Quote:
Originally Posted by creekster
No its not being done, not like you are asserting. In DC they have huge no fly zones. They eliminated all private traffic from National/Reagan airport. Even so, if you were determined, it would be almost impossible to stop you in a small plane from flying towards and into one of the symbolic buildings in DC. Why do you think the secret service has AA guns on the roof of the whitehouse? It isn't to try to shoot down a 747.
TO adopt similar measures in other cities, especailly somewhere like the metropolitan NYC area, would be very damaging to the livelihoods of many, as well as to the convenience of many others. It simply can't be done in any reasonable way. Planes fly up and down the east river all the time, as do helicopters. In order to allow NORAD enough time to recognize a risk to any building in manhattan and have enough time to do anything about it (remember, unlike the whitehouse there are no AA guns on top of most buildigns in NYC) the no-fly zone would probably have to stretch from massachusetts to Philadelphia, and even then it might not be enough.
I also found it quaint that you apparently beleived that NORAD has some sort of central database that keeps track of every flight's flight plan (although you now have been informed that many flights don't even file flight plans) and keeps tabs on all flights so that if they vary from these flight plans they can be shot down or intercepted by fighters. IF we scrambled fighters every time some yahoo in a cessna varies from his flight plan (assuming he filed one) our air force fighters would probabyl spend most of their time on this activity.
Now if we could spend enough on 'star wars' systems so we could zap these guys from space, it might be possible.
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You are making things up that I didn't say just so you can dismiss them as "quaint." Let's be a bit more honest in this discussion please. I didn't ever say NORAD has a "central database that keeps track of every flight's flight plan." You did. There are mutliple agencies that track flights of planes. For those that divert from flight plans and pose a threat, I expect NORAD is notified (I don't know how this tranlsates into keeping a central database).
I also don't suggest scrambling fighters for every flight diversion. I do expect that planes flying over NYC at less than 500 feet trigger some alarms because they clearly pose a threat (intentional or otherwise).