Drills on the same day as terrorist attacks

Hi everyone.

I thought it might be helpful if we could define what constitutes a 'drill' or 'exercise'.

For example, if there is a table-top exercise, does that fall under a drill? A table-top exercise being just that, a few people sat around a table with some maps and usually a blue team (good guys) and red team (bad guys) and they walk through some scenarios in which each move is countered and new 'injects' thrown in.

Then at the other end of the scale, is a defence and government-wide exercise in which the executive part of the government, military, police, hospitals and fire services are all involved?

Is it relevant if the drills are done by government or contractors?

I ask this as an Army Officer, as this week in Norfolk I am taking part in an exercise preparing an RAF Sqn for deployment to Afghanistan. As part of the exercise we have guys on the ground simulating bombing, some on military training areas and some on private ground. If a terrorist attack were to occur in the UK, would this become another factor in a conspiracy theory?

But this is for a bomber Sqn, so the Typhoon Sqns (Fighters) will probably be practising air defence this week (I don't know but it would be a fair assumption), so if an Aircraft related incident would also occur, would the activity of exercises occurring induce suspicion?

I have no idea what the Special Forces Group are up to this week, but would their drills be relevant to any future occurrence?

I'm struggling with the logic that the fact that exercises take place against terrorist related activity is itself an indication of conspiracy...?
 
BombDr said:
Hi everyone.

I thought it might be helpful if we could define what constitutes a 'drill' or 'exercise'.

For example, if there is a table-top exercise, does that fall under a drill? A table-top exercise being just that, a few people sat around a table with some maps and usually a blue team (good guys) and red team (bad guys) and they walk through some scenarios in which each move is countered and new 'injects' thrown in.

Then at the other end of the scale, is a defence and government-wide exercise in which the executive part of the government, military, police, hospitals and fire services are all involved?

Is it relevant if the drills are done by government or contractors?

I ask this as an Army Officer, as this week in Norfolk I am taking part in an exercise preparing an RAF Sqn for deployment to Afghanistan. As part of the exercise we have guys on the ground simulating bombing, some on military training areas and some on private ground. If a terrorist attack were to occur in the UK, would this become another factor in a conspiracy theory?

But this is for a bomber Sqn, so the Typhoon Sqns (Fighters) will probably be practising air defence this week (I don't know but it would be a fair assumption), so if an Aircraft related incident would also occur, would the activity of exercises occurring induce suspicion?

I have no idea what the Special Forces Group are up to this week, but would their drills be relevant to any future occurrence?

I'm struggling with the logic that the fact that exercises take place against terrorist related activity is itself an indication of conspiracy...?
Click to expand...

Sorry I am not in a position to edit the quote. Anywho, I don't think it has changed much but the MOD publish dates of major disturbances on exercise area (live firing, aircraft movements etc). I found this by default when we once did a drop into the DZ at Imber and found people on the outskirts with cameras. Essentially they had rang the exercise area warden and he gave a timeframe. When I came back from the gulf I rang the ranges at RAF Cowden who told me there was activity but also they were expecting A10's the next day. That may have been to much info but I wanted to show my wife how fucking scarey an A10 is.

I know bases now post on the internet for flying days (outside of active flights), so in the UK at least it would be relatively simple to collate the times for a "false flag".

Glad to know you are home safe btw
 
David Fraser said:
Sorry I am not in a position to edit the quote. Anywho, I don't think it has changed much but the MOD publish dates of major disturbances on exercise area (live firing, aircraft movements etc). I found this by default when we once did a drop into the DZ at Imber and found people on the outskirts with cameras. Essentially they had rang the exercise area warden and he gave a timeframe. When I came back from the gulf I rang the ranges at RAF Cowden who told me there was activity but also they were expecting A10's the next day. That may have been to much info but I wanted to show my wife how fucking scarey an A10 is.

I know bases now post on the internet for flying days (outside of active flights), so in the UK at least it would be relatively simple to collate the times for a "false flag".
Click to expand...
HI Dave,

Nothing has changed yet. I now have to issue the crews with noise avoidance maps, which get bigger and bigger in terms of the noise areas they cover. Understandable I suppose, as people do live in the countryside for a reason.
 
Just my impression, but "drill" seems to suggest going through a pre-defined sequence of maneuvers, whereas "exercise" seems to suggest responding to a simulated situation - where the responders in the exercise don't know exactly what's going to happen ahead of time.
 
Mick West said:
Just my impression, but "drill" seems to suggest going through a pre-defined sequence of maneuvers, whereas "exercise" seems to suggest responding to a simulated situation - where the responders in the exercise don't know exactly what's going to happen ahead of time.
Click to expand...

I'd say that is a pretty good definition: We would use the terms "Skills, Drills, SOPs" (Standard Operating Procedures) so for example shooting/marksmanship would be the skill, pairs fire and manoeuvre would be the drill, and carrying x amount of ammo and the type of weapons used would be the SOP.

Then we have individual training and collective training.

But I think the CT community would call anything that suggested rehearsing a scenario, even with the most tenuous links or similarity to the actual event a 'Drill" and draw an adverse and sinister implication from it.
 
I confess to being a bit slow on the uptake here. I genuinely don't understand what conspiracy theorists are implying by linking alleged same day
drill(s) with alleged "false flag" events?
Are they saying that if suspicion was too high the perpetrators (usually the govt) could pass the incident off as a drill gone wrong?
Are they suggesting that it shows the event was practiced?..... (At the same time?:confused:).
Is it that making a drill and f/flag concurrent would allow the bringing in of substitute or extra personnel or equipment?
Or is it old fashioned "Illuminati" deliberate clue leaving?

I've looked for an explanation on a number of ct sites for literally minutes, (one can only stand so much!), but to no avail. They do not address why the mysterious overlords would be stupid enough to stage a drill or number of drills at the same time (and usually within spitting distance) as the "real" event.
 
Melbury's Brick said:
I confess to being a bit slow on the uptake here. I genuinely don't understand what conspiracy theorists are implying by linking alleged same day
drill(s) with alleged "false flag" events?
Are they saying that if suspicion was too high the perpetrators (usually the govt) could pass the incident off as a drill gone wrong?
Are they suggesting that it shows the event was practiced?..... (At the same time?:confused:).
Is it that making a drill and f/flag concurrent would allow the bringing in of substitute or extra personnel or equipment?
Or is it old fashioned "Illuminati" deliberate clue leaving?

I've looked for an explanation on a number of ct sites for literally minutes, (one can only stand so much!), but to no avail. They do not address why the mysterious overlords would be stupid enough to stage a drill or number of drills at the same time (and usually within spitting distance) as the "real" event.
Click to expand...
Since when does anything related to a CT need to make sense?
 
Melbury's Brick said:
I confess to being a bit slow on the uptake here. I genuinely don't understand what conspiracy theorists are implying by linking alleged same day
drill(s) with alleged "false flag" events?
Are they saying that if suspicion was too high the perpetrators (usually the govt) could pass the incident off as a drill gone wrong?
Are they suggesting that it shows the event was practiced?..... (At the same time?:confused:).
Is it that making a drill and f/flag concurrent would allow the bringing in of substitute or extra personnel or equipment?
Or is it old fashioned "Illuminati" deliberate clue leaving?

I've looked for an explanation on a number of ct sites for literally minutes, (one can only stand so much!), but to no avail. They do not address why the mysterious overlords would be stupid enough to stage a drill or number of drills at the same time (and usually within spitting distance) as the "real" event.
Click to expand...
I agree, I don't see the point.... Surely the evil overlords would wish to demonise the dastardly terrorists with displays of great suffering, and have the security and medical services unprepared for such callousness...?

Could any of the 'Drills as false-flag MO' supporters please explain the logic?
 
Sees to me that in the case of 9/11 at least, supposedly this was arranged in order to sow confusion when the military was notified of the hijacking. Evidence that supposedly supports this is that when ATC did notify the Air Force, one of the first responses was along the lines of " is this part of the drill or real life" . Indeed then it did delay military response by,,,,, a few hundred milliseconds!

A second "reason" for the 9/11 drills was supposedly to tie up resources that could otherwise be used to intercept and bring down the hijacked aircraft.

This is also an oddity. There hasn't been an instance of a hijacked aircraft being shot down, AFAIK. Yes, the USA Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet mistakenly thought to be an aggressive Iranian fighter, and the Soviets shot down KAL007 , assuming it to be a reconnaissance flight. Those however are hardly evidence that a hijacked a/c would be shot down if intercepted. For flight 11 there was no reason to suspect that it would be flown in a suicide attack. Flight 175 followed, hitting the WTC south tower which puts it only about 200 miles away when the north tower was hit. Would it be intercepted, AND a shoot down ordered by the President, in that short of a time? The Soviet fighters followed KAL007 for some time before shooting , with much back and forth to command, and they had quite a long warning of the approach in a much less busy airspace.
"Oh, but what if the flights were substituted, they would not want fighters on scene so the response had to be delayed or muted". Well , then perhaps the better bet would have been to ensure fewer fighters in the air in the first place rather than to risk those in the drills being diverted. Besides that, all four aircraft descended lower after being hijacked and that alone would increase the odds of having a supposed substitution observed from the ground, even if we were to accept this complicated and unneccesary plot.
 
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jaydeehess said:
Sees to me that in the case of 9/11 at least, supposedly this was arranged in order to sow confusion when the military was notified of the hijacking. Evidence that supposedly supports this is that when ATC did notify the Air Force, one of the first responses was along the lines of " is this part of the drill or real life" . Indeed then it did delay military response by,,,,, a few hundred milliseconds!

A second "reason" for the 9/11 drills was supposedly to tie up resources that could otherwise be used to intercept and bring down the hijacked aircraft.

This is also an oddity. There hasn't been an instance of a hijacked aircraft being shot down, AFAIK. Yes, the USA Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet mistakenly thought to be an aggressive Iranian fighter, and the Soviets shot down KAL007 , assuming it to be a reconnaissance flight. Those however are hardly evidence that a hijacked a/c would be shot down if intercepted. For flight 11 there was no reason to suspect that it would be flown in a suicide attack. Flight 175 followed, hitting the WTC south tower which puts it only about 200 miles away when the north tower was hit. Would it be intercepted, AND a shoot down ordered by the President, in that short of a time? The Soviet fighters followed KAL007 for some time before shooting , with much back and forth to command, and they had quite a long warning of the approach in a much less busy airspace.
"Oh, but what if the flights were substituted, they would not want fighters on scene so the response had to be delayed or muted". Well , then perhaps the better bet would have been to ensure fewer fighters in the air in the first place rather than to risk those in the drills being diverted. Besides that, all four aircraft descended lower after being hijacked and that alone would increase the odds of having a supposed substitution observed from the ground, even if we were to accept this complicated and unneccesary plot.
Click to expand...


I have unwisely tried to make this point to 'truthers' a few times about the 'scrambled jets'... Im an Army officer, but Im currently attached to an RAF Sqn and know a bit about fast jets, and without giving too much away, one does not simply jump in one and turn the key. Even on high readiness (and I don't think even the most hardened truthers would suggest that was the case on 911) the jets would need to be 'cocked' to prepare them for the fastest reaction possible. I have a rough idea how much time this is, but am unsure if that is classified or not...? (Maybe one of the other aviation types on here could answer this with more authority) In any event, its not what you would call fast.


Then there is the whole other problem of being vectored to the right place, having interception protocols in place and rules of engagement...

But these are facts, and facts are the enemy of fantasy...
 
BombDr said:
(Maybe one of the other aviation types on here could answer this with more authority)
Click to expand...

Having never been in the military, I cannot (except for what I've "picked up" over the years from working with those who have, but then that would not come from personal knowledge). Also, I highly recommend this book:

Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11

...Lynn Spencer brings the inspiring true drama of their unflinching and heroic response vividly to life for the first time, taking us right inside the airliner cockpits and control towers, the fighter jets and the military battle cabs.
Content from External Source

(Emphasis added...).

Although it's been several years since I've read the book, the author does delve into the "drills" and the reality that they really had no effect on "readiness".
 
Oh yeah, CTs do very much seem to believe that scrambling a jet is not too much different than jumping into one's car and roaring away. In fact even in a car you do your engine some good by allowing a thirty second idle before putting it in gear. An automobile though, if it breaks down, not only costs less to repair, its less likely to result in your death if it does so while being operated.
I used to have to charter small float planes to service remote transmitters and we would put about the bay for 5 minutes or longer. I asked the pilot about that once and his reply was that he would not ever try to go full power until the engine had come up to a certain temperature ( deHaviland "Beaver" piston a/c) and although this is a vastly different aircraft than a fighter the same concept obviously applies.

Since NORAD was then tasked with intercepting aircraft incoming towards the USA from over the oceans or the pole, they had time to warm up. IIRC, at higher defcon levels , fighters were kept hot with pilots in their seats but quite obviously that untenable in relative peacetime operations.
 
jaydeehess said:
...his reply was that he would not ever try to go full power until the engine had come up to a certain temperature ( deHaviland "Beaver" piston a/c) and although this is a vastly different aircraft than a fighter the same concept obviously applies.
Click to expand...

Yeah, your Beaver pilot was referring to oil temperature, giving the engine sufficient time to "come up" to a generally even over-all operating temperature.

And yes, even with turbine engines, this is important. Turbines might warm up a bit faster than some recips, though not in extremely cold ambient temperatures. There are suggested restrictions on power settings when very cold, until temperatures rise to a certain level, based on specific engine designs.
 
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jaydeehess said:
Oh yeah, CTs do very much seem to believe that scrambling a jet is not too much different than jumping into one's car and roaring away. In fact even in a car you do your engine some good by allowing a thirty second idle before putting it in gear. An automobile though, if it breaks down, not only costs less to repair, its less likely to result in your death if it does so while being operated.
I used to have to charter small float planes to service remote transmitters and we would put about the bay for 5 minutes or longer. I asked the pilot about that once and his reply was that he would not ever try to go full power until the engine had come up to a certain temperature ( deHaviland "Beaver" piston a/c) and although this is a vastly different aircraft than a fighter the same concept obviously applies.

Since NORAD was then tasked with intercepting aircraft incoming towards the USA from over the oceans or the pole, they had time to warm up. IIRC, at higher defcon levels , fighters were kept hot with pilots in their seats but quite obviously that untenable in relative peacetime operations.
Click to expand...


Too much Top Gun I think... Even if we gloss over the whole cranking the engines problem, lets even say they were in the air, it would not explain how they were supposed to get a good vector to the hijacked planes from ATC, and what to do once they got there, assuming they pulled up to the wingtip...

I asked a Typhoon pilot about what he would do, but he wouldn't tell me...:(
 
WeedWhacker said:
Yeah, your Beaver pilot was referring to oil temperature, giving the engine sufficient time to "come up" to a generally even over-all operating temperature.

.
Click to expand...
This was of course, a commercial pilot. However the area contains a lot of private pilots with various prop a/c on floats. Lots of small Cessna's and not a few Beaver and even Norsemen. My pilot said he witnessed a private pilot in a Beaver who had a habit of being obviously too impatient. He said that on one such instance the plane went to full power then there was a huge 'bang' and the engine sputtered and died just as the floats started to plane. It had to be towed in as he had cracked the block. Had it occurred a few seconds later he could have been a lot less lucky. My pilot said it was a good demonstration lesson for him.
 
WeedWhacker said:
Having never been in the military, I cannot (except for what I've "picked up" over the years from working with those who have, but then that would not come from personal knowledge). Also, I highly recommend this book:

Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11

...Lynn Spencer brings the inspiring true drama of their unflinching and heroic response vividly to life for the first time, taking us right inside the airliner cockpits and control towers, the fighter jets and the military battle cabs.
Content from External Source

(Emphasis added...).

Although it's been several years since I've read the book, the author does delve into the "drills" and the reality that they really had no effect on "readiness".
Click to expand...

I appreciate your book recommendation. I often read the most negative reviews to see if there's something edifying. Most often the one-star reviewers have an ax to grind. In the following that was seemingly not the case. It provoked enough questions to the books accuracy that made me a bit hesitant.

This book turns out to be a piece of propaganda containing little truth and lots of self-aggrandizing fiction. Reading it and finding out the actual truth after the fact has left me with a distinctly 1984 feeling.

Some will continue to promote this book as fact, but as they say "who are you going to believe?" Personally, I find the (bipartisan) 9/11 commission to be the most credible voice in this room, and they say it belongs on the fiction rack.

Why does it matter? they say it best in the above piece:
"We believed that telling misleading stories about what happened undermines the public's confidence in government, spawns conspiracy theories and compromises efforts to prepare for future events. Truth, not wishful thinking, is the most enduring memorial we can leave."
Content from External Source
This concerns me, especially coming from someone not on the truther bandwagon. Clearly every account is going to contain bias, but I'm looking for something that has the least amount of embellishment. Any thoughts? Thanks!
 
The limiting factor for a "cold" to "hot" jet is usually aligning the navigation system. A fighter on alert will have already done this.

A fighter that is able to be able to be scrambled is generally on "Alert 5", which means it can be airborne 5 minutes after the scramble call. I have read an unclassified book about the RAAF lately which described the process and it entailed have one engine already running. (F/A-18 Hornet). I don't know what the temp limitations are on the cold engine, but the process described gave little doubt that 5 minutes in that situation, was more than enough.

Whether there were any fighters on the East Coast under "Alert 5" conditions, I don't know. It is generally only usually done in wartime or under exercise conditions.
 
TWCobra said:
Whether there were any fighters on the East Coast under "Alert 5" conditions, I don't know. It is generally only usually done in wartime or under exercise conditions.
Click to expand...

I don't have the book to hand which gives a definitive answer but from memory they were at Alert 15, which I think would be reasonably normal for peacetime. Cold War USAFE F-15's in particular were at a much higher state of readiness, as were RAF QRA Phantoms and Lightnings (and I expect Typhoons these days). They weren't running, but were pre-flighted with switches set and INS aligned to be airborne as quickly as possible.

I'll see if I can get some better figures tonight, but I don't think anyone with even a basic understanding of what's involved can find anything suspicious in the AD performance on 9/11.
 
V
MikeC said:
the 9/11 myth wiki has a page on the "alert status" at Andrews
Click to expand...

Very interesting.

Another tidbit from the book I was reading was that in order to keep 2 Hornets at Alert 5 for four weeks 24/7, but using peace time crew duty limitations, required 16 pilots.

This also goes to discussions about MH370 and why that wasn't intercepted by any Air Force.
 
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TWCobra said:
The limiting factor for a "cold" to "hot" jet is usually aligning the navigation system. A fighter on alert will have already done this.

A fighter that is able to be able to be scrambled is generally on "Alert 5", which means it can be airborne 5 minutes after the scramble call. I have read an unclassified book about the RAAF lately which described the process and it entailed have one engine already running. (F/A-18 Hornet). I don't know what the temp limitations are on the cold engine, but the process described gave little doubt that 5 minutes in that situation, was more than enough.

Whether there were any fighters on the East Coast under "Alert 5" conditions, I don't know. It is generally only usually done in wartime or under exercise conditions.
Click to expand...

Cold War West Germany based F-15's were at 5 minute readiness according to my copy of this which I think can be regarded as reasonably definitive:

http://www.amazon.com/F-15-Eagle-Engaged-successful-Aviation/dp/1846031699

RAFG QRA fighters were the same. UK based QRA was at 10 minute readiness in that era, but that included a couple of hours notice from other detection sources. UK QRA scrambles involved getting an AWACS Shackleton and a tanker airborne as well as the fighters, with the former occasionally making interceptions themselves from what I've read.

On the day the Otis F-15's at least were airborne 6 minutes after the scramble order, the pilots having moved to cockpit readiness upon being informed of the hijackings 14 minutes earlier according to this source:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13653185/...Report-for-Sept-11-2001-by-TSgt-Bruce-Vittner
 
Disaster planning has even been used as a game show format in the uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_Command
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_Command

The programme gave three people the chance to run the country during a potential disaster. The crises included terror attacks on London, flood, plague and hostage taking. Viewers were able to make decisions interactively at the same time as the studio players. The programmes were filmed in real time and edited down to one hour programmes. Each scenario was played once on BBC2, and then redone with a different set of "Ministers" on BBC4 immediately afterwards.

They receive advice from military, police and communication experts, but the final decisions are down to them alone. Presented by Gavin Hewitt, Crisis Command — Could You Run The Country? was a test of confidence and the ability to prioritise and keep calm in a tense and rapidly evolving situation.

It examined the dilemmas ministers face when dealing with crisis, and the hard decisions necessary to make to save lives.

Against the clock, the participants were able to call upon three advisors: military advisor Lord Tim Garden, communications adviser Amanda Platell and emergency services advisor Charles Shoebridge.
Content from External Source
I can't seam to be able to find any clips, and the show was not a success, running to only four episodes, but I can remember that in at least two of the episodes, one involving a hi-jacked plane heading towards London, and one involving a 'perfect storm' of flood conditions on the River Thames, the participants, (contestants?) got it very wrong, resulting in the first case with a jet liners hitting the houses of Parliament, and in the second case the flooding of central London.
 
I used this response recently:
"Remarkable coincidences are, in and of themselves, nothing more than that and cannot be used as evidence toward any conclusion.
An equally plausible story is that actual terrorists, from an actual terrorist organization, timed their attacks to coincide with the drills. Terror attacks take months to plan. Terror drills take months to plan, and the time and place of them are public way in advance. The attackers could easily have looked for ideal times and places, and decided that the drills would provide perfect cover.
Think of it this way: if you want to murder someone with a gun, is it simpler to wait for a fireworks display to shoot someone and have the noise disguised, or plan the murder and then orchestrate a fireworks display in order to cover the noise?"
 
Not to mention that in the USA y'all are having a "mass shooting" that is some form of terrorism virtually every day, so it is most unlikely one will NOT happen on a day with a drill!!:eek:
 
Whitebeard said:
This year alone there have been 353 mass shootings in the US
http://www.shootingtracker.com/wiki/Mass_Shootings_in_2015
Click to expand...
It actually seems the message just might be getting through after this latest shooting. In so many others the shooter got the guns from mother/father/uncle/stolen and was mentally unhinged(ie.Newtown). In San Bernadino though its been reported that these , now declared terrorists, obtained all their weapons legally, and maybe, just maybe, the anti-reg faction will think on that a bit more.
 
A couple of weeks back, while talking to a few people about the Paris attacks, I got into a bit of an argument of the "same day drills". I didn't use the "drills happen a lot" but it did get me thinking. What I ended up saying was a couple of different things. First was if they can show the same people took part of the drill and the "drill gone live". A lot of the cities these happen in are very big places, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if it there were different people going through the drill and the actual event. If there were different people in each event, or even very few that ended up in both, the "drill gone live" is meaningless. I didn't get any response to that though.

The second thing I said was to pretend the CTs are true and drills were carried out to fool us into thinking a real terrorist event took place. I would assume whoever was behind these would have people watching what other people were saying to see what is working and what isn't. At least I would. So if people are starting to notice that a drill is taking place the same day, and this is a good indication of a false flag (or whatever they want to call it) has taken place, why keep repeating the same pattern? The response was that so few people actually see this pattern that it doesn't matter.
 
People mistake drills for other things. Sandy Hook had no drills. There was a FEMA sponsored class going on some miles away concerning children's needs in the event of a disaster, but it wasn't a drill.
 
Landru said:
People mistake drills for other things. Sandy Hook had no drills. There was a FEMA sponsored class going on some miles away concerning children's needs in the event of a disaster, but it wasn't a drill.
Click to expand...
There was a drill in Carmel, New York which is like 26 miles away. Their SWAT team i believe. They called when they heard of the shooting to offer their assistance but of course it wasnt needed as Conn state police were already there in force.

add: the course you are referring to was in Bridgeport Conn.
 
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