Where did you read about a "flying envelope?" Sounds like Amazon delivering mail. Every airplane performs differently from every other airplane. What's that got to do with anything?
Except for the condescending tone, we agree. Every plane flies differently and the limits of what is supported by the manufacturer in terms of low/high speed at every altitude (as well as turn rates, G forces,...) is defined as flight envelope. This is a well known concept and I am surprised you don't seem familiar with it. Wikipedia seems to know about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_envelopeIt appears that the 757 supposed to have hit the Pentagon was around 15% above its supported top speed at ground level (470 knot vs 400), although Boeing apparently never gave a clear answer to these enquiries.
I am not saying that it is impossible to fly a plane outside its flight envelope (in this case at higher speed), but controlling the plane in those conditions appears to be more challenging. Flying low at high speed (where the air is up to 3 times denser than at the typical 30,000+ feet where airliners normally evolve at high speed) introduces complex air flow patterns around subsonic airliner wings that render accurate manoeuvring more challenging (at least in theory because I have never found evidence of someone flying a 757 at this speed so close to the ground). This would be the case for all pilots, but experienced ones would probably be able to deal with this. The odds that a beginner manages to cope with that on top of a very challenging flight path are incredibly low.
To give you and others a concrete idea, at that speed you cover about 230 yards in one second. The slightest over/under pressure on the controls will make you overshoot or hit the ground (probably overshoot being more likely than hit the ground due to ground effect). By the way, if you bothered to read the information referred to after the link provided, you'd see that the data captured in the blackbox that was analysed reveals that the plane whose data was made available was indeed flying higher than the roof of the Pentagon at the moment of impact.
Not only is the hit unlikely based on common sense, but the official data seems to confirm that there was not hit due to an altitude mismatch... Or, if we assume that there is enough evidence that a plane hit the Pentagon (which I would agree with), the only possible logical conclusion is that the data provided isn't that of the plane that hit the Pentagon.
In my view, there is sufficient doubts and contradictory data to justify a re-opening of the case by an independent body of investigation. What would there be to lose? If all the incoherent facts are cleared up I'll be the first one to admit I was wrong.
Absolutely not. Fighter-bombers drop bombs and fighter-bombers strafe, and fighter-bombers fire rockets. Airspeed varies in all these missions. Also, you frequently fly slowly for reconnaissance purposes.
As you know better than I do, fighter bombers have been replaced by multi-role combat aircrafts, but one of the flights patterns important for those planes remains low altitude infiltration at high speed, currently enabled by terrain following radars. So again we agree, all planes flight differently, fighter planes are designed to have a wide flight envelope and to remain controllable in a wider area of circumstances, including flying low at high speed.
Commercial airliners are optimised for cost of operation, their flight envelope is finely tuned to perform very well in the single flight pattern they have to deal with 99.99% of the time during their life time (take off, fly mostly straight, land) and that does obviously not include flying low at high speed. I am not sure why you would want to dispute this?
As far as your second question is concerned, evidently these guys had gone through some pilot training. If they'd flown airplanes before they probably could fly the airplane without a problem. The problems they'd have faced would be with takeoffs and landings and that wasn't part of their planned "flying envelope."
That would have to be the case... except that there is zero evidence of that having happened. As you know, again better than I do, flight schools follow strict regulations, there would have been traces of another attempt if the supposed terrorist had had the opportunity to take additional flight lessons are proven to be an amazingly quick learner.
I agree that taking off and landing would be challenging steps for such a beginner, but hitting a small target at very high speed close to the ground following a complex flight pattern is just as, if not more, challenging.
Interesting. I don't know who these guys are, but it appears they've swallowed their conspiracy theory whole-hog. Let me sum it up for you, Bernard: The damned airplane crashed into the Pentagon. That's the bottom line. Everything else may be up in the air (oops), but the crash is all that matters? Maybe these guys think the pilots flew their own airplane into the Pentagon. I didn't bother to read the whole article. I've seen tons of this kind of bullshit already. Don't need to read any more. The bottom line is the airplane contacting the Pentagon. That's all that really matters.
Once again, the fact that the official story may not be true is so unacceptable for you that you don't seem to be willing to consider the facts being proposed.
So in short, you believe it happened because you are told it happened. As a smart, educated, experienced and free thinking person, why not consider facts instead and admit that some of them do not match the official story and would deserve to be looked into by some people without vested interest in reaching the conclusion that Muslim extremists did it?
Cheers,
Bernard
