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Home Run 2 "Tornado 012, your Target is British Caledonian Flight 1503" Copyright Joe Vialls, February 2002 The main point of this report is to take you up for a flight in a high performance fighter jet, tasked with intercepting a “rogue” aircraft apparently off track and threatening a major city. We really need to do this now, because disinformation about the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center is rapidly spiraling out of control. Months ago rumors started circulating that the United States Air Force failed to intercept the doomed commercial airliners, which was largely correct information. Unfortunately, from there on it was all downhill and a pack of lies. The first Chinese whisper to echo around the Internet claimed that air force pilots had been ordered not to fly. There is not a scrap of evidence to corroborate this deliberate slur on members of the American military, all of whom are related to men, women, and children just like those who perished on September 11 in the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. Fighter pilots are warm-blooded human beings just like you, and they would have protected America if they could. For reasons you will shortly learn about first-hand, it proved an impossible task. Weeks later, the second Chinese whisper claimed that the entire USAF structure had been ordered to “stand down”, deliberately inferring that the middle levels of the military command structure were involved in this spreading conspiracy. Once again not a scrap of evidence, but who cares about that? For those wishing to turn the American public against its own military defense forces, trivia such as evidence and the truth have no meaning. The third and most recent Chinese whisper, is a claim by Carol Valentine that rather than being hijacked by the civilian DARPA controlled “Home Run”, the attack aircraft were actually remotely controlled from NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) on the direct orders of USAF General Richard B. Myers. According to Ms Valentine, General Myers ordered his subordinates to track and locate four suitable American airliners full of American passengers, and they allegedly complied. Next, General Myer’s subordinates apparently incriminated themselves still further by obeying his next unlawful command, to radio-lock onto the four aircraft and direct them to their respective targets. No weeping at NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain apparently, or concern that Mom or Grandma might be on one of the jets. Oh no, apparently Myer’s robotic junior officers cheerfully jumped to it with a will, and sent hundreds of American passengers crashing into thousands more Americans on the ground in New York and Washington. Then for good measure, Myer’s subordinates, by this time giggling insanely one presumes, grounded every serviceable combat jet in North America. Like heck they did… As with most outrageous flights of fancy, this one fails to explain how the entire USAF chain of command was corrupted, and Myer’s outraged staff forced to remain silent in the face of massive American death and destruction. Proving a little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing, Ms Valentine trashes a claim by the Washington Post, which says that military jets were scrambled but could not get to the Washington area in time: “That's a dumb lie, even for the Washington Post. Andrews Air Force Base, home of Air Force One, is just 10 miles from Washington D.C. How long would it take for Andrews jets, capable of flying at 1,200 mph plus, to get over Washington D.C./Pentagon airspace?” Hmm. We will see exactly how long in just a minute. So strap on your “G” suit and don your flight coveralls, because we are about to get airborne on an air defense mission. Not in an American aircraft, because that would be distasteful in the wake of the September 11 attack. For our simulation today we will borrow a British Tornado interceptor, and try to defend London against a rogue airliner off-track from Manchester in northern England. The term “we” is not used in the Royal sense, but only to denote that the rear seat on this flight is reserved strictly for you. Just me and you in a fighter made for two. This is peacetime, when most home-based western combat aircraft normally carry only “drill” (dummy) missiles on their wing pylons, and have no live cannon shells in the ammo trays. Damn, we just bumped into our first irritating time delay! Though unarmed interceptors can quickly be used to check out the status of off-course aircraft like Payne Stewart’s Lear Jet, they are effectively useless against hostile targets. We keep them unarmed for a very good reason. On a scale of one to ten, listing the types of accidents all air forces try to avoid, jettisoning live Sidewinder missiles down the chimney of City Hall probably rates as number one or two. Each western country keeps a handful of interceptors armed in case of a surprise attack, and bases them at the outer extremities of its national sovereign territory, from where the attack will come. Though the Official Secrets Act prohibits me from stating exactly how many armed aircraft are available in Britain or America in peacetime, rest assured the figure is exceedingly small. Any reasonable and intelligent person can deduce from this, that aircraft based close to major cities like London and Washington, DC, will not be armed at all in peacetime. Unfortunately, today the armed British Tornados are on patrol in the north and running low on fuel. Our own aircraft is not armed, so we will have to stand around twiddling our thumbs until sufficient missiles and cannon shells are taken out of the bomb dump on the far side of the airfield, then transported to the Tornado dispersal area. Why do we keep the bomb dump over there, so far away? Anyone who saw the recent bomb dump explosion in Nigeria that killed more than 1,000 people, will already know the answer. It is a very slow process. Only a madman races around the airfield perimeter track when towing a stack of live missiles with high-explosive warheads, and bins of high explosive cannon shells. Remember here also, that the ground crew first have to remove the dummy missiles from the Tornado before they can fit the live ones. Eventually our Tornado is armed, its safety breaks and systems fully tested. Already nearly an hour has elapsed this Tuesday morning but we can’t rush off just yet, we have to check everything is safely on the mountings. Because we have no idea what magnitude the threat presents, we have festooned the Tornado with all of its optional extras. Hung under the belly are four Sky Flash radar guided air-to-air missiles, good for launching at 20 miles or more. On the wing pylons, four Sidewinder AIM-9L heat seeking air-to-air missiles which are good for launching at about 2 miles range, though not much further. Finally, in the belly of the beast, 180 rounds of high-explosive ammunition for the single Mauser BK 27-millimeter cannon. If all else fails, we will need to get close to the target to use the Mauser, ideally within 600 yards for a clean kill. At that range, two 10-round bursts of the nine ounce high-explosive shells should be enough to bring down anything with wings, leaving plenty of ammo for alternate targets. We check all missiles are tight on their mountings. As we climb into the Tornado cockpit, strap in and start the engines, we reflect quickly on the fate of KL 007, the Korean Boeing 747 shot down at night over Sakhalin Island in Russia, back in 1983. Those Russian interceptors were all armed to the teeth, right? Wrong! The three Mig-23 jets sent up to have a look were all carrying dummy missiles and had no cannon shells, meaning they were unable to fire tracer shells across the nose of the hulking black aircraft, the international night time aviation code for “follow me or else”. On the ground far below, Major Gennady Osipovich sprinted for the armed duty interceptor, strapped in, and rapidly got airborne. His Sukhoi 15 climbed like a rocket, and after closing carefully onto his target by radar, Osipovich fired bursts of tracer in front of its black outline, which he could barely see because there was no moon. Then he received his orders from the ground, fell back behind the target and fired two Anab air-to-air missiles. The rest is history. But how strange to find out nearly twenty years later, that only one in four of the Russian interceptors was armed, despite being located right out there on the border, and next to one of the most sensitive military installations in the entire Soviet Union! There is a lesson here for those who wish to imply that USAF personnel at Andrews AFB, near Washington, were guilty of treason on September 11, 2001. “Tower, this is Tornado 012, request entry Runway 23” “Tornado 012 clear for entry and take off Runway 23. Wind 255 at 15 knots” “012” With throttles fully forward through the afterburner gates, the Tornado lights its tail and hurtles down the runway, pinning us back in our seats as nearly 40,000 pounds of jet thrust kick in. The runway markers turn into a blur and seconds later we are airborne, the wheels retracting into the undercarriage bays as we bank hard left and climb like a bullet, changing radio frequencies to Ground Control Interception (GCI) as we go. The brutal “G” force is trying to drain the blood from our heads to our toes, but our “G” suits squeeze gently around our legs and lower torso, enabling us to stay fully conscious and alert during the process. “Sandman, Sandman, this is Tornado 012 climbing through 30,000 on 095 magnetic” “Roger 012, good morning, we have you on radar. Turn right heading 198 and continue climb to 45,000. We have an unusual target for you today” “012, what do you mean by ‘unusual’ Sandman? over” “A civilian heavy has crashed into the City of London, and another one has gone off-course from Manchester. At present the second aircraft is on track for London, and we think it possible there is a plan to crash this aircraft into the House of Commons” “012, How do we know this, Sandman. Has this second aircraft called mayday, or squawked ident with his IFF transponder?” “Negative 012, we are operating on ground intelligence only. On approach to London I will put you in a holding pattern to conserve fuel, while the Ministry of Defence decides what to do with your target” “Identify target” “Tornado 012, your target is British Caledonian Flight 1503” “Sandman, have you gone nuts?” “Negative 012, remember who is the controller here. Maintain radio silence until I provide you with your next course to steer” “012” |
