CougarCorner

I read this today and learned a few new things.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... rpt-228001

For example, I had no idea previously that the US Air Force jets took to the sky to bring down hijacked flight 93, but not with missiles or guns, but by ramming it, thus having to sacrifice themselves to bring down the plane.

I understand why fighter jets aren't housed with live missiles but I would think they would have had gun ammo. I just looked up and read that some speculate that the scrambled jets at least had some training ammo in them. I don't know how accurate this is since it was just a post on an Internet site with no reference, but:

Post 9/11 most fighter bases in the nation keep at least two Hardened Aircraft Shelter, or HAS, housed birds in a 'hot' condition, that is, fully fueled, 520 rounds, 2 x AIM-9s, 2 x AIM-120s, with the INS aligned and two pilots keeping watch round the clock for the alert.

Also, I have heard that Israel has the fastest scramble time of any air force in the world due to their location and the poximity of their enemies. This article says "The average Scramble time in case of any emergency should take around 4 to 5 minutes." Granted, it is post 9/11.

I don't want to say no one, but most people did not think America would get attacked on it's on soil and thus I guess why our fighter jets were not ready. Maybe they also thought 4-5 minutes would have been too long?