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Pentagon Wants Kill Switch For Planes
mytrip writes "The Pentagon's non-lethal weapons division is looking for technologies that could 'disable' aircraft, before they can take off from a runway — or block the planes from flying over a given city or stretch of land. The Directorate's program managers don't mention how engineers might pull off such a kill switch. But, however it's done, they'd like to have a similar system for boats, as well. They're looking for a device that can, from 100 meters away, 'safely stop or significantly impede the movement' of vessels up to 40 feet long, with 'minimal collateral damage.'"
Yeh, and then some evil types of people or even pranksters (on ground, or by using a so-configured laptop or camcorder or hand-held game) might figure out how to:
-- boost the reception range in order to deceive or seduce the cockpit,
-- bypass security (long accept command if wheels up, over 100 kph indicated, if turbines over 25%, if altimeter log indicates movement inconsistent with runway traffic...), to force unwitting external (non-pilot) command input
-- trick the ground-based systems to interfere with runway traffic to cause on-ground, or taxi-vs land traffic...
-- trigger false halts and false diverts to wreak havoc upon ATC or military airspace controllers when the aircraft (in real-time or by delayed instruction) fail to "squawk" back...
then all hell could break loose. Don't think I wanna be on one of those planes... nor near one...
Basically, they want radio-controlled, perimeter-restricted shopping carts that work on the ground or in the air.... roi...ght....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
*shudders thinking about stepping on anything with a "KILL SWITCH"*
I've really gotta stop reading slashdot, to save my health.
We don't yet know what caused the crash of the Boeing 777 BA038 crash at Heathrow in january but this post on the reg makes an interesting suggestion.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This is an idea that goes back to a book I read in the '80s about UFOs. First let me say that I realize that as a source for information, it rates right up there with the Institute for Intellegent Design, but bear with me. In the book, it was noted that during UFO sightings, car engines tend to stop running, while once the UFO departs, the car works just fine. Afterwards, mechanics can find nothing wrong with the engine or electrical system. The author hypothesized that some sort of directed beam of microwaves could temporarily short out the car's battery. Sounds like exactly what the Pentagon is looking for; they just need to review the archives at Area 51.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
There was also the interesting case Project X-Ray, a plan that involved tiny timed incendiary devices attached to bats to be released over Japanese cities. The bats would be released at night from special "bat bombs," basically parachuting terraces loaded with bats, and would later roost in Japanese buildings, which were generally quite flammable. The development and use of the atomic bomb negated the need for the project, but an accidental release of armed bats burned many buildings near the development center in a botched test. A later test on a mock Japanese city showed promising results. The key was that the bats would be able to roost unnoticed and that widespread fires would become established before a response could be mounted, and that it required only a few planes to achieve a large area of effect.
FairTax baby!
The solution to aircraft hijackings has be listed in post hijacking reports since the 1960s. Strengthen the flight deck walls and door and keep the door locked. If this had been done 9/11 could never have happened. After all, if the Israeli airline could do it why couldn't everyone else.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Here's an idea for you: broadcast the hijacker transponder code and jam the voice frequencies. After ground stations get no response, a twitch General will order the plane shot down. No sense trying to smuggle a bomb onboard when you can get the Pentagon to do it for you.
Not a typewriter
Using the 'noone can get to the cockpit' thought, have the cockpit be a separate unit entirely: an armoured capsule at the front of the plane. Having it only accessible via an external door, you limit hijacking to before takeoff, or by terrorists with jetpacks. No real risk of forced entry then, and you limit options in a hostage situation (they can't demand control, only negotiate destination).
There's a way to do this right. Read this article about the F-16 GCAS. This is a ground collision avoidance system that works so well it can be used on combat missions, including flying through mountain passes at 500 knots, 200 feet from rock. Pilots call it "You can't fly any lower". When the Auto-GCAS decides a ground collision is imminent, it takes over the aircraft, rolls to wings-level and initiates a pull-up. (In an F-16, the roll is at 180 degrees per second and the pull-up is at 5G; for an airliner, much lower numbers would be configured and recovery would be initiated much sooner.) Read the article; fighter jocks liked the thing, and those guys usually hate letting the automation take over the aircraft.
This would prevent most "controlled flight into terrain" accidents (there are about three of those involving commercial jets per year, worldwide), so there's a big win in having this independent of military/terrorism worries. Once you have a system like this, it can be given "no-fly" areas into which it won't let the plane go. If you're going to enforce "no-fly" zones via hardware, it's better to do it through a system that knows about terrain and is looking at it with radar.
The way to do overrides would be to give the pilot a switch to turn off the system in an emergency, but doing so sends out an emergency transponder signal that this has been done. The ground then has the option of sending up a suitably encrypted signal to turn it back on. This gives a way to handle system failures. If the ground sees a plane heading somewhere it shouldn't be, the ground can force the system back on.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Airbus starts offering something like this. (Airbus takes the position that the aircraft should protect itself against pilot errors. Boeing has the philosophy that the pilot should always be able to override the automation. The Boeing approach worked better back when the typical airline pilot had 10,000 hours, a previous military flying career, and was chosen competitively from a big pool of applicants.)
As someone else pointed out, what gave the 9/11 hijackers an advantage was that SOP was to give in to hijacker demands and everyone would be okay. The authorities could try to catch them later. Now, if anyone tries a hijacking, everyone will try to kill them. The passengers will figure they have nothing to lose since, if they don't try to kill the hijackers, they will all die anyway.
Similar to the upcoming US election results