[FoRK] Hijacking? Training? Dead radio?

[Bill Humphries]

See http://community.livejournal.com/mountain_view/219343.html

It have been SOFIA, http://www.sofia.usra.edu/News/news_2007/12_20_07/index.html

> If another flight is required, it would occur in early January after  
> a break for the holiday season. The SOFIA will then be flown to  
> NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., for an open- 
> house exhibit of the aircraft and telescope for Ames personnel. The  
> SOFIA will then be flown to Dryden's newly established Aircraft  
> Operations Facility in nearby Palmdale, Calif., where it will be  
> based during additional development, flight testing and its  
> operational lifetime. Once at Palmdale, the SOFIA will undergo major  
> telescope subsystem installation and integration in preparation for  
> the next phase of flight tests with the telescope's external cavity  
> door open, scheduled to begin in late 2008.

Dunno why it gets a fighter escort.

On Jan 14, 2008, at 6:58 PM, Stephen D. Williams wrote:

> Nothing on the news...  I can't imagine they were doing an  
> exercise.  The airliner was clearly not military or Air Force One.   
> It had to be a suspected hijacking.  Maybe their radio was out,  
> although I can't imagine that an airliner pilot doesn't carry a  
> handheld.  I do in Cessnas.  (I lost all electrical, and therefore  
> radios, just after leaving ADIZ on my last solo cross country.  My  
> future plan to buy a radio was accelerated.  ;-) )

-- whump