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Alleged Satellite Photo Says Ukraine Shootdown of MH17
theshowmecanuck (703852) writes A group calling itself the Russian Union of Engineers has published a photograph, picked up by many news organizations (just picked one, Google it yourself to find more), claiming to show that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter plane. The interesting thing is the very quick ad hoc crowd sourced debunking of the photograph using tools from Google maps, online photos/data, to their own domain knowledge backed up with the previous information. It would be interesting to understand who the "Russian Union of Engineers" are and why they in particular were chosen to release this information.
It is probably a fake, but Ukrainian pilots are indeed crappy. They lack training and flight hours. Here is an example of how they fly
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
For a decent debunking go to the Bellingcat blog. Also saw some graphic somewhere that clearly showed that the perspective was wrong by an order of magnitude, either the plane was 1 km wide or the satellie was orbiting at 20 km or so. This fake is so bad, that I think the only target audience is the Russian public, most of whom believe everything that Putin's propaganda machine feeds them. I have a Russian colleague, whom I normally regard reasonably high, that believes some really strange facts about this incident. She probably gets all her info from Russian websites.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
It is a fake. A very bad, undeniable, fake.
Say the satellite is orbiting at 200km. The planes are flying at 10km. (I'm being generous on both these figures.) The planes are only 5% closer to the satellite than the ground, so perspective would only make the aircraft look 5% larger (barely enough to notice) than they would on the ground.
Now look at the satellite photo again. Compare the fighter to the roads and farm plots it's flying over, and compare the 777 to the terrain features and especially the airport (I think) on the left side of the photo.
(If you're curious, the fighter in real life has a 15m wingspan, the Boeing a 60m wingspan.)
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
It's on Channel 1 http://www.1tv.ru/news/leontie...
Can't get more mainstream Russian media than that, so it's the real deal, not some attempt to smear Russia with a bad photoshop job.
> that the airplane was hit by a continuous rod warhead
It absolutely was not. The images of the fragments *clearly* show shrapnel, and there isn't any evidence of anything hitting the plane that's longer than maybe an inch.
If one is to believe the Russians (ha!) the picture shows a jet which is clearly not an Su-25 but rather a more modern Mig.
First, look at the wings. An Su-25 has a very shallow swept wing design which is because it is for ground attack. You need wings which are stable at slow speeds.
The jet in the forgery clearly has very sharp swept back wings consistent with all modern jet fighters.
In addition, if you look closely at the picture the Russians provided, there are no pods on the wingtips of the jet shown. Now look at the Su-25. Pods on each wing tip.
Also, the elevators (the small wings at the back of the jet) are too large in the picture provided. The Su-25 has much smaller, more narrow ones.
Second, look at the nose of the jet in the forgery. Long and pointy. Now go look at a picture of an Su-25. Shorter and more stubby, similar to a Harrier.
Finally, there is issue of ceiling. The Su-25 has a max ceiling of 23,000 feet. Most 777s fly from 35,000 to roughly 60,000. If the Su-25 was flying at roughly the same altitude as the jetliner, that means the pilot was flying higher than Mt. Everest without any oxygen because the Su-25 does not have a pressurized cabin.
Granted, none of this will matter to the Russian people, but anyone who has two brain cells can clearly see this isn't even close to being an Su-25 as the Russians claim.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Upper stage? What fucking upper stage? BUK missiles (like most of the modern surface-to-air missiles) are single stage solid propellant rockets. BUK rockets in particular produce VERY visible white plumes from aluminum in the fuel (which turns into aluminum oxide).