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To: blam

Flying in formation is a military skill, If the pilot or co-pilot were former military I could see it happening.

As far as the radar is concerned, Most of the current ‘radar’ systems in used to track aircraft are actually transponder systems. A beam from the air traffic control ‘radar’ activates the transponder to cause it to transmit a IFF signal in return. The reason for doing that is obvious, it makes the automation of air traffic control much easier as each flight and aircraft is self-identified.


18 posted on 03/17/2014 1:51:36 PM PDT by The Working Man
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To: The Working Man

It would be interesting to see what kind of flights the pilot was doing on his home simulator.


26 posted on 03/17/2014 1:58:28 PM PDT by bigbob (The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Abraham Lincoln)
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To: The Working Man
Flying in formation is a military skill, If the pilot or co-pilot were former military I could see it happening.

Yes it takes practice. The biggest problem with the theory is that at night, it would be very hard to track down the singapore jet; especially with the transponder turned off. With the transponder on they could track the singapore jet with TCAS up to about 30 miles. With the transponder turned off, it would not be so easy.

32 posted on 03/17/2014 2:04:10 PM PDT by ALPAPilot
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To: The Working Man; Blueman
Flying in formation is a military skill, If the pilot or co-pilot were former military I could see it happening.

Several things point to a military person being in the cockpit. Someone 'trained' by Americans - maybe from Saudi Arabia? A Saudi - flying as a courtesy - sitting in the jump seat for free and not listed as a passenger?

96 posted on 03/17/2014 3:27:24 PM PDT by GOPJ (From a bellwether to an "oh-whateverrrr" in less than a single news cycle. -freeper Fightin Whitey)
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