Details on what happened over Norway (yep, it was just a missile test)
December 11th, 2009
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One could have expected it, but the spectacular light show that was seen over Norway a day ago has inspired a lot of ridiculous speculation by various groups, theorists and “alternative” believers. The object could have been legitimately called a UFO, as it was unidentified. This is no longer the case, but that does not mean that the “UFO Enthusiasts” of the world are going to accept the mundane explanation of a Russian missile test failure.
Some of the more out-there headlines include:
- Massive UFO event in Norway: possible first open alien contact, images
- Mysterious spiral light shines over Norway – Could it be … Obama?
- Proof Obama is Messiah as Freaky Celestial Display Appears in Norway
- The Amazing Light Vortex Up In The Skies In The North Of Norway Looks Identical To A Wormhole!
- Norway wormhole is First Contact, claim UFO watchers
- UFO-show in Norway sky welcomes Obama for Nobel Prize ceremony ~ The Financial Armageddon
- Obama ET disclosure uncertain, as voter ballot and citizen groups move to disclose ET presence
Now, before you go and tell me that the claims that this was related to Obama and his being the Messiah are a joke, there do appear to be people who actually believe that to be the case. Of course, there seem to be a lot of people who thought Obama was the messiah even before this event, so the light show might not really be the inspiration for that hypothesis.
According to one article in “The Examiner” the reason for the spiral light was that extra-terrestrials have decided that they’re finally getting fed up with their existence being covered up by the governments of the world and want to engage the people directly and make themselves known. The proof? Voters in Denver have a ballot measure to fund an independent city commission on UFO “truth,” the UK ministry of defense finally disbanded it’s last vestige of a UFO reporting agency and Obama is headed to Norway to accept the most undeserved award, possibly in the history of the world. Apparently these aliens are “ethically advanced” and have been trying to get humans to get rid of nuclear weapons since the 1950’s. They want to send a message to Obama and mankind and let them know that a peaceful world is one with constant conventional war, and not with those un-peaceful nuclear weapons sitting quietly in their silos to deter one.
While we can be sure that this event will live on in conspiracy theories and UFO circles for years to come, lets take a step back and look at exactly what happened to see how mundane it actually was…
Some Q and A
Q. What kind of rocket was it, why was it launched and what happened?
A. Russia has not been entirely forthcoming in exactly what they launched (even denying that they launched anything in some cases), but it is safe assumption that the missile being tested was a RSM-56 Bulava. The RSM-56 Bulava is the only submarine launched ballistic missile currently under development by Russia and it has been tested several times, recently. Another test was anticipated to take place in late 2009 or early 2010, and this appears to be that test.
The Bulava missile is supposed to be the next step in submarine launched ballistic missile technology and a huge advance for the Russian Navy’s submarine-based nuclear force. It is planned to be the primary missile for use on the new Borei class submarine. The missile is smaller than previous generations of submarine launched missiles and includes advanced targeting features along with penetration aids. In 2008 it was announced that the Bulava would be adopted by the Russian Navy, although it has not yet been deployed. Land-based versions are also a possibility.
It has been launched from the TK-208 Dmitri Donskoi, the only one of the enormous Typhoon Class submarines still in full time service. The Donskoi is not the intended platform for the missile, but rather has been refitted for the purpose of test launching these (and possibly other) types of missiles. Reports are that this was the submarine that launched the missile. The Donskoi has been involved in confirmed test launches of this missile in the same area before.
The RSM-56 Bulava has suffered from an extremely difficult development process. It is partially based on the existing, land-based Topol M missile, but has a signifficantly different upper stage system and is modified for submarine launching. Official development of the system began in 1998, although development on the systems and concepts that would become the Bulava goes back even further.
In addition to being significantly smaller than previous generations of missiles, the Bulava has an unusual launch profile, which may lead to the technical issues that have plagued the program. In most ballistic missiles, MIRV’s face forward and are ejected into a ballistic trajectory similar to that of the entire missile. Yet in the Buliva, the warhead vehicles are pointed downward and ejected away from the nose cone of the MIRV Bus. In theory this could improve the ability of MIRV’s to be launched against widely separated targets and to avoid countermeasures, since their trajectory could be more difficult to predict. However, it also requires the MIRV bus to to enter a kind of controlled tumble, reorienting itself in mid flight and maintaining a precision orientation for each of the MIRV ejections.
There have been twelve tests of the Bulava, although only eight appear to be tests of the full system (as opposed to first stage tests or “popup” tests of the launch mechanism, with a dummy missile). Reportedly two of the tests did successfully deliver their warheads, although whether the full system actually preformed as intended remains unclear. Several tests have been complete failures, with the missile displaying erratic behavior.
Whether or not the unique MIRV ejection and upper launch profile of the missile is responsible for the difficulties remains unconfirmed, but reports do indicate that the failure which occurred over Norway was with the third stage. The third stage is the portion of the flight where the missile begins the course correction and reorientation maneuvers. The third stage is also liquid-fueled, a departure from the trend toward exclusively solid-fueled ballistic missiles, the liquid fueled system is necessary for the precision maneuvering that is required for warhead delivery.
Q. Did it really look that dramatic?
A. It did look very dramatic, but the most spectacular photos, which show the brightest, sharpest spirals, appear to be time exposures, a technique commonly used for celestial photography. While it does an excellent job of capturing the details of the event, even in low-light, it would not necessarily look quite as dramatic to the naked eye. For a better impression, videos show the event as it happened, while time-exposures captured all the light emitted over the time period of the exposure.
Q. Why did it glow?
A. This is very common in rocket launch plumes seen just before dawn or just after dusk. It is the time of the day that rocket exhaust plumes look the most dramatic due to the glow effect. Just before dawn, the sun has not yet risen above the horizon (or to be more accurate, the horizon has not shifted). However, at a high altitude, the sun is directly visible and its rays illuminate the plume from the rocket, making it appear to glow. On occasion, this effect is even seen in clouds, and is especially common at high latitudes.
The image to the right shows a Space Shuttle launch at dawn. Notice that the plume is brightly illuminated at high altitudes, but the lower portion of the plume is not as bright.
It seems that by pure chance, the launch occurred at just the right time, slightly before sunrise to maximize the effect. The fact that the weather was clear to begin with also helped.
Q. Why was it blue?
Photos which show the entire plume show that it did not appear blue until the final part of the flight. This happens due to Rayleigh scattering, and it’s the same reason why the sky appears blue during the day. The light seen from the plume is sunlight that is scattered by both the plume and dust in the upper atmosphere. The scatter effect is different for different frequencies of light, with higher frequencies, such as blue and violet having greater scatter than lower frequencies like red and orange. Violet tends to be attenuated more than blue, thus giving the “sky blue” look. This is also the reason why dawn and dusk appear red or orange. At those times, light from the sun travels through the atmosphere at a shallow angle, causing much of the high frequency light to be scattered, while the lower frequency light is not.
This has been seen before in other rocket launches, especially with plumes from upper stages. It is also most noticable at dawn and dusk, when the high contrast and indirect illumination increase the effect.
Q. Why did it have a spiral pattern?
A. Spirling is one of the most common results of the failure of a rocket’s control systems or thrusters. When thrust is applied off center, it causes the rocket to turn, and if it is applied continuously off center, it causes the rocket to spiral or spin. Depending on how severe the problem is, and whether it is the main engine or a control thruster, the rocket may spin on its axis or may fly in a spiraling or looping pattern. On several occasions, rockers have done this because their thrust vector control failed. In the case of Gemini 8, a space capsule was put into a high speed spin due to a stuck maneuvering thruster. This could also be caused by a sensor failure, which causes the control system to falsely indicate the need to apply thrust in a given direction.
A simple analogy to understand how off-center thrust effects a rocket is to imagine a rowing team which only has paddles on one side of the boat. It would go in circles due to the asymmetric thrust.
The fact that the spiral got larger and larger as the rocket spun is due to the exhaust being ejected away from the rocket. Even roll control thrusters are angled out from a rocket stage, to percent damage to the vehicle itself. If thrusters were firing out as the craft spun, it would create a spiral effect, even if the vehicle was only spinning in place. This may have been accompanied by dust or other debris ejected. The fact that the spiral was so tight and sharp indicates that it was probably spinning very rapidly.
Q. Why did it create a “black hole” or tunnel effect, where there was an apparent dark area inside a light ring?
A. It didn’t. That’s just an optical illusion. As the plume dissipated, it left a ring pattern, in which the inside appeared to be darkened like a tunnel. This was a simple optical illusion caused by the contrast between light and dark. The area inside was not darker than the rest of the sky. If photographs show the area inside to be slightly darker, this is likely caused by the camera applying a high dynamic range setting to compensate for the poor lighting enviornment, but most photos, on close inspection, show that the area within the ring is not any darker than the rest of the sky.
An example of this illusion is shown to the right.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 12:36 am and is filed under Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, Events, Just LAME, Not Even Wrong, Paranormal, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 11th, 2009 at 1:48 am
You forgot the theory that it was LHC.
“Missle, no way, ufo, not likely.. If you go to google earth and see how close Geneva switzerland is to Oslo, the only thing that makes sense is the mad scientists who are testing the Large Hadron Collinder and trying to create antimatter decided to see if they could create black matter or a black hole.. whatever it was it wasn’t created by mother earth.. and no matter how pretty it is, it can’t be good. These idiots should not be playing with Mother Nature.. I just love listening to the mainstream media though, these brainwashing sheeple who are trying to explain this “Phenomanon” as opposed to just telling the truth.. Look to the skies.. your eyes don’t lie..!!!!”
-Comment #84 http://www.geekologie.com/2009/12/mysterious_portal_opens_in_sky.php
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December 11th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Good treatment of the event Steve, but you are also right that this is going to have legs in the nutbar community that will last for years. Any rational explanation is just signs of a cover-up.
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December 11th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Jeremy said:
Uh… did he even bother looking on Google Earth? They’re only close as in being on the same continent. If they’re close than Maine is close to Florida.
What the hell does it have to do with Oslo, anyway? It wasn’t even visible in Oslo.
So… the LHC was running in the early morning and somehow caused a light in the sky, someplace one thousand miles away. yeah.
And on that matter, I doubt the LHC was even doing anything at the time. Things like the LHC usually spend a lot more time being maintained than they do conducting experiments. Considering it’s only been up and running for a short time and that it had a very bad failure the first time, I doubt that they’ll be doing any real experiments on the LHC for at least a couple more months. Right now, it’s the systems test and burn-in phase.
That is idiotic on so many levels.
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December 11th, 2009 at 4:11 am
When I first saw the pictures the first thing I thought was “Well, that looks just like a rocket launch except for that crazy spiral pattern” I have seen a few rocket plumes when I used to live close to vandyland and at dawn and dusk they look pretty neat, when the top stage separates, it sends out a big cloud of gas and dust and so you have a point of light that is surrounded by it and the trail. Sometimes it looks blue, but that depends on the light.
The spiral makes sense if you figure that it was spinning around like crazy with thrusters firing out the plume like that. You can tell better in the video than the photo.
I’ve never seen anything that strange looking. Several years ago, one of the rockets started to do a loop-de-loop and the safety officer blew it up. It made a trail that looked like a telephone cord (anyone here too young to remember when telephones had cords?). I missed that one but I saw some photos afterward.
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December 11th, 2009 at 4:45 am
Good read. So often things turn out to be less of a big deal than they seem. I still wish I could have seen it. For the Norwegians, it was a rare treat. For a bunch of Russian scientists, it probably means they’re either going to be working in the coal mines now or they will come down with a mysterious case of polonium poisoning.
Comment 4 – what is vandyland?
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December 11th, 2009 at 4:51 am
RBR1978 said:
It’s a nickname for Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. They launch most of the polar-orbiting satellites in the US from there and it’s also where they launch ballistic missiles for testing interceptors, tracking radar and such. Thus, if you live near there, you’re going to see rocket plumes on a fairly regular basis. Actually, the plumes can be seen over much of the West Coast, depending on the trajectory and the conditions.
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December 11th, 2009 at 5:27 am
I too saw a missile failure from vandy that lit up over Los Angeles. It was spectacular! It spiraled to a small degree and the plume coloration was gorgeous. I’m looking for the photos I took and will pass them on if I find them.
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December 11th, 2009 at 7:57 am
The best explanation for the event I have seen to date: Santa testing the new Infinite Improbability Drive on his sleigh, (I mean how else could he visit everyone in the world inside 24hs?)
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December 11th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
It wasn’t a missile. It was the credibility of the global warming hysterics spiraling down a wormhole into a black hole.
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December 12th, 2009 at 4:10 am
I wonder if anything of this missile will end up being found. From the reports it sounds like this happened over land, and they usually do these tests on a trajectory such that all the stages and components will end up in the opean ocean, but since this went so wrong, it could have fallen onto land. The question is would it survive at all? Possibly some parts would, but the one thing I am sure would is if it had any of the MIRV’s on it. Obviously they would not contain a live warhead, but they might have the mirv casing and that would be able to survive pretty well, given it has a heat shield and everything.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the US and several European military intelligence wings were looking around for anything they could find. Chances are nothing would be learned meaningful anyway, but you never know.
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December 12th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Common sense and logic are the only resources you need to decide that 911 was an inside job. All you need to know is that
three skyscrapers in NYC came down at the speed of gravity, defying the laws of physics and conservation of motion. One
of them was not even hit. It is impossible for floor after floor to crash through the one below it without slowing the
momentum of the collapse. According to physics, the collapses should have taken minutes not seconds. That could only
happen if there was a force working ahead of the collapse to cut the mass out of the way. You don’t need an expert to help
you figure that out. The logical conclusion is explosives and an inside job. There are too many coincidences to
accommodate the laws of probability and too many unanswered questions. We all believe in a 9-11 conspiracy theory. The
question is, which one do you believe, the one featuring Osama Been Forgotten and plastic knives or one substantiated by
facts?
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December 12th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
tenred said:
Uh.. I’m not sure where you got your physics degree from, but it wasn’t *quite* like that. More like they came apart as they fell, so it didn’t simply collapse one floor onto the other. They didn’t exactly telescope. The steel buckled and the frame was already collapsing under the top before it came down because of the shock and the tortion it experienced.
Have you ever seen a structure collapse? Things that large generally do not, but scaffolding and things do all the time. It is surprising how fast the damage propagates.
tenred said:
Which I assume you are most definitely not. Once you set up that kind of force coming down, it exceeds the design by so much that it just all fragments. Once the top section came down past the damaged area, it hit the rest of the structure with so much force it could not have slowed it by much.
tenred said:
Amazingly, the whole 9/11 troof movement seems to have only a handful of physicists and structural engineers and the ones it does have are the more loony ones. If this were true, there wouldn’t be many physicists or engineers who were NOT conspiracy theorists, but the opposite is true.
tenred said:
What facts? “Osama Been Forgotten?” I haven’t forgotten him, but lets face the fact that he’s a figurehead who’s spent the past few years in a cave in the wilderness somewhere. Plastic knives? There were several young burly guys with box cutters and everyone else was unarmed. But that doesn’t even matter, you could hijack a plane with no weapons and just empty threats that you had a bomb or something (it’s been done).
You know why the planes were so easy to hikack? Nobody tried to stop them. If everyone jumped them as soon as they took out the box cutters, they’d have failed. On one flight, the passengers did fight back, but only after hearing what had happened. By that time, the hijackers had the ****pit.
It’s not that hard to understand. Try to put yourself in the pre-9/11 world. Planes had been hijacked several times. Normally everyone survived. The hikackers demanded the pilot take them to some destination and they would read a political manifesto and demand randsom or they’d send all the passengers off the plane and fly it to Cuba or Iran or something. If that’s the kind of hijacking, which everyone assumed, you’d be safest cooperating.
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December 12th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
By the way, what does this have to do with these supposed chemtrail aircraft? Do you believe in those too, idiot?
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December 12th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
911 was designed to boost the agenda of the new world order (the beast of Revelation). If you want to know who is
responsible for 911, follow the money trail.
We all believe in a 9-11 conspiracy theory. I am one of those people who believe the Bush government perpetrated 9-11. I
believed this from day one. Their motive was a pretext for a preplanned invasion of the Middle East and subsequent
American imperialism around the world. In other words, they needed an excuse to invade, so they created one and blamed it
on the people they planned to invade.
Another motive was the implementation of a police state which they euphemistically call Homeland Security so we will feel
warm and fuzzy about it, including U.S.A. Patriot Act I and II, The Intelligence Reform Act and The Military Commissions
Act all designed to destroy the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and our freedom. Destroy our freedom is the very thing the
President told us the “terrorists” were trying to do. It appears they are succeeding. So who had more to gain from the attacks
of 911, Al-Qaeda or the new world order Neocons?
They told us 9-11 happened because we were unprepared. They said we never considered the possibility of terrorists
hijacking jetliners and using them as weapons. This excuse was a lie. It came out later that NORAD, the Pentagon, the CIA,
and various other federal agencies, during the two years prior to 9-11, were running drills precisely about hijackers flying
planes into buildings, implicating the Clinton administration as well. On the very morning of September 11, 2001 they were
running drills of over twenty scenarios of hijacked planes crashing into buildings. One scenario was the World Trade Center
and another the Pentagon. That is another incredible coincidence.
NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command, has been protecting America from such possibilities as 9-11 for over
fifty years. Why did it fail on that day? The very drills that were supposed to train them to protect us were what prevented
them from being able to protect us. The drills were a diversion. For two years, NORAD was mentally conditioned and on 9-
11, they saw everything that was happening as part of the drills. Due to confusion from all of the false blips on the radar, they
were unable to distinguish the drills from real life. Someone was pulling those strings, and it was not some crazy bearded
Arab living in a cave in Afghanistan.
In 1999, pro golfer Payne Stewart and five companions left Orlando, Florida on a Lear jet bound for Dallas, Texas. Four
hours later, it crashed in a field in South Dakota. Within minutes of take off, the Lear jet began to veer off course and air
traffic controllers were unable to contact the pilot. NORAD was immediately contacted (standard procedure) and F-16s were
scrambled. Within minutes of the Lear jets take off, F-16s had caught up with it. During the year prior to 9-11, NORAD had
scrambled 67 times for various air traffic infractions. What does this have to do with 9-11?
Why were there no planes scrambled on 9-11 until after the third plane hit the Pentagon? The first plane that hit the World
Trade Center had been off course for well over an hour before the last plane hit the Pentagon. Where was our air defense? We
all should have asked these questions instead of blindly accepting whatever they tell us.
“The first thing that went through my mind was, Is this part of the exercise? Is this some kind of screw
up?” Major Larry Arnold, NORAD commander
As the drills were a diversion, I also believe the airplanes were a diversion. The planes did not take down the Twin Towers.
The planes were for shock value, to take your mind off the fact that there were demolition charges already planted in the
buildings. The Twin Towers did not collapse as is hypnotically repeated. The buildings were professionally imploded. The
twin towers exploded, pulverized, disintegrated into dust floor by floor from the top down and came down in ten seconds or
less for each building. That is eleven floors per second. Can you clap your hands eleven times in one second?
World Trade Center Seven, a 47-story building a block away from WTCs 1 and 2, was never hit by a plane yet it inexplicably
collapsed at 5:20 on the afternoon of the same day, falling in seven seconds straight down into its own footprint exactly like a
controlled demolition. Ask yourself why the BBC jumped the gun and reported that building 7 had collapsed twenty minutes
before it actually did, while the building was still visible in the background behind the reporter.
I also do not believe the Arabs on those planes were hijackers. I believe they were patsies, working with the government as
participants in the drills. It has been proven that many of the suspects had been trained in U.S. military bases. Osama Bin
Laden himself worked with the CIA since the 1970s. The Arabs on those planes believed it was simply another day of drills
just as they had done for two years. They did not know they would die that day. The people on the planes were either killed
or incapacitated by gas and the planes were hijacked by remote control. Ask yourself how they could come up with names
and photos of the nineteen alleged hijackers within hours of the attack.
And what about flight 93 which came down in Pennsylvania? The likely target would have been World Trade Center 7.
Witnesses on the ground in Pennsylvania will tell you it exploded in the sky and the debris was scattered over an eight mile
area. That is why they had no good excuse for building 7 coming down. Their excuse was shot down. Larry Silverstein, the
lease holder of the World Trade Center complex, lied and said that the fire department commander and he “made that
decision to pull.” Many people believe he was using a demolition term for bringing down the building. What do you think?
“I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they
were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, “We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest
thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.”
Larry Silverstein, from a PBS documentary
I believe that fabrication was a botched attempt to explain the unexplainable demolition of building seven. The fire
department had nothing to do with the collapse. What firefighter in their right mind would go into a burning building to set
up demolition charges? Do firefighters even know anything about demolition? How long would it take to set it up for
demolition? They only had a few hours in the middle of that chaotic day to accomplish such a feat. That is why Silverstein
later came out to “clarify” his statement by saying he meant pull fire fighters from the building. They have yet to come up
with a believable explanation for the collapse of World Trade Center Seven, so they try to ignore it, hoping you will go away.
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December 12th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
urgh. someone call the pshyciatrist. we have a classic example of either troll or severely advanced paranoid delusions.
If you really believe in all that junk then seek help before you hurt yourself or others with your delusions. if you are a troll. and i think you are. go away. there is no food for your kind here.
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December 12th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
next time i will not inundate you guys with so much irrefutable evidence that it gives you a brain freeze. why is it you guys must resort to name calling when backed into the corner? the attempt to establish a new world order is and has been an agenda for sometime, they love people like you, you either ignore it, like most sheeple, or try to refute it, people are waking up. God bless and have a nice day. can you explain the collapse of bldg 7? just do that and i will go away, and no i am not a troll. can you explain how cell phone calls were made from the flights when the technology was not advanced enough at the time to allow for it?
is this just a board for people who only have the same views as you?
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December 12th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
OK, i looked it up, i guess i could be considered a troll as for being off topic, but as you know, i severley lacking in any form of intelligence and therefore have not been able to use the “search for topic” to any success, as i am sure you guys have had plenty of discussion on 9/11, my primary intent is not to be off topic or provoking others into an emotional response, i was merely looking for these topics and just could not find them
back to the topic though, i too feel that these mysterious lights in the sky were the result of some type of missile test gone bad, but am glad that no one was hurt and could be easily explained, even i agree with you guys on that
it is a shame that when confronted with viewpoints that go against what you guys believe, one is chastised and you resort to name calling or tell someone to go take their meds, kind of like when you are against any war you are called a traitor or un-American, follow the money trail, who benefits from war? it sure ain’t me. Eisenhower and Smedley Butler warned us of the military industrial complex
BTW, could you just tell me how to get to your topics on the New World Order, 9/11, etc., can i only look this stuff up by the month and then have to find it or what?
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December 12th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
tenred said:
The primary reason was a raging fire, that was unfought, although it also suffered some damage from the debris of the two main towers. Building 7 had a supply of diesel fuel for a standby generator and this may have contributed to it.
Heat weakens steel. The fire in building 7 would not normally have caused the structure to fail, because in any other circumstance the level of the fire would have been controllable, suppressed with sprinklers and put out by fire fighters. Buildings are able to survive fires like that because of fireproofing, which is not intended to completely stop fire and heat from damaging structural materials, but to hold it off long enough to give time for the fire to be controlled. It’s an insulation and shielding material, but eventually the heat will get through and the ablative properties are expended.
The fire department made the decision not to fight the fire in building 7. To be perfectly blunt, the building could have been saved if that had been a priority. After the two towers came down, the water system of the area was severely compromised. The sprinklers in building 7 did not function at all. The fire department had limited water on site.
Building 7 was evacuated and cleared floor by floor. There was more than enough time to make sure that the entire building was empty. At that point, the personnel that they had had different priorities. They used what they had to suppress the fires on the primary debris pile and keep it from spreading to the rest of the city. They searched for survivors and treated the injured. Of course, there weren’t any from the towers, but there were several who were in vehicles covered in debris or otherwise trapped. Many were injured by broken glass and debris.
The fire in building 7 burned for hours. The fireproofing and materials all exceeded their expected fail point, but eventually it did come down.
tenred said:
Oh that’s easy. Cell phones can make a call from a plane no problem. It’s not an issue of technology. They could then and they can now. They’re generally not allowed for a variety of reasons, and some airlines are experimenting with phone service provided by a microcell on the aircraft (which by necessity has to also deny the phones service from the general cell phone network.)
To get a cell signal, you need line of site. It’s as simple as that. Even if the tower is 20 miles away, if there is a clear path, it can usually make a call. Aircraft actually have excellent line of site, so they’re capable of getting service from cells many miles away.
The big issue is the aircraft body. An aluminum tube tends to block most of the signal. Note I said most, not all. The aluminum is fairly thin gauge and is not grounded. More importantly, it’s got windows and if the phone is near a window, and there’s a tower somewhere on that side, then you should be able to use the phone just fine.
So phones do work on planes. They don’t always work that well (you do get dropped calls a lot from flying in and out of coverage so fast and because the boidy of the aircraft can get in the way). But even if the QOS is touch and go, they do work.
By the way: Several years ago, I called my father’s cell phone when he was on a plane. I don’t remember if this was before 2001 or not, but it was a while ago. I talked to him long enough for him to say “Hi, sorry, I’m on a plane. I forgot to turn off my phone. I’m not supposed to use it here. Bye.”
tenred said:
No. Most repeat commenter here do generally agree on these type of things (although if the issue gets political or something, disagreement goes rampant) but there are those who stop in to voice opposition views. They generally don’t stick around very long though.
I don’t mind. I’d like to change some minds, That would be my real goal. To change minds and provide a resource for information that others can use to change minds.
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December 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
tenred said:
Well, as I understand it, China got most of Iraq’s oil…
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BB18Q20091213
As for the much touted Halliburton issue, can you name any other reliable firms with the ability to operate on the scale needed? I needed to essentially rebuild a country’s infrastructure, they’d be the top (hell, probably the only) firm on my list. The only others remotely that size are SNC Lavalin, Bechtel, maybe AMEC and Schlumberger on the mining and power plant building side, and a few others, and even they aren’t really in the same league in terms of scale, or have nearly the same general capabilities (tend to be more specialized).
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December 14th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
You know, I was just thinking of something that had occured to me before. I don’t know if anyone knows if this is possible (perhaps DV82XL would), but I’m wondering if there is any way I could get permission to use a cell phone on an aircraft. It’s clear that it does not cause any kind of danger to the flight, as both the FCC and FAA have said this and approved the pilot programs for use of a phone with a microcell on the aircraft. But if I could use it on a plane without a microcell, to demonstrate the fact that it does work – not always very well, but it does work.
I’ve heard this same crap from 9/11 conspiracy theorists before and I’d love to have a video to show that, yes, you can get a good enough signal on a plane to make a call.
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December 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Maybe a small charter flight? Or if you know any pilots with their own planes who can take you up. Sometimes the rules are different there than for standard commercial flights.
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December 14th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Matthew said:
I do know pilots who could take me up, but not in a commercial type aircraft. It wouldn’t prove much to show a cell phone works in a little Cessna. In fact, I know that it’s not uncommon at all to use a cell phone from a small plane. The only thing you need to do that is an adapter that lets the cell phone connect with the headset system in the plane, because otherwise nobody would hear you over the background sound.
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December 15th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Heh, I wonder if you could send that to Mythbusters along with a suggestion they demonstrate what happens when you heat steel.
Oh and an interesting tidbit the world trade center complex did not have good fire retardant on the steel. It was designed to use asbestos but between design and building it went out of favor. I forget what they did use but it is significantly substandard in fire retardency to asbestos.
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December 15th, 2009 at 2:13 am
TomT said:
Well Mythbusters has it’s limits in what they’ll deal with. 9/11 is something that’s really too fresh in people’s minds. People still suffer PTSD over it and mourn their losses. It’s a very somber, very sad and, to some degree, controversial event.
It’s not good Mythbusters material.
Give it a few more decades.
TomT said:
I have heard that too, but I’ve also heard that it probably would have not made a huge difference because the force of the plane stripped off most of the fireproofing. In any case, the building met fire code for the time.
One of the things I really hate about the Freedom Tower (I hate many things about it) is that it is basically built to current fireproofing standards and strength standards. I firmly believe that given the unique history of the site and the feelings people will have about occupying the replacement building, it should be built to exceed standards by a very generous amount.
Yes, doing so would be expensive and it’s not something you’d normally do in a building like that, but this is a very unique situation that involves national pride and a statement to the world and to Islamic extremists.
I’ll go further:
It should be the tallest building in the world (by a generous margin)
It should be stronger than it needs to be and have more stair wells and more fire fighting ability than it needs
It should not be built as a “glass tower” that looks like it’s an ice sculpture or like it’s weak. Modern architecture is often geared toward making structures strong but look delicate. NO! Not this one. It should not just be strong, it should have lines that make it look firmly planted on the ground and very stable. A wide base, setbacks, very thick structural lines, masonry that runs upward. It makes it look like it’s solid as a rock.
The current design that is being built looks like it would shatter if someone hit a high enough note. I don’t care that it won’t. It also has to look visually very reassuring. More like the Empire State building or Rockefeller Center.
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December 15th, 2009 at 10:56 am
still too many unanswered and unsubstantiated evidence for me to come to a conclusion, personally i think that evil has infiltrated all governments of the world, but i am the guy who believes in men in the sky, and although you may not agree i do appreciate the DR. for being the only one to not nail me to the cross for my beliefs, its a debate guys, not a witch hunt
as for the freedom tower, right you are, but we have spent over a trillion dollars on this stupid war to feed the military industrial complex that IKE and smedley butler so warned us about, but hey we need the oil, we can put a man on the moon but cannot develop any alternative or compliment for the internal combustion engine, i like your firm foundation-rock design idea but unfortunately the U.S. will collapse from within after the fall of the dollar, the international bankers are making sure of that, as MAO said-we will not have to fire a shot, and plus with all that money for the war we could have bought everybody in the US health insurance, and with the bailout money could have given every American 100K, now we could have stimulated the economy! fractional banking and greed have virtually destroyed America, so sad
I would really like to posts these responses in the appropraite areas but still cannot figure out the search feature, sorry
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December 16th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Mythbusters did test whether or not cell phones would interfere with aircraft, and found that they do not. The FAA’s policy is more because they can’t be sure newer cell phones *won’t* interfere. It’s an overabundance of caution, basically.
People do occasionally make cell phone calls from airliners. You don’t need to get permission. You just need to be somewhat furtive so you can place the call before the flight attendants tell you to knock it off.
9/11 is definitely not the only known example of people placing cell phone calls from airplanes, despite the “no cell phones” rule that airlines generally enforce.
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December 16th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Calli Arcale said:
if it’s a safety thing at all, why are cell phones allowed on some planes? I know that they do have transmitters that are on planes and provides the passengers with service, at an increased cost versus the regular infrastructure, of course. I don’t think any airlines in the US offer this kind of service as a regular thing, but I did read a few of them were going to do it as a market trail on a few flights. So they must have gotten permission for it or something?
They could certify and check out the transmitter to work without causing problems, but if people use their own cell phones, how does that change anything?
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December 17th, 2009 at 9:47 am
The only thing cellphones had any potential to interfere with was the revenue stream of the seat back phones a lot of airlines installed. They played the safety card because it was the path of least resistance and was justifiable under existing rules forbidding unauthorized RF transmitters being operated from a commercial aircraft.
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December 17th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
You are assuming that in a bureaucracy, all decisions will make sense. This is not always the case.
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December 17th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
DV82XL said:
Those seat back phones are not exactly popular. The price is astronomically high! In fact, I’d have to think it’s so high that they actually make *less* money than they could otherwise, because nobody uses them. If they lowered it a bit, they might actually get enough use to make more off of them.
When I flew to London two months ago, I was going to use the seatback phone. Part of the reason I was going to use it was that I have been interested in mobile satellite systems for a while and I wanted to try it out to see how laggy it was and the QOS. Hence, I was willing to pay a few bucks to try it out.
However, the price for the use of the unit is five dollars to connect the call and ten dollars per minute, rounded up, of course. So a call that is just a hair over two minutes would be thirty five dollars (US dollars). That’s staggering!
That is very very expensive, even by mobile satellite phone standards, which are always expensive. The standard rates for mobile satellite phone service are something like one dollar a minute to two dollars a minute, no connection fee, if you pay for it per-minute or use a prepaid card. The cost to big customers like airlines, shipping lines, oil platform owners and such is a lot less. They usually have bulk contract plans and would be the equivalent of 50-75 cents a minute. They sell “Crew Calling” cards, which are for ship crews or other workers located in remote regions to call home for about ten dollars each, they’re good for 15 minutes on the company-installed phone system.
Even the highest cost systems, like the older equipment that uses more bandwidth per call, is only at worst, about five bucks a minute.
So, ten dollars plus a five dollar connection fee is ridiculous, even by satellite phone standards. Had it been half that price I would have probably used it.
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December 17th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
drbuzz0 said:
It’s highway robbery alright, half the problem is that the carriers got themselves hooked into long-term contracts with the providers, more or less relinquishing much of their ability to control rates. I know for a fact that the people making the call at the time at the airlines, had no idea at all about telcom markets, and very little thinking was done over this. The prevailing attitude was that this service had to be offered because the competition was offering it, not because it was seen as a revenue generator in and of itself.
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December 17th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Pricing it that high seems a little unwise from a profit standpoint, because if it were lower some might actually use it and the cost per call is not that high on their side.
You’re right about satellite, it’s about a buck a minute or less to them. A buck a minute is about the cost if you have a standard billed plan, but they could get it for half that if they do it like most big users do and do a long term lease where they’d pay for the bandwidth used on an annual basis.
That is only over ocean, though. Over land it usually is not satellite. The whole seatback phone system has gone through a number of generations and overhauls over the past 20 years. Some systems actually use the regular cellular telephone system over land, except they only connect to designated cells, but otherwise it’s the same technology as any other phone and they can handle something like 32 calls per unit, some 64. The cellular based systems cost the carrier almost nothing for the call they just pay some minor annual fees.
There is another system that has designated transmitters located across most of North America and other sister systems in Europe or Asia or whatever. The one people have heard of most is Airfone which is now owned by a company called “LiveTV” you can see their designated transmission sites here: http://www.livetv.net/products_airfone.html Because of altitude they don’t need that many, each does a good 200-500 miles.
A bunch of companies have gotten into the buisiness: Airfone (now part of LiveTV), Aircell, OnAir, FlyCell, AGRAS, and some others that I can’t even remember.
Their cost per call is not that high, really. Like I said, for many it’s no more than a cell phone call or if they run a network, then the per-call cost is nothing, and the only cost is the equipment, which costs the same whether you use it or not (and it usually is sitting idle).
Their hairbrained pricing policy where they charge a few bucks or more per call or per minute has resulted in these schemes perpetually going out bankrupt. Wittness Airfone. It’s not owned by LiveTV (which is a company that has more success in airline entertainment, where they do make money). It was sold to them by Verizon. Verizon practically gave it away because it was such a burden and not an income generator. They picked it up after it went bankrupt as an independent operation. Before that it was part of MCI, but MCI severed ties and spun it off because it wasn’t making money.
A couple of these companies have paid big bucks on buying out pieces of radio spectrum and then turned around and gone bankrupt when they can’t pay back their creditors on it. I don’t know what kind of clowns run these operations, because they don’t seem to get even the basics. The capital investment is big, and sometimes enormous (if they’re foolish enough to think that they need three megahertz of spectrum at half a billion dollars right off the bat) After that, the operational costs are low, so they should be able to make some money if they priced it at something that might actually be USED.
Incidentally, these companies do have one area where they make some descent money, which is corporate aviation and general aviation. Those markets they sell phone service more like cell phone service, where the plane owner pays a monthly bill and has a low per minute rate or buys a minute allowance. Believe it or not, it works and they make some money there. They just don’t make enough to pay for their investment, because the big market they focus on is commercial, which is where they price it too high to succeed.
We’re starting to move to a new generation of service though, with inflight wifi. The in flight broadband will be the new focus. Of course, these systems can also handle voice traffic, so when they start popping up, it’s likely that (if they’re smart enough) they’ll ditch the old phone systems and route the voice traffic over the IP connection. The question is will they get the in flight broadband right and price it, market it, sell it right? It has potential, but only if it’s done right.
(the inflight broadband uses satellite or ground. Personally, I think the best way to go is mobile VSAT. It’s cost effective enough that people use it on RV’s and pleasure boats and it gives lots of bandwidth. the only downside is that for voice, there’s a slight lag).
We’ll see. I’ve seen this come and go, usually coming with a lot of fanfair, in the wireless world. In the early 1990’s they were talking about the need to upgrade all the ground stations because they anticipated a lot more traffic due to the fact that they were adding a phone jack to the seatback phones. This would allow passengers to use dialup modems in laptops to get online and send faxes (yes fax modems). As you can guess, that went over like a lead balloon.
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December 20th, 2009 at 11:44 am
You may find this interesting.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2776684/UFO-filmed-over-Kremlin.html
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December 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 am
There’s a movement to radically change California government, by getting rid of career politicians and chopping their salaries in half. A group known as Citizens for California Reform wants to make the California legislature a part time time job, just like it was until 1966.
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com
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June 19th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
http://www.divinecosmos.com/Norway_Spiral_Impossible_Ripples.pdf
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October 5th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Im sorry but most of you guys are rediculous…somone made a very valid point about the way the world is…in a ‘crazy’ sense, warned you about the possible things to come…and all you could do is rant about cell phone coverage in airoplanes? you guys are out of control…out of sight out of mind…tenred….dont be the nail to stand above the rest…you know whatll happen….peace out….you guys can board the ship…me? im staying on the flesh eating island.
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October 5th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Raoul said:
I have no idea what you’re saying, but whatever you are smoking it must be really good.
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October 6th, 2010 at 1:11 am
Grandpa Monkey said:
Why do a lot of people prefer to believe in fantastic conspiracy theories (like the “controlled demolition” hypothesis, or the notion that the WTC towers were destroyed with remote-controlled drones), rather than realistic ones (like the idea that the Bush administration deliberately let the attacks happen in order to justify their planned wars in the Middle East)?
After, all, if the travelling public had been warned in advance that Arab terrorists were planning to hijack jetliners and use them as cruise missiles, then the attacks would have failed.
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October 6th, 2010 at 1:18 am
George Carty said:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – that trick only works once, and it’s pretty much impossible to hijack a plane these days unless you can sieze the ****pit (probably killing the pilot) and hold it against a rush. Easily preventable by leaving the ****pit door locked.
Taking a plane out is relatively easy, if you know what you’re doing, but actually hijacking one isn’t really doable anymore.
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October 6th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Matthew said:
Agreed
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October 6th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Matthew said:
It might be difficult to do so in a 9/11 like attack, but you’re forgetting that there are other ways to take control of a plane. A hijacker could be part of the flight crew or even the pilot (Egyptair flight 990 the pilot intentionally crashed the plane and committed suicide). The plane could be a non-commercial passenger flight, such as a charter or privately owned plane. It could be a cargo aircraft. It could be that the plane is stormed when it is parked on the tarmac or a hijacking plot could involve maintenance personnel at an airline or an industrial air park. (Pacific Southwest Airlines flight 1771 involved an employee smuggling a gun onboard the aircraft before it took off)
Tools to cut through a ****pit door could be smuggled on, either with the help of crew members or maintenance or simply because the TSA isn’t worth much at stopping such things. With enough persons involved, a terrorist group could buy out many of the seats on an airliner, resulting in dozens of hijackers. They could target older aircraft or aircraft types which have weaknesses in the ****pit reinforcement.
The aircraft could be foreign and thus not subject to full regulations on security or how the ****pit is kept separated from the rest of the aircraft. It is not inconceivable that a state supported effort by a state that is otherwise too small and powerless to mount a major attack could use utilize an aircraft as a cruise missile.
Let me also point out that there are parts of the world where a large airplane can be stolen and basically vanish without a trace. It’s still not clear what happened to N844AA (SN: 20985) A Boeing 727-223 which went missing in Africa several years ago. I personally think it’s hiding somewhere in plain sight having been repainted and reregistered, but who knows? These things happen.
Given the extremely grave consequences, we cannot afford to ignore the possibility, however unlikely it may seem.
George Carty said:
I see several reasons why this is unlikely, not withstanding the fact that there is no proof of it.
A failed attack could still be quite a good opportunity to call for war. The attacks on 9/11 also made the US look pretty bad in terms of not being able to defend itself. It may well have been better to let one plane hit and then manage to stop the second. That would not have diminished the shock of the event but would have made the military look more heroic than completely inept.
Also, I don’t think Bush would have arranged the situation he was in at the time. He looked like a dear in the headlights. Had he known, I am quite sure he would have been sure to have a more flattering initial response. Then there’s the fact that the aircraft were headed for Washington. One struck the Pentagon, but suppose the hijacker decided to go for the Whitehouse instead? Dick Cheney and several top aids were there at the time. I don’t think they would have made themselves so exposed to an attack they knew was coming. More likely they would have been somewhere more secure ahead of time.
The most likely explanation is still that the government never knew because it was a small operation involving a limited number of persons and support. It simply went “under the radar” so to speak.
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October 6th, 2010 at 10:24 am
drbuzz0 said:
Can’t happen like that. An airframe and it’s engines, and its landing gear shipset, have to have traceable histories back to the point of manufacture. Very difficult to fake. Even broken up into components it would be difficult to sell the more valuable bits without the paperwork. The ‘fake parts’ scandal that rocked the industry in the past, has caused a huge change in the way these transactions are done.
All of these documents would be needed to re-register the airplane, and to subsequently have it serviced. The world fleet of 727’s while large, is not so large, that the sudden appearance of one out of nowhere would not be noted by the major FOB’s that work on them.
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October 6th, 2010 at 10:34 am
DV82XL said:
While I am sure it would be discovered as soon as anyone bothers to check the serial numbers, I wonder if this would even be a factor in parts of Africa. Do service records even exist in Angola and Guinea? Do the governments of Niger and Kenya even have an aviation agency? Do they even bother with certifications of parts there?
Who would a parts miss-match be reported to? The local warlord? whoever happens to have the largest pointy stick in the region?
I’m thinking there are probably places where you could slap a new coat of paint (if they even have paint there – if not, maybe mud) on and nobody would even bother to ask any questions about the aircraft, with the possible exception of “What can we do to honor this magical flying god?”
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October 6th, 2010 at 10:41 am
drbuzz0 said:
Might work as long as the plane stayed in Africa. The moment it went to Europe or the US, there’d be a substantial chance of it getting spotted.
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October 6th, 2010 at 11:00 am
drbuzz0 said:
Angola’s Department of Civil Aviation
(Direccao Nasional do Aviacao Civil de Angola)
Rua Miguel de Melo N.96, 6 Andar, Luanda
Angola
Tel. +244-222-338596;
Fax +244-222-390529;
Dir.-Civil Aviation: Helder Preza,
Email: dnac@snet.co.za
Ghana’s Civil Aviation Authority
Private Mail Bag, Kotoka Intl. Airport, Accra, Ghana
Tel. +233-21-776177; Fax +233-21-773293
SITA DGAAYAXS
E-mail: info@gcaagh.com
Web http://www.gcaa.com.gh;
Mostly places like this contract out much of their maintenance to off shore FOB’s, but they have to meet the minimums for paperwork set by the International Civil Aviation Organization and are audited by ICAO for such. And it would be to that body that reports would be made.
drbuzz0 said:
Perhaps if the bird was permanently grounded, however it would come up on the industry radar (figuratively) because all of the MRO’s (maintenance and repair operators) have business intelligence departments who’s function is to know the word fleet of big aircraft so as to have an idea when it might be a customer. I know people that do that job, and they follow the equipment like some people follow baseball, you know the ones that can rattle off the stats for every player in the Majors for the last twenty years as well as most of the guys in the minors. Point being they would know if a new aircraft (especially one that they stopped building years ago) showed up out of nowhere.
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October 6th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
DV82XL said:
DVX – a quick question. Assuming it was attempted, could the deception be maintained for a few hours? That would be the length of time needed to execute an attack. After that, it doesn’t really much matter.
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October 6th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Matthew said:
I’m not sure that changing the livery of an aircraft would have much of an impact on hiding one, given the amount of work that entails. I suppose one could dream up a scenario where it would be, but I suspect it would be overly complex for a real world mission.
Terrorism is really a form of guerrilla warfare, and as such tends to look for uncomplicated ways of carrying out their objectives. Coordinating a ventilated hanger, the skilled personnel, several hundred kilos of paint, and the equipment, is complex, whereas filling a false flight-plan and maintaining an alias over the radio at an altitude where no one can see your colors is easier.
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October 6th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
DV82XL said:
That’s pretty much what I was wondering. If you did bribe an Angolan (or Yemeni, etc) airport guard and got the plane, would you be able to count on an intelligence gap greater than you flight time to target?
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October 6th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Matthew said:
Are we planning a strike?
Steal a large aircraft, and more that a few guards would have to be paid off, which is why in-flight hijacking is still easier, and is more likely to succeed.
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October 6th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
DV82XL said:
((looks innocent and whistles))
Meh, if I was planning a strike, there are better options. Not necessarily as flashy, but far more effective and, more to the point repeatable.
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