FAA memo: Feds knew Scare Force One would cause panic

My guess is that the mission was in the morning because that’s when the Statue of Liberty is lit best. Lady Liberty faces east, so her face would be lit by the rising sun until noon, after which the sun would light her from the back and cast her face in shadow.

Of course, the pilots for the VC-25, the customized B747 that carries the President, would need regular training. The President does not fly enough for his pilots to keep current. They would have to fly training flights to maintain their qualifications in such things as approaches, landings, air refuelings, and just flight time. An airplane is not like a car. You need to fly so many hours each month to stay sharp.

If you look at the mission profile for a B-52, it may perform many separate training tasks in a twelve hour flight. The flight from DC to NYC doesn’t take that long. It’s likely that could be added to a training flight. They might do the photo opp first, then go on to check off the rest of their training events.

You also have to fly a jet to keep it healthy, especially a big complex jet like the B747. A big jet like that is more likely to break if it just sits in the hangar. You’ve got to keep those fluids moving and exercise the subsystems a minimum amount to keep them working in good condition.

You constantly have equipment being repaired and modified in a command and control platform like the VC-25 and new gear installed. That would require test flights, which could be combined with training flights.

So, yeah, it makes sense that the Manhattan flight was a training flight with a photo opportunity thrown in. No, it doesn’t make sense you could just Photoshop it, ie lie to the public like Iran with its Photoshopped missiles and whatnot.

However, it’s pretty stupid judgement to think you can sneak a jumbo jet with a couple trailing fighters around New York harbor and fly up the Hudson River, right past the site of the World Trade Center, and it would not attract notice or cause panic. Everyone who lives and works along that Hudson River corridor know the Sep 11 skyjackers flew low leve down it and are front loaded to interpret any similar flight as terrorism. New Yorkers first thought that Sully’s flight down the Hudson some weeks ago for a water landing was a terror event at first.

The significance of this flight is that the White House has become complacent about the terror threat, has even dismissed it, stuffed it down the memory hole. Obama can ignore terrorists all he wants, but they won’t ignore him. This incident reveals a White House that is out of touch with reality, dismissive of threats from enemies it thinks it can charm into submission. It reads something like the Sitzkrieg or Phony War before Hitler invaded France, back when people believed war was unlikely.

Tantor on April 28, 2009 at 10:13 PM