You may want to save the links below about Stingers, MANPADS, and all that. In case there's a contest to see who has the most links about Stingers, you'll have a huge head start on everyone. I was just studying all the possible theories discussed here:
AA flight 587 voice recording, about turbulence:
http://www.rumormillnews.net/cgi-bin/config.pl?read=14968
If they're saying they developed turbulence early on in the flight, wouldn't the maintenance-messing-with-the-engine remote-viewing idea make sense now? Or we can go with the Infrasonic theory too I suppose. There should be someone who can plow through all the possibilities here and see what the most probable cause is.
Directed Energy Weapon idea, using Infrasonic waves:
http://www.rumormillnews.net/cgi-bin/config.pl?read=14894
MANPADS & STINGER idea:
http://www.rumormillnews.net/cgi-bin/config.pl?read=14949
Gateway National Recreation Area maps:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/new_york.html
Friends of Rockaway have a lot of info on Far Rockaway's environment:
http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/friends.htm
===== MANPADS & STINGER search
Be sure to check out the word MANPADS in US patents at http://www.uspto.gov too:
Patent No. 6267039 and Patent No. 5283427
MANPADS photo is in here:
http://147.71.210.21/gallery/gallery2.htm
Outline of the Russian family of MANPADS:
http://www.wonderland.org.nz/outline_of_the_russian_family_of.html
Stinger used in MANPADS:
http://twa800.com/images/stinger.htm
What weapons do Navy Seals use? Look:
http://www.geocities.com/navyseals_2002/weapons.htm
The FIM-92A Stinger:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/stinger.htm
http://www.aeronautics.ru/samus.htm
http://www.voodoo.cz/ah64/fim92.html
http://www.anadef.com/fim92.htm
http://home11.inet.tele.dk/blackice/Stinger.htm
http://www2.netcom.com/~chadeast/missiles/fim92.html
http://home.inreach.com/marine/usmc14.html
http://ahpra.org:8080/tube.htm
The older system was FIM-43A Redeye. In 1982 the FIM-92A's were used.
http://home.inreach.com/marine/usmc14.html
There are other surface-to-air missiles, like the FGM-77A Dragon.
Surface-to-Air missile list From http://www.kaitseliit.ee/Relvad/PortableSAM/MissileIndex.html
USA
...FIM-43 Redeye
...FIM-92 Stinger
Russia
...9K32M Strela-2M(SA-7 Grail)
...9K34 Strela-3(SA-14 Gremlin)
...9K38 Igla(SA-18 Grouse)
...9K310 Igla-1(SA-16 Gimlet)
...Igla-2
UK
...Starburst
...Starstreak
China
...QW-1
Japan
...Type 91/93 Kin-SAM/Mobile Kin-SAM
You wanted to see Russia's Igla/Strela thing, right? OK:
http://www.mo-rs.si/mors/slo_iso/oboroslo9.htm
Don't forget Norway's RB-70-11 too!
http://ahpra.org:8080/tube.htm
MILNET's Battlefield missiles. Neato compilation!
http://www.milnet.com/milnet/bttlmssl.htm
Probert E-Text Encyclopaedia: Go to start page for topics other than war.
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/war.htm
Derek Bridges: more links than we know what to do with.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/o/dob104/aviation/
(Above link has an interesting but slow-loading Missles page.)
Current Designations Of U.S. Unmanned Military Aerospace Vehicles:
http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/missiles.html
: From: "design"
: Date: Wed Nov 14, 2001 8:19 pm
: Subject: Stinger - The truth that dare not speak its name
: Who would have thought that an aircraft engine with an
: impeccable 30 year production history could undergo such an
: unprecidented total failure as to cause Monday's flight 587
: disaster. GE's CF6 series of engines have clocked up more
: than 212 million flight hours, more than any other
: commercial aircraft engine ever produced - thats the
: equivalent of one engine running 24 hours a day, 365 days a
: year for about 23,000 years.
: Aircraft engines come apart more frequently than you would
: imagine, in fact part of the design criteria for engines is
: to provide "containment" within the engine
: casing. Composites of ballistically resistant material are
: used to trap projectiles such as fan blades, should they
: break off. Perhaps the most famous crash caused by
: "catastrophic" engine failure was the Souix City
: DC10 crash in July 1989, an engine on the United Airlines
: flight 232 broke up severing flight controls, the resulting
: crash landing claimed more than a hundred lives - though
: there were many survivors.
: For the GE-CF6 engine to have done what is claimed a new
: category of engine failure would need to be invented, it is
: completely unheard of for an engine to cause the major
: airframe damage that flight 587 suffered.
: Flight 587's fuselage disintergrated in midair, in the same
: way an airframe would break apart when hit by 3kg of high
: explosive travelling at Mach 2.2.
: Never heard of MANPADS? - "Manportable Air Defense
: System" the MANPADS system weighs 34.5 pounds and
: consists of the missile, disposable launch tube, detachable
: gripstock, and integral IFF (Identification Friend or Foe)
: system, more commonly known as a Stinger.
: Guess who are the most adept and successful users of Stinger
: missiles?, if you thought the country that developed and
: manufactured them you would be wrong. The US gave the
: Afgans over 1000 Stingers in the 80's during which time
: they downed a total of 270 Soviet aircraft (at a 79% combat
: success rate). Experts note that the Afghans used them with
: such skill against the Soviets in the 1980s that the
: Stingers acquired the deadliest record against low-flying
: aircraft of any weapon since World War II. Since that time
: the US has been trying to retrieve unused Stingers with
: little or no success.
: A Stinger is fire and forget, this means once you have
: "acquired" your target in its sights and launched
: the missile does the rest, homing on the target with its
: cryogenically cooled IR system. At 1.5 seconds from launch
: the stinger is going at Mach 2.2, the missile has a six
: second burn time and a maximum range of 24,000 feet,
: although the unclassified (effective) range is 4 kilometers
: (13,120 feet).
: Flight 587 was climbing over Jamaica Bay at about 4000 feet,
: anyone launching a Stinger from the seclusion of the
: Gateway National Recreation Area would do so knowing the
: missile would be in the air for a minimum amount of time -
: perhaps 3 seconds or less. People living in the area would
: naturally ignore the aircraft, such is the frequency of
: traffic in the area, only when the missile exploded on
: impact tearing the engine from its pylon and spewing fuel
: from the crippled aircraft did anyone start to take notice.
: Any evidence of a rocket plume would be lost to onlookers
: as they stared at the last moments of the Airbus and its
: helpless passengers. Eye witnesses in the area talk of a
: "sonic boom" , was this the Stinger as it broke
: the sound barrier 1.5 seconds from launch?
