----- Original Message ----- From: "Nate Duehr" To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Subject: Re: [OT] Physics denies official 9/11 report. Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:56:10 -0700 tachyon_1@email.com wrote: > The other problem that jumped out at me was the idea that the people on > flight 93 used their cell phones to call family members. This just will > not work, I can unequivocally state that cell phones work just fine from an airliner. I can't say how I know this, since the person doing it was violating both FCC and FAA rules at the time of the "demonstration". I can unequivocally state that there are literally hundreds of statements by commercial pilots and airline and cellphone officials that contradict your statement. Most of which have nothing to do with any 9-11 discussion. Until then, your opinion (which today is just Bravo Sierra, based on almost no RF facts) -- might hold some water then. Generically, at certain altitudes, you're going to stay on the same tower for the vast majority of the conversation anyway, because it's line of sight. The system isn't going to switch you until your BER or RSSI drops below a certain point. When 20 towers can hear your phone perfectly, there's no need to switch you. Which if YOU did any research, you would know causes cascade failures in the cellular system and is the primary reason the phones are banned in flight. The patent story at http://www.mobiledia.com/news/49261.html Mentions the ground network (cascade failure) problem several times. Also, based on your idea of physics, radio stations with 100,000 watt towers are wasting their money, since according to you, the milliwatt power of a cell phone reaches as forever along line of sight. Given the 35,000 foot altitude at which UAL 93 travelled until it's nosedive, That's 6.6 miles straight down which is unlikely and also the path at which the most metal and cables are between you and the ground. (Actually 20 towers might be too many -- some networks do have lockouts for phones that are hitting too many sites... because the system assumes the phone is airborne. All networks are different. Please feel free to study them all and write to all of the manufacturers of base station equipment.) > In fact it's only in recent weeks that the first airline (Dubai > airlines) deployed planes with the required on-board repeaters and ground > links to allow cell phones to work on board a moving aircraft. This has > been proven in actual tests as well. Cell phones have a 0.4% rate of even > connecting with a tower long enough to even initiate a call, never mind > hold a conversation. Site your references. Are you talking about low altitude, high altitude, over the friggin Atlantic? From my experiences in both light aircraft and larger aircraft, this claim is 100% bogus when lower than 20,000' MSL over rural terrain where the towers are spread out and frequency congestion is low. ok, here's the company that did it. http://www.aeromobile.net/news.asp?ID=37 And you must be magic or unable to read an altimeter since all references I can find in the airline and cell phone industries point to between 8000 and 10000 feet as the uppper limit of cell phone use. And all state that over 20000 it becomes pretty much impossible. > When faced with this fact many people cry "obviously > they were using the in flight aircraft phones, not their cell phones" > however this is patently false. It was widely reported and verified from > phone records and families that the calls were made from cell phones. > That and these phones can be shut off from the cockpit which the > terrorists would surely do. As for turning off the flight phones -- if you listen to the tapes and watch the ground tracks of the various aircraft from their FDR's, you will see the hijackers had their hands full just maintaining aircraft controllability. A few hours in a C-172 doesn't prepare you for the flight dynamics of a lightly loaded 767 or in the power mangement skills required to fly a turbine-powered aircraft. You can fly it, but you'll suck at it. They did. They were busy. Too busy to screw around with breakers on a sub-panel. The autopilot was off a lot (which is a very bad way to fly a modern airliner -- your workload increases dramatically and your scan rate has to stay fixed on the flight instruments). They *did* manage to turn off the transponder -- that's an obvious one -- and only by accident or dumb luck did the transponder come back on in UAL 93 later in the flight. Their original plan would have put all three aircraft in the air at the same time, meaning that cutting off passenger communication with the ground simply wouldn't be a priority. It would have all been over before anyone thought to make a phone call if 93 hadn't been delayed outbound that morning, on the ramp. In fact the EWR tower closed the field only a couple of minutes after 93 departed... after watching the other two aircraft hit. Unfortunately, too late. There also was no focus in any of their training backgrounds to give them the type of systems training that airline pilots go through, memorizing every system, every switch location, and every possible interaction between those systems. They probably couldn't have located the breaker for the GTE/AIRINC phones on the various breaker panels if they tried. Even better, it's likely that American and United don't place this breaker in the same place in their cockpits. Never investigated that part myself, but each airline custom-orders their cockpit layout from the manufacturer, and different options mean different panel locations. Accessories like airphone service are add-ons that can literally be put just about anywhere on a sub-panel... I think you are confusing your own training with theirs. It's pretty easy to find out that they all trained on large Boeing aircraft and not just Cessna's. However it's irrelevant since the testimony and evidence in the 9-11 report and from testimony of the families states clearly that some of the calls were from cell phones. Either through caller-id info, or statements by the callers. One even claimed to be in the (usually stainless steel) bathroom. Anyway, suppose you are right, and you know everything there is to know about cell phones and commercial airliners flying 500+ mph at 35,000 feet, so what? It doesn't eliminate the dozens (more?) of other inconsistencies in the 'official 9-11 story' that are hard to refute. The biggest being the fall rate of the buildings. Neither myself or the original poster claimed to have an answer for these problems or claimed some great conspiracy. All we want to know is what is the cause, source and reason for these inconsistencies? I already stated that I think a lot of this conspiracy stuff is ignorant crap. However, in reading enough of it while ignoring the opinions and checking the facts, you can often find nuggets of truth in mountains of crap. And if you dig through enough mountains, you eventually an mine a useful amount of fact. Here's a few such mountains to mine. http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/ http://www.physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm Your reply was condescending and confrontational and for no reason I can determine. Why is there such a large group of people who seem unable to discuss obvious inconsistencies in circumstances like this one without resorting to angry, confrontational name-calling? What do these people have invested personally in always conforming with the mainstream? Why do these same people become angry with people that ask questions? IMO, frank discussion of uncomfortable topics is one of the core necessities of civilized societies. I don't get it. To quote my favorite blogger, "Knowledge is power, ignorance is death!" -- Search for products and services at: http://search.mail.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist