[TypicalFish 0]

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Let me ask you this: how often, and out of how many total operations, do terrorists commandeer and use GA aircraft for nefarious purposes? How many GA aircraft terrorist attacks have there been?

If the answer is "none," or "very few," then why would you want to address a non-problem with restrictions that will inconvenience the general public and treat them daily as though they are criminal suspects?

Prior to September 11th, how many passenger airplanes had been commandeered and crashed into skyscrapers? I don't see your logic...

"I gargle no man's balls..." ussfpa on SOCNET

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Let me ask you this: how often, and out of how many total operations, do terrorists commandeer and use GA aircraft for nefarious purposes? How many GA aircraft terrorist attacks have there been?

If the answer is "none," or "very few," then why would you want to address a non-problem with restrictions that will inconvenience the general public and treat them daily as though they are criminal suspects?

Prior to September 11th, how many passenger airplanes had been commandeered and crashed into skyscrapers? I don't see your logic...

My logic is that they are going nuts with ideas about regulation and security checks and fingerprinting and i.d. cards and all kinds of bullshit that:
a) won't prevent a terrorist attack
b) won't make terrorist attacks so much more difficult to conceive, plan and execute that they won't happen anymore
c) inconvenience and "regulate" people who are doing nothing wrong in the first place (essentially like gun control)

and general aviation aircraft tend to be pretty useless for the kinds of attacks terrorists like to do.

AOPA cited a study that specified the USELESSNESS of a terrorist attempt at causing a nuclear problem by crashing even a large airliner laden with fuel into a nuclear facility.

AOPA's article about nuclear plant crash fears

Click on the link "Nuclear Security - General Aviation is Not a Threat"

TF, the things that are being suggested to increase "safety" are so easy to circumvent that there is no valid argument for instituting them. Why go to trouble if you're only going to find that you did it for essentially ZERO GAIN?

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[JohnRich 4]

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They would not, however, affect a plane based at Freddy Lufker's private grass strip, stored in one of the decaying old T-hangers... And it's within 20 minutes flying time of Wall Street in Manhattan.

Let's not get too excited about GA aircraft. There have been several suicides and such where small aircraft have hit buildings. They just don't have the mass or the fuel to do anything. It's like a bug hitting your car windshield.

The only reason the 9/11 attack was so "successful" was because of the large volume of fuel. Small GA aircraft just don't have that.

A C-182 might knock out an office or two, but that's it. They aren't going to cause mass damage or bring down a building.

[kallend 1,651]

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Quote

Let me ask you this: how often, and out of how many total operations, do terrorists commandeer and use GA aircraft for nefarious purposes? How many GA aircraft terrorist attacks have there been?

If the answer is "none," or "very few," then why would you want to address a non-problem with restrictions that will inconvenience the general public and treat them daily as though they are criminal suspects?

Prior to September 11th, how many passenger airplanes had been commandeered and crashed into skyscrapers? I don't see your logic...

How much ANFO/SARIN/anthrax can you get into a GA plane compared to, say, a Buick Century or a Ryder Truck? How many attacks have taken place with planes compared to car/truck bombings?

It's just a matter of recognizing the REAL risks. And GA planes (or model rockets) are so far down the list of REAL risks as to be falling off the bottom. If real security (as opposed to feel-good cosmetic security) were the goal, better locks on trucks would be the way to go.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[TypicalFish 0]

My point was not to specifically point out GA planes used as flying bombs, but to maybe take a longer view than "Well, it hasn't happened yet, so why worry about it"...

Skydivers are a creative bunch, you are going to tell me that you can't come up with a scenario where a small aircraft could be used in some way to inflict major damage to property and/or loss of life? I would think the inherent MOBILITY would be enough of a threat to give it SOME consideration...

"I gargle no man's balls..." ussfpa on SOCNET

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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My point was not to specifically point out GA planes used as flying bombs, but to maybe take a longer view than "Well, it hasn't happened yet, so why worry about it"...

Well, the point of my post was to point out that nothing of what is being suggested to address the possibility of terrorist GA action will be difficult to circumvent. So while it is not valid to say, "It hasn't happened, therefore it won't happen," at the same time it is pretty stupid to dedicate a major initiative toward one tiny fraction of the ways in which a plan might be gone about by terrorists.

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Skydivers are a creative bunch, you are going to tell me that you can't come up with a scenario where a small aircraft could be used in some way to inflict major damage to property and/or loss of life? I would think the inherent MOBILITY would be enough of a threat...

Dude, if this is what you're worried about, then it would be far more sensible to simply shut down GA altogether, because if all you are concerned about is what people might do with GA aircraft, that stuff would still be doable by terrorists even if they had to rent planes to do it.

I don't steal a plane when I want to fly. I call up Kemper Aviation and ask them to put me in the book. If I am going night flying, they leave the flight bag in the plane for me after hours, and then I leave it for them to get in the morning. Yes, a terrorist could steal a plane at an unguarded airport. Yes, he could even chance upon the plane that has had the keys left in it for me (though that is an awful slim chance if he is on some sort of plan or schedule to carry out an attack. "I'll just go to the airport and hope that I can find a plane with the keys left in it."). But if there are checks in place to keep him off the grounds of the airport, or cable locks on props on every plane on the ramp, why couldn't he just go to a flight school, get checked out to rent their planes (if he's licensed) or get flight instruction up to the solo or private, and legitimately rent the plane and crash it somewhere or disperse sarin or whatever your current fear is? And if you think about it, when the terrorists want to disrupt our free way of life, this would be even better for that plan, because as opposed to simply stealing a plane and using it without authorization, this would call into question the legitimate renting of planes by even authorized pilots! Much more civil disruption if that happened.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[TypicalFish 0]

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at the same time it is pretty stupid to dedicate a major initiative toward one tiny fraction of the ways in which a plan might be gone about by terrorists.

Right. Why lock the tiny window in the bathroom as long as the rest of the windows and all the doors are locked? What I am saying is that I don't think you can dismiss anything, because by extension it will become your vulnerability.

"I gargle no man's balls..." ussfpa on SOCNET

[gmanpilot 0]

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How many GA aircraft terrorist attacks have there been?

Who cares? There is verifyable and actionable intelligence demonstrating that terrorists continue to plan to use GA aircraft as a delivery mechanism, but we don't know where or when. So, if it's your job to make GA airports safe from such threats, what would you do to make them safe? I mean, any restriction will inconvenience someone. You know the threat is real, and they have the capability to carry it out, you are in charge, what would you do to keep us safe from just this one scenario??

_________________________________________
-There's always free cheese in a mouse trap.

[billvon 2,435]

>Let's not get too excited about GA aircraft. There have been several
> suicides and such where small aircraft have hit buildings. They just
> don't have the mass or the fuel to do anything. It's like a bug
> hitting your car windshield.

Ah, but no _terrorist_ organization has tried to do the same thing. A C206 can carry around a ton of payload - it will be overloaded, but it will get off the ground. A ton of C-4 will do quite a bit of damage; even a ton of ANFO (which you can not possibly prevent terrorists from making) would do a lot more than what a bug does to a windshield.

It would take a terrorist with some brains to make the ANFO, load it on the plane, make a detonator, take off, set the autopilot and bail out. Before 9/11 we relied on the idea that there _were_ no terrorists with brains. That has shown to be a false hope.

[b1jercat 0]

Forget the bail out part I get my jollies going up with the load.
blues

jerry

[bch7773 0]

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Let's not get too excited about GA aircraft. There have been several suicides and such where small aircraft have hit buildings. They just don't have the mass or the fuel to do anything. It's like a bug hitting your car windshield.

The only reason the 9/11 attack was so "successful" was because of the large volume of fuel. Small GA aircraft just don't have that.

A C-182 might knock out an office or two, but that's it. They aren't going to cause mass damage or bring down a building.

you are forgetting that those planes weren't loaded with anything. don't forget, a car by itself can barely hurt a building... but add explosives to it, like the terrorists are doing in iraq, and suddenly you can kill a lot of people, and do a lot of damage. and a small plane can go places cars can't.

MB 3528, RB 1182

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Ah, but no _terrorist_ organization has tried to do the same thing. A C206 can carry around a ton of payload - it will be overloaded, but it will get off the ground. A ton of C-4 will do quite a bit of damage; even a ton of ANFO (which you can not possibly prevent terrorists from making) would do a lot more than what a bug does to a windshield.

So what plan, by anyone, has so far addressed this potential problem thatdoes not include banning either general aviation or sale of ammonium nitrate and/or fuel oil?

THAT'S my point. There hardly seems to be anything we can do that is not an absurd clamping-down on life and liberty as we know it and have the right to expect it to remain.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"