Why hasn't Fossett been found?

[Mz Pip]

I thought we had the technology to spot vans carrying WMD from orbit but we can't find a missing plane in Nevada.

Perhaps we really can't spot vans carrying WMD and the whole satellite technology is a big hype. Sadly, not finding Fossett after 6 days has made me even more cynical about all of our super-spy capabilities.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[MonkeyFunk]

1. spy satellites are good

if you know where to look.

He's lost in a big open space - hard to find under any circumstances.

[seemslikeadream]

2. with all those Air Force guys looking for him

ya think they could find him

[Kingofalldems]

3. I wonder if he decided to flee the scene for a while

Probably not, but stranger things have happened.

[babylonsister]

4. I hate to say it, but if he crashed and burned, they may never

find him or the site it happened at.

[Zywiec]

5. They killed him

because he flew too close to the nuclear B-52 and was going to expose their secret plan.....

[Rosa Luxemburg]

36. who's they?

[Jim Sagle]

6. Nobody cares.

[valerief]

7. What's his financial situation like? Is he Ken Laying himself? nt

[mr_hat]

8. Gila Monster, I reckon.

[Nevernose]

33. Highly unlikely in Northern Nevada

Which is not the Mojave, but an entirely different selection of desert. Not impossible, though.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. He's in an mountainous tribal region I suppose.

[seemslikeadream]

12. mountainous tribal region

(^o^)

[Mz Pip]

22. Maybe

bin Laden has him. :shrug:

I just find it strange that with all the super sophisticated technology we have that supposedly can spot a fleeing terrorist, we can't find a damn downed aircraft.

But Clinton was supposed to be able to get bin Laden years ago with much less sophisticated technology.

Maybe that's the answer to my question.

It's Clinton's fault.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[krispos42]

24. It's an apples-and-oranges thing

With satellites and such, you are typically watching a fixed location, or taking pictures of fixed locations and looking for changes.

It's easy to watch, say, a nuclear power plant and count trucks. Or compare a suspicious terrorist camp from a year ago to a month ago.

But trying to find signs of something new among the millions of acres of the West... well, that's something different.

Try it with Google Earth sometimes. Go to like, say, Nevada, zoom in really close, and try to find something interesting. An abandonded car, for example.

[Nevernose]

34. LOL -- abandoned truck

If you google earth my house, you'll find not only the place that was being built five years ago, but the truck I reported to my homeowners' association as being abandoned just last year.

"But the tags expired back in '88!"
"Well, that doesn't mean it was abandoned ion front of your house, does it?"
"According to the HOA contract I signed, it does, actually."
"Oh. Well, then we'll look into it."
"I don't want you to look into it. I want you to tow it. There are spider webs in the wheel webs, for god's sake. I'm paying you guys darn near two hundred dollars a month. Tow the freaking car; it's been there for years."
"Sir, we're not responsible for you insect infestations..."

[pa28]

10. That's really remote territory.

Just last month there was a missing aviator found in the area from a crash 65 years ago.

However, if anybody is resourceful enough to survive and find a way out I suppose it would be Steve Fossett.

[Annces]

11. And I thought he was Mr. Gadget guy

Why does he not have a homing device. I feel bad for him. He seemed to have a need for danger.

[seemslikeadream]

14. He did a $4,000 dollar one

[Critters2]

29. I hope he kept the receipt. nt

[Kutjara]

17. Apparently, the plane did have a homing device.

Unfortunately, according to one report I read, the device wouldn't work in the event of a crash or immersion in water. Which rather begs the question, what fucking good is it?

[Dead_Parrot]

18. WTF?

There's some quality equipment for you. :eyes:

[The Straight Story]

25. He also had a watch with a homing device

all he has to do is pull out the antenna on it.

[Ian David]

13. Maybe he doesn't WANT to be found?

Besides, isn't Fosstt getting killed in a routine flight, in a regular plane, a little like The Crocodile Hunter being killed by a stingray?

Or a famous NASCAR driver getting killed in a golf cart accident?

[POAS]

15. His plane will

mysteriously turn up 30 to 40 years from now in the middle of a Mongolian desert looking a good a the day it took off.

[seemslikeadream]

16. maybe he'll be found with Amelia

[Gregorian]

19. His emergency beacon isn't transmitting.

That is one big reason why.

[sleipnir]

20. Well, they found 6 other crash sites, but not his apparently

Here's an interesting read:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2414579.ece

[lib2DaBone]

21. Missing nuke?

Could this search for Fossett be a cover up for a missing nuke? It is being reported that 6 nukes left North Dakota and only 5 landed at Barkesdale. (looking for sources now) This could be a tinfoil topic, but it was reported that the B-52 did not fly in a straight line from Minot to Barkesdale. It flew in a circular route that took it near Nevada where Fossett was located. Very Strtange. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/09/six_of_our_nukes_are_missing_d.html?nav=rss_blog

[soothsayer]

30. yeah, this is my new fav conspiracy theory!

he's just a cover for thr REAL biz at hand, which is a search for the missing nuke which was either ACCIDENTALLY dropped or PURPOSEFULLY as part of a false flag, but oops it was a dud. fossett is safely in a bunker and will be 'found' after the nuke is recoverd. also somehow supposed to tie into the rumor of the radiation detectors in SF going nuts.

[lib2DaBone]

35. US Military Looking for Fossett ?

But I wonder why the US Military is looking for Fossett, a Private Pilot? http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123066968

August 30th news reports the Chinese hack Air Force Computers. Live Nukes loaded by accident and it goes unquestioned. September 3rd.. nuke warhead goes missing. September 14 NORAD/Air Force plans complete stand-down to examine practices? (I hope so)

[rucky]

23. Alien abduction. n/t

[datadiva]

26. My son lives in Nevada

Right on the edge of where the desert region starts. It's really desolate and there are areas aplenty where a plane could go down and never be found. I'm sure they will find him but think about the fact that so far they have found the wreckage of 6 planes they hadn't found before just because of the intense search. It's a huge area to search simply because he didn't file a flight plan.

[TwilightZone]

27. The search area is something like 10,000 square miles.

Takes a while to search that much area.

The difference between tracking vans from orbit and trying to find a crashed plane is that you know where the vans are to begin with.

[rurallib]

28. Why hasn't Bin Laden been found?

[Mutineer]

31. They have found the wreckage of 6 plane crashes though, some decades old

in the hunt for him.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

32. I used to be a SAR pilot for Civil Air Patrol,

and you'd be surprised how difficult it is to spot the wreckage of a small plane, especially in a wilderness area. A crashed airplane usually doesn't look like an airplane at all, more like a nondescript heap of trash -- and not a very big heap at that. Depending how it crashed, the wreckage might be spread over a wide area, or crumpled up in one place, or completely burned up. You can fly over the missing aircraft a dozen times and not see it until maybe the light catches it a certain way. Maybe it's in a lake or in a grove of trees, and maybe it will stay missing for years until found by hikers or hunters.

And you're flying low, the air is rough, especially if the weather is hot; and the guy in the back seat is seriously thinking of puking, and the observers can't even use field glasses because they can't hold them steady and if they try to look through them for too long they really will puke. There might not be an emergency locater transmitter signal, since they don't always work, depending how the impact occurred or whether the batteries were good. And you fly back and forth all day, searching a grid or a track, and maybe you'll find what you're looking for, and maybe you won't. It's not easy, at all.

[Hissyspit]

37. Hollywood glamorizes what spy satellites can do. There is a difference between geosynchronous orbit,

geostationary orbit, etc. There is not a fixed orbit satellite over every point of the globe, and the satellites with cameras are busy doing other things, too. The scene from "Clear and Present Danger" where Harrison Ford's Ryan character watches the NSA or CIA (can't remember) assasinations in a terrorist camp by satellite is more accurate then some other depicitons in movies. They have only a few minutes to aim the cameras where they want.

This does not mean that you should not be concerned what your government is doing with these monitoring satellites, of course.

Types of orbits:

Box orbit • Circular orbit • Ecliptic orbit • Elliptic orbit • Highly Elliptical Orbit • Graveyard orbit • Hyperbolic trajectory • Inclined orbit • Osculating orbit • Parabolic trajectory • Capture orbit • Escape orbit • Semi-synchronous orbit • Subsynchronous orbit • Synchronous orbit • Parking orbit

Earth-centered orbits - Geosynchronous orbit • Geostationary orbit • Sun-synchronous orbit • Low Earth orbit • Medium Earth Orbit • Molniya orbit • Near equatorial orbit • Orbit of the Moon • Polar orbit • Tundra orbit

NAVSTAR GPS satellites are in semi-synchronous orbit, if I'm not mistaken.

[Poiuyt]

38. Maybe he was on a non-stop flight

He's still going