h a l f b a k e r yI didn't say you were on to something, I said you were on something.
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Maybe a little late now, though I actually thought of this idea fairly shortly after 9-11, when all the fuss about pilots carrying guns was in full force (bad idea, in my opinion).
Briefly: building stronger bulkheads to protect the cockpit is expensive and adds weight - why not just use a net instead?
Even
a plain old fishing net would have slowed hijackers with boxcutters down long enoughto hit them with say, and electric cattle prod, which is far less likely to strike some vital wire or hydraulic control, and a wore reinforced net, like those filleting gloves are made of, maybe shethed in kevlar would pose quite a sustantial barrier, in my opinin, it would take several minutes to cut through it, and you'd be pretty vulnerable the whole time.
This is so half-baked, I have been lauged at all over the internet for suggesting it, and it wouldn't be much use against a gun, though anything short of a quarter inch of steel, or four inches of kevlar fabric wouldn't be either - although Kevlar vests are usually designed to absorb impact as well as stop a projectile from penetrating - so a Kevlar curtain, being flexible enought to absorb impact would not need to be as thick - hmmm...
Anyway, it's virtue is that it's cheap, and easy retrofit, requiring probobly less than a day to install, and it could be manufactured in a variety of pleasing patterns.
So what, investment capital anybody?
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There would just be some sort of latch mechanism on the inside - you know how chain link fences are attached to the end posts? There is a piece of flat stock threaded through the links that forms an edge which is then attached to the post with brackets - a similar principle would work here, a rod or something threaded through the edge, that would support the mesh and would be capable of being latched - to exit, one would simply unlatch it and roll it to the side. |
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Hijackers are usually highly motivated and tend to threaten human life. This makes it difficult for a pilot to ignore the warnings from the other side of the fishnet, don't you think? It's not a question of cutting the net, it's a question of convincing the pilot to roll back the net. |
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Then why bother to take precautions at all? |
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If the airframe is to be used as a projectile weapon against a densely populated target, the pilot must, of course, make a difficult choice - this is merely a device to assure that he has one to make. |
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No, precautions are good. I have one other problem with it though; what if you have two hijackers? One stands guard looking menacing while the other wrestles clumsily to cut the net. Doesn't that diminish their vulnerability factor? |
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whatzabuzz, I just noticed you're AKA Scott_D - I'd wondered for over 2 years where you ran off to, as your annotations were/are always worth reading. Glad to see you. |
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