Light a Candle...

Who are they trying to kid...

I admit to having heard (and even given) some pretty lame explanations/excuses for different things over my life. However, this is ridiculous, just how stupid do they think people are.

What am I referning to? (Hat tip to Yea, Right, Whatever) An American Arlines pilot reported an observed missle firing at his aircraft (complete with missle smoke trail) while departing LAX. There has been no media coverage of this, and the FBI is attempting to pass this off as a bottle rocket or flare. At the time the jet was climbing and already out over the ocean.

First, I've made this flight/departure on an occasion or two, and no handheld flare or bottle rocket is going to be noticable or even visible to the pilot at that altitude and flight attidue/speed. Bottle rockets do good to reach a 100 feet in ideal conditions and their speed isn't a significant fraction of an airliner's, same for a hand held flare.

In one of the transgressions of my youth, some friends and I spent a holidy night chasing each other through town shooting bottle rockets and roman candles at each others cars. This called for some rather STUPID driving stunts to avoid hits (taking into account the entire thing was STUPID, but that was a long time ago in a different era). The thing is, that the bottle rockets were almost completely invisible until the exploded at the end of their run, invisible that is to a vehicle moving at any speed along their path. The roman candles/flare were much more noticible, as were their hits. In both cases, it wasn't really that difficult to avoid being struck unless the vehicle was stationary. Moving along the flight path of the rocket/flare, the relative speeds were not so great as to make avoidance too difficult, but it was exhilirating.

The point is, don't try to tell me that this was a bottle rocket or flare. At that point of departure, the aircraft should have already been over 1000 - 2000 ft agl, and climbing rapidly (usually a circling departure). No bottle rocket or hand held flare, is going to come close to reaching, much less overtaking a jet airliner as described.

So we have a binary solution set; either the pilot is a complete idiot, or the FBI is trying to hide that something significant occured. What is your pick?

posted by Clayton @ 8:14 AM