--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: EFF00002 Date: 11/09/97 From: UWE WOLFRAM Time: 10:06pm \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: STS? A little bit off-topic, but at least the shuttle has wings :-) Is there a STS-launch planned for December or January? Uwe --- CrossPoint v3.02 R * Origin: to fly or not to fly, that is not the question (2:2453/30.205) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: EFF00003 Date: 11/03/97 From: KEITH JILLINGS Time: 10:52am \/To: LOUIS HOLLEMAN (Read 0 times) Subj: Re: Commercial Pilots flying Saturday, 1 November 1997 Louis Holleman wrote to Keith Jillings LH> Disconnected??? When??? My feed from this echo stopped working in late September. I think several other UK folks had the same problem. It's back now. I don't know what did it, and wasn't sure if it had happened the same for other European locations. Seems it didn't. All is well, and the crews are happy ;-) LH> Things are a bit irregular sometimes, when I get LH> no Fidostuff at all for 2 or 3 days, then the next day there's a LH> bunch of it. That's part of the fun of Fido, I guess. LH> If you're talking about after the infamous mail bomb, I still LH> see sometimes postings from Eric and Hubert from Belgium. That's LH> about it from Europe, as far as I can recall. And you, of course.. Yep. There are some other Europeans who _read_ the echo but don't post much. I was sort-of hoping my message would prompt them to say "Hello". KJ>> _SO_, _Europeans_, _if_ _you_ _are_ _receiving_ _this_ KJ>> _echo_ . . . _please_ _send_ _a_ _mail_ _to_ _say_ _so_. LH> Well, I'm still here Keith, but is this msg coming your way LH> too??? Maar naturlijk! Greetings from Keith Jillings .!. It doesn't work, but I'm working on it. --- Terminate 5.00/Pro *Ancient* *user* * Origin: Keith's Point (amen@earthling.net) (2:257/71.10) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: EFF00004 Date: 11/10/97 From: JIM SANDERS Time: 07:04am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: News-843 First Lady's plane forced back to base after engine trouble WASHINGTON - A plane flying Hillary Rodham Clinton to Central Asia was forced to dump fuel and retum to Andrews Air Force Base Sunday after experiencing engine problems 10 minutes aRer takeoff. No injuries were reported. Maintenance workers faund a frayed wire in the outboard engine on the left wing, said a White House oflticial, speaking on con- dition of anonymity. A light indicator Bignaled a prablem with the enejne shortly after the plane took off, said a flight official, who also didn't want his name used. A half dozen fire trucks greeted the plane when it landed at Andrews at 9:55 p.m White House spokesman Barry Toiv said President Clinton was informed of the incident "right away." Toiv confirmed that the aircraft had mechanical problems, but he had no further details. "Obviously he was concerned, but he was assured that the situation was under control," Toiv said. Knoxville News Sentinel 10 Nov 97 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Another black eye for the U.S. Air Force Air Force officer discharged for having affair SHREVEPORT, La. - November 9, 1997 02:53 a.m. EST - An Air Force lieutenant who had a child from an affair with a married superior officer has been discharged. The secretary of the Air Force granted the general discharge to 1st Lt. Crista Davis on Friday. Davis, 28, must reimburse the govern- ment about $13,000 for her Air Force Academy education because she is leaving the service early, Barksdale Air Force Base spokesman Capt. Mark Phillips said. Ms. Davis was a classmate of Lt. Kelly Flinn at the academy. Ms. Davis' case drew media attention during the controversy over adultery charges against Flinn, who agreed to accept a general discharge in May rather than face a court-martial. Unlike Flinn, Ms. Davis was not charged with adultery. After a disciplinary hearing in August, she was fined $2,000 and officially reprimanded for displaying conduct unbecoming an officer, lying, not following orders and being absent without leave. Military authorities said Ms. Davis wrote sexually explicit let- ters to Maj. Greg Russell's wife and left base without permission to give birth. Russell, a former instructor at the Air Force Academy, was given a medical discharge after physicians said he was mentally incompetent to stand trial. The discharge Ms. Davis received could signal prospective employ- ers to possible misconduct in the military, and it will affect her eligibility for veterans' benefits. ----------------------------------- == --- DB 1.39/004487 * Origin: Volunteer BBS (423) 694-0791 V34+/VFC (1:218/1001.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: EFF00005 Date: 11/10/97 From: JIM SANDERS Time: 08:02am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: News-844 BAGHDAD (Nov. 10) - Iraq said on Monday that U.N. arms monitors had resumed U.S. U-2 spy flights over its territory, but no inci- dents were reported despite previous Iraqi threats to shoot down the planes. Iraq said a spy plane crossed its border early on Monday from Saudi Arabia but was out of range of its anti-aircraft missiles. "The U-2 plane left our international airspace at 11.28 a.m. (0828 GMT). It left from the same place it had entered Iraqi air- space. It has returned to Saudi Arabia," a military spokesman told Baghdad radio. "Our defences are ready being prepared to confront the situ- ation," he said. Earlier Cable News Network (CNN) reported that U-2 aircraft had resumed flying on Monday, as the United Nations had said they would. The network said U.S. officials had notified members of Congress in Washington. U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment. CNN said fighter planes were accompanying the U-2s in case Iraq carried out its threat. The United States has threatened to retali- ate if its planes are shot down. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hillary Clinton's plane forced back to U.S. by engine trouble (Update to News-834) WASHINGTON - November 10, 1997 00:23 a.m. EST -- A plane flying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hillary Clinton postponed her flight until Monday afternoon because immediate repairs couldn't be made to the plane, air base officials said. The plane, a Boeing 707 that had been used as Air Force One dating back to the Nixon administration, began dumping fuel as a precautionary measure just a few minutes after takeoff when the emergency was detected. Hillary Clinton had been traveling to the former Soviet Union for a nine-day trip to encourage development of the now independent republics. She was originally scheduled to leave Andrews Air Force Base at 8 p.m., but the flight from the base in suburban Washington was delayed in order to fix a water leak in the press section. The aircraft had been scheduled to refuel in Shannon, Ireland, before heading to the first stop on Hillary Clinton's tour, Almaty, Kazakhstan. She also was to visit Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Ukraine. The countries on Hillary Clinton's itinerary are struggling to shift from state-run to market economies. "The point of this trip is straightforward: to strengthen the young, but already strong, ties between our countries and to share ideas and experiences about ethnic and religious tolerance," Hillary Clinton told a conference on education on Friday. Tied up with a trade battle on Capitol Hill and preparing for an oil summit in Canada, Clinton asked his wife to visit the region in his stead. She will promote economic and political stability in Central Asia, where democracy has yet to mature and rich mineral resources remain untapped. -------------------------- Family of seven killed in Alaska air crash (Update previous news) ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Nov. 9, 1997 8:59 p.m. EST - Eight people, including a family of seven, died when a commuter plane crashed shortly after takeoff Saturday in Barrow, Alaska. The Cessna Caravan, being operated by Hageland Aviation of St. Marys in western Alaska, crashed into the Arctic Ocean, officials said. The plane was pulled out of the water and onto the beach late Saturday, and bodies were recovered from it, said Randy Crosby, deputy director of the North Slope Borough's search and rescue ser- vices. There were no survivors, he said, and the cause was undetermined. Killed were James Itta Sr., Mary Itta and five others, Crosby said. He said investigators Sunday were working to confirm the identifications of the children, believed to be the Ittas' daughters. Also killed was pilot Tom Knight of Barrow, Crosby said. According to the Anchorage Daily News, the Itta family had been traveling to Wainright, a nearby Inupiat Eskimo village, for the funeral and burial of Mary Itta's brother. On board the flight was a casket holding the body of her brother, Norman Matoomealook, who had died in an Anchorage hospital, the Daily News reported. ---------------------------------- == --- DB 1.39/004487 * Origin: Volunteer BBS (423) 694-0791 V34+/VFC (1:218/1001.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: EFF00006 Date: 11/09/97 From: JIM SANDERS Time: 03:03pm \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: U-2 mission The U-2: vital for monitoring Iraq but vulnerable WASHINGTON -- November 9, 1997 10:18 a.m. EST (1518 GMT) - The U-2 spy planes that Saddam Hussein is threatening to shoot down are more than a symbol of Western pressure on Iraq. American intelli- gence experts say they provide U.N. inspectors vital intelligence about Iraqi arms programs. The camera-equipped aircraft are seeking incongruities not easily explained -- large water pipes going into small buildings, a peri- meter fence appearing suddenly around a nondescript facility, large numbers of cars parking around a purported warehouse. With almost two tons of sensing equipment in the fuselage and wingtips, the U-2 can beam back imagery to ground monitors while still in flight. The spy planes also are vulnerable, and that presents the United Nations and the United States with a dilemma: Risk conflict with Iraq or forgo crucial information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. "The history of this is that those flights and the U.S. inspectors have been absolutely critical to the discoveries that UNSCOM has made to date," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. UNSCOM is the group of inspectors mandated by the U.N. Security Council to ferret out and ensure the destruction of any nuclear, chemical or biological warfare weapons that Iraq has failed to destroy. The inspectors' discoveries so far indicate Iraqi President Saddam is trying to create a nuclear weapons capability while secret- ly developing an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. The 'Dragon Ladies' With their wispy 103-foot (31-meter) wingspan capable of carrying the plane above 70,000 feet (21,300 meters), the U-2 "Dragon Ladies," as the U.S. Air Force calls them, are hard to shoot down -- but not impossible. When U-2 flights resume Monday, as promised by UNSCOM, Iraq will be notified as it has been since post-Persian Gulf War monitoring began six years ago. A map displayed last week by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz showing recent U-2 flight paths indicated clearly that Iraq can track the planes. Iraq's arsenal has Soviet-built SA-2 surface-to-air missiles that can reach targets at U-2 altitude, but the odds of a hit are long, according to Chris Pocock, author of two books on the U-2. A missile becomes less maneuverable in the thin air, but the spy plane is cap- able of making tight, evasive turns. Seven U-2s have been shot down: one over the Soviet Union, five over China and one over Cuba. "It's a pretty good score in favor of the U-2 when you consider the plane has been flying for 40 years," Pocock said. "The last one downed was in 1967, and the U-2 flew over Iraq during Desert Storm." A report in "Inside the Air Force," a trade publication, said the U.S. Air Force has been slow to install upgraded electronic counter- measure equipment. But Pentagon officials and outside experts say the U-2 is much improved from the spy plane shot down by the Soviet Union in 1960. To fire a missile at a U-2, Iraq must "paint" the spy plane with missile-guiding radar. That opens up the Iraqi missile battery to counterattack by U.S. warplanes armed with radar-seeking missiles. "While there's obviously a danger to the U-2 pilot, there is certain danger to the Iraqi air defense operator who's foolish enough to turn on his radar," Pike said. "That's why the Iraqi integrated air defense collapsed during the Persian Gulf War: The Iraqi opera- tors didn't want to die, and they knew that if they turned their radar on we would kill them." Other options Under the threat of attack, the U.S. could opt to monitor Iraq using spy satellites. But besides creating the impression of backing down to Saddam, such a move would also have disadvantages to intelligence collectors. Spy satellites operate in polar orbit and pass over a target for only a few minutes per day. Such sporadic coverage would make it easier for the Iraqis to conceal their weapons operations and to move around sensitive equipment to avoid detection. U-2s, as the looping lines on Aziz's map indicated, can fly ir- regular patterns, tailored to the intelligence needs and to the lay- out of a particular suspected weapons site. Should the photographs reveal something, U.S. intelligence offi- cials could make them public -- say in a U.N. Security Council meeting. Not so with spy satellite imagery, which the United States considers highly sensitive and does not release, said Jeffrey Richelson, author of several books on the U.S. intelligence community. ---------- --- DB 1.39/004487 * Origin: Volunteer BBS (423) 694-0791 V34+/VFC (1:218/1001.1)