9/11/01 - the F16's were Kamikazi's.

[ztirffritz]

I remember a REALLY good article about the hows and whys of what happened on 9/11. I think it was from Wired Magazine, or maybe Playboy. If I remember correctly, there was a war game or procedure test scheduled and underway in the NE so there were extra safety protocols in place to ensure that live rounds aren't mistakenly used. Everyone double and triple checked instructions and asked for verification on orders because the war games/tests were similar in nature to the actual events. Once they realized what was happening they had jets scrambled pretty quickly but there were at least two big problems:

1) No munitions on board
2) To get to the target zones in time they were on full afterburner for quite a while. By the time they got to NYC/DC they would be running on fumes and have something like 2-5 minutes of fuel before needing to land/refuel.

[davester]

ztirffritz wrote:
I remember a REALLY good article...I think it was from...maybe Playboy.

Playboy has articles?

[ztirffritz]

They used to. I don't know if they still do. They also used to publish really good short fiction. My wife had a subscription for about a decade.

davester wrote:
[quote=ztirffritz]
I remember a REALLY good article...I think it was from...maybe Playboy.

Playboy has articles?