depends

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JamesJM
Maybe sstRams can answer this because he works close to those 'in the know'... or someone else here?

Intercepting planes. That was in the news in the last couple of days.... what does it mean? My point: Other than shooting a plane down what can 'intercepting' actually accomplish? It's not like NASCAR where they can bump into you.

Say I wanted to fly a Piper Cub into the Niner's radio station tower.... other than shooting me down what in the hell can they do to stop me? Fly by and alongside and flip me off? What if I don't care? Hope that I can read lips and call out that my father 'smelled of elderberries'? Again... what If taunting doesn't work on me?

And say they do decide to shoot me down... but I'm flying over a populated area? Do they have one of those Jedi Grappling hooks that can snag me out of the air and tow me over a cow pasture before releasing me?

For the life of me I can't think of anything they could do other than threaten me, (which assumes I've got my radio tuned in to their frequency), and then shoot me down regardless. Granted... I used a poor example... who would want to stop me from taking out a Niner Radio Transmitter but WHAT IF I was threatening the Golden Oldies Radio station? - JamesJM

This is just me playing with history but "an interceptor" as a technical term is real designation from military history and it refers to the type of fighter and its role. For example the Spitfire was a classic interceptor which was designed to shoot down enemy planes over Britain. It wasn't designed to be an escort fighter capable of going on long missions into enemy territory, while the P-51 was designed to be precisely that. As you know aviation design is a series of compromises, and the role determines design, so a classic interceptor by design isn't a classic escort fighter.

But you probably don't mean that, that was just me off on history, you just mean any official military fighter in the role of intercepting a perceived threat. These days in the era of guided missles on jet aircraft I am not sure how much that distinction still holds.

So...to your actual point...

In terms of intercepting planes on suicide missions within the present USA...if you will recall, F-16s were scrambled to intercept one of the airliners that had been taken over. At that time there was no ammunition on board the scrambled planes, so the 2 pilots just simply planned on ramming it. That was without any regard for what would have been below it on the ground. As we know though the passengers fought their way into the cockpit and took the plane down themselves.

The difference between now and then is that we are post 9/11. The perception would be that any collateral damage from a plane going down would be incidental compared to a threatened target. So if a plane were going to crash into Dodger stadium during a game, you have to balance that damage against the lesser damage that would come from a plane going down over a residential area.

Here's the story of the pilots from 9/11 I just referred to:

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. from [www.washingtonpost.com]

“There was no perceived threat at the time, especially one coming from the homeland like that,” says Col. George Degnon, vice commander of the 113th Wing at Andrews. “It was a little bit of a helpless feeling, but we did everything humanly possible to get the aircraft armed and in the air. It was amazing to see people react.”

Things are different today, ­Degnon says. At least two “hot-cocked” planes are ready at all times, their pilots never more than yards from the cockpit.

A third plane hit the Pentagon, and almost at once came word that a fourth plane could be on the way, maybe more. The jets would be armed within an hour, but somebody had to fly now, weapons or no weapons.

“Lucky, you’re coming with me,” barked Col. Marc Sasseville.

They were gearing up in the pre-flight life-support area when Sasseville, struggling into his flight suit, met her eye.

“I’m going to go for the cockpit,” Sasseville said.

She replied without hesitating.

“I’ll take the tail.”

It was a plan. And a pact.

...

It would be hours before Penney and Sasseville learned that United 93 had already gone down in Pennsylvania, an insurrection by hostages willing to do just what the two Guard pilots had been willing to do: Anything. And everything.

“The real heroes are the passengers on Flight 93 who were willing to sacrifice themselves,” Penney says. “I was just an accidental witness to history.”

...

BTW one of my earliest memories after my family moved to the States was watching in horror as a 2 seater passenger plane flew right into an apartment building about a 50 yards in front of me.


















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Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2018 02:12PM by zn.