The threat of an attack on our nation is real. As real as it was on the morning of of September 11th, 2001, when Mohammed Atta slit the throat of my F-14 squadron mate Tom McGuinness on American Airlines flight 11, and flew it into the side of the World Trade Center. A commercial aircraft is a kinetic energy weapon. Fill it with explosives in addition to a full bag of fuel and you have a devastating weapon. Particularly if it is a psychological target that has economic impact.

These aircraft are designed to be simple and efficient to operate. They are easy to start, take off and fly if you only goal is to kill as many people as possible. The hard part is making a profit with them as a transportation system. You want repeat customer. These assholes don't.

With regard to transponders on commercial airlines, they can be placed in a "standby" or OFF mode. Military aircraft transponders have 4 modes which can identify an aircraft by type, unit, and through encryption as a friendly. But they have to be turned on. If I said more, I would have to kill you. :-) There are ways for our fighter and AWACS aircraft to identify aircraft by electronic emissions (passive) or by reflected radar "signatures" from the target aircraft, but you have to be looking for very specific aircraft types to "electronically" identify them. All you need is paint to change the national registry of a commercial aircraft for visual identification. A Boeing is a Boeing. Just ask the Ukrainian assholes who shot a 777 down filled with innocent civilians.
There are a lot of "empty" places south of our border to launch an aircraft of the "commercial" variety that I now fly, to be used as a weapon of mass destruction and psychological warfare.
We must expect those who hate life to try and kill those of us who love life.

Cheers

I saw this. I am skeptical. I wouldn't put it past them to strip some airliners of stuff to sell. there are lots of logistics to moving big planes around, including fuel. Our intelligence should know the answer to that. I'm more worried about sleepers being activated. Two terrorists now have been affiliated with airports. One in Denver and he was arrested, the other one was killed within the last few days fighting with ISIS. It is not far-fetched to plan for coordinated attacks on the US.

Can we post these stories after we get back from the premier? I think it's just a matter of time before there is another large scale attack. The warning signs are there.

So have the arabs who can't fly planes co-opted the USAF again, too?