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From: leichter@yale-com.UUCP (Jerry Leichter)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: arming airliners
Message-ID: <2010@yale-com.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Sep-83 08:19:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: yale-com.2010
Posted: Wed Sep 14 08:19:30 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Sep-83 17:39:51 EDT
References: houca.391
Lines: 28

There are two problems with arming airliners:

(a)  The practical.  Military planes are designed for air combat; civilian
planes are not.  Military planes have a hard time hitting other military
planes; the chances of being able to do anything useful in the way of self
defense is essentially nil.  A fighter can fly at two to three times the
speed of an airliner, probably has close to 10 times the available acceleration,
is a MUCH smaller radar target to begin with (both from sheer size and deli-
berate design) and has electronic protection equipment and probably some armor
to boot.  Not to mention the fact that a weapon system that would only become
available for use after a plane had been hit, during a time when the crew
would have all its attention on trying to keep the plane flying to a safe
landing spot, would never get used anyway.  (Civilian airliners are pretty
tough.  Remember that the KAL plane that was hit in 1978 landed safely.)

(b)  The legal.  I don't know the exact statement of the laws involved, but
civilian airliners, like ships, if armed fall into one of two catagories:
pirates, who anyone can shoot down at will; and privateers, who are legally
not civilian but military craft.  (The difference depends on whether the
armaments were authorized by a recognized state.)

So...all in all, not a practical idea.  (I'll admit I thought of it, too.)

Now, if we made a policy of flying a fighter or two along to protect these
flights - staying in international airspace, of course - that would be a
different story (although it would be very expensive to do...).
						-- Jerry
				decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale