C17 Decoy In Afghanistan? Not.

First things first. Since most people don’t know the difference between “idle” and “max power”, let’s observe a 747 go from idle to max power (Max power is relative – a 747 can still take off on two engines, with more “max” power). 

When these jumbos taxi, they don’t typically ride the throttle in the way you’d imagine like driving a car.  To begin moving, they’d apply a bit of throttle to start the plane moving, then drop back to idle as the plane slowly moves along the taxiway.  For a 3- or 4-engined plane, it’s typical to only “goose” the throttle on 2 engines and leave the others at idle.  Once in a while, they may lay on a little more throttle again before backing returning to idle to keep the plane moving steadily, but it’s really all about fuel management. 

You don’t want to burn gallons of fuel, only to brake again because you’re moving too fast.  So their goal is to use as little fuel as possible to get to the end of the runway for takeoff.  This is the same reason that when flying, they don’t fly as fast as possible, when the fuel consumption goes up.  Rather they fly at a pre-calculated speed that gives them the best burn rate.  For a 747, that could be around 70-85% power, or even less if they have a hefty tailwind.

So watch this 747 taxi to the end of the runway and watch exactly when the people start getting blown away.  At 1:05, the plane is in position and ready for takeoff.  At 1:08, the engines start spooling up and doesn’t reach “max” until 1:17, when the pilot releases the brakes and begins taking off.  Again, “max” is relative, as it is pre-calculated for estimated weight, temperature, length of runway etc, so yes, max could be less than absolute max, or even higher than max takeoff setting.

A 747-400 produces 59k~63k pounds of thrust per engine, depending on engine manufacturer.  The older less efficient 747s engines produced around 46k to 50k lbs per engine.

A F-14-B Tomcat produces a max of 28k pounds of thrust per engine, 32.5k with afterburners.  The twin engines combined produce nearly the same as what one 747 engine produces.  Watch the green vests and how close they are to the engine intakes while hooking up to the catapult.

 

Let’s talk real world specifications:

C-17 Specs: http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/C-17Spr09.pdf

Wing Span: 169 ft 9 in
Wing Span (Without Winglets): 165 ft
Wing Area: 3,800 sqft
Horizontal Stabilizer Area: 845 sqft
Height: 55 ft 1 in
Length: 174 ft

F117 Engine Thrust: 40,400 lbs each

Max Takeoff Gross Weight: 585,000 lbs
Operating Empty Weight: 276,500 lbs
Max Payload Weight: 170,900 lbs
Max Fuel Weight: 180,806 lbs
Max Wing Loading (without flaps): 161.84 lb/sqft (575,000 lbs/3,800 sqft)
Empty Wing loading 72.76 lb/sqft

Shortest Takeoff Distance 3,700 ft (unloaded)
Shortest Landing Distance 2,300 ft (unloaded)

The flaps down approach speed of a loaded C-17 is about 115 knots. To give exact speeds under varying loads etc would be classified.

By comparison, the Cessna 172 is a plane first designed and built in 1958.  Nothing high-tech about its run of the mill NACA wing profile https://www.cessnaflyer.org/specifications-172.html

Standard Empty Weight 1,639 lbs
Maximum Useful Load 818 lbs
Baggage Allowance 120 lbs
Wing Area 174.4 sq ft
Wing Loading 14.1 lbs/sqft

Now that we’ve addressed the wing loading of real life airplanes, lets talk about relative airspeed.

1 Knot is equal to about 1.15 miles per hour.

With this set of wing loading parameters; a Cessna takes off at a speed of about 70 knots (80 mph).  However, the flaps up stall speed is only 53 knots (61 mph). A stall speed is the relative speed at which a wing ceases to produce enough lift to counter gravity.

Mind you this is not the speed that the Cessna needs to be at, as measured over the ground; it is the combined ground speed of the plane plus/minus the wind speed. So if you’re flying into a headwind of 30 knots, your ground speed has to be above 23 knots (53 stall – 30 headwind) to avoid stalling. And that’s the bare minimum, because if the wind speed drops for a few seconds, you’re falling due to being too slow, so you need about a 5-10 knot cushion. If you have a tail wind of 30 knots, you need to travel more than 83 knots (30 tailwind + 53 stall) over the ground to avoid stalling .

Here’s a video of a guy landing his plane with zero ground speed or even a little minus airspeed. The reason he can do that, is because his Piper J-3 Cub (1st designed and built in 1937) has a wing loading of only 6.84 lb/ft²

 Likewise with take offs

 

If this “inflatable decoy” C-17 weighed 50,000 lbs, about the weight of a overloaded semi trailer. The wing loading would be 50,000 lbs / 3800sq ft = 13.16 lbs/sqft. But that’s not including the horizontal stabilizer which technically adds to the wing loading of a decoy. So let’s recalculate that…50,000 lbs / (3800 + 845) sq ft = 10.76 lbs/ft!!

Compared to the little Piper Cub in the video, the C-17 has a whole lotta wing to overcome that measly 10.76 lbs/ft, it is after all, designed for short takeoffs and landings.

So let’s say it weighed 100,000 lbs, never mind the expense of building a pointless decoy that weighed this much. The wing loading would be 100,000 lbs / 3800sq ft = 26.3 lbs/sq ft. But that’s not including the horizontal stabilizer which technically adds to the wing loading of a decoy. So let’s recalculate that…100,000 lbs / (3800 + 845)sq ft = 21.5 lbs/ft!!

This doesn’t even factor in what it would take to move around a lumbering 100,000, let alone 50,000 pound decoy.

Furthermore, it also doesn’t factor in the advanced high wing lift coefficient of the wings, meaning it takes less pressure to lift the C-17 than if it had a wing profile of that of the Cessna 172.

It’s my contention at even at 100k pounds, the decoy would have to be tied down at any wind higher than 25 or 30 miles an hour to prevent it from “taking off” or at least moving out of place. IOW, if towed at 10-15pmh, it would be unstable as the wings generate lift.

The point of a decoy is to fool observers from a distance, not up close. And this video is not proof of a decoy

This is the freeze frame that everyone uses to claim it’s a decoy, yet, here’s the same plane a few frames later…A lot more details. The blurry imagery can be attributed to the lower resolution of older phones, as well as fingerprint smearing the lens.

Sorry to bust the phantasmagoric illusion. Actually, not sorry, because it’s not even airplane experts passing these “fake but accurate” stories around.


I find gematria interesting. But I also find gematria useful for making up wild claims out of thin air to confirm a desired result, such as what SerialBrain2 did back in his heyday. At first, I was hooked when WarDrummer and LT from And We Know were doing SB2 decodes, but after a while, it was getting to be a stretch. Even War Drummer and AWK realized they were being played by a nonetheless genius psychopath.  And these days, who even follows SB2 anymore?  Like Q says, be careful who you follow…

The way I see it, sometimes Fake News can’t help but show the truth, especially when something happens spontaneously.  Karzai International airport is not a secure air force base, like Khandahar or Bagram.  There were only a handful of soldiers to help evacuate the Americans and others in Kabul, when all hell broke loose and thousands of Afghanis bum rushed the airport.  Yet some want to believe that the blackhats or whitehats choreographed everything from having a particular airplane with “911” on it, to people mobbing an airplane that just landed to tossing duffel bags from the airplane to sticking a mannequin to flop around from the gear door while in flight.  Occam’s razor anyone?


The claim was made that because you can’t see the door, ergo it’s a decoy. Here you can see the blurry outlines of it circled in red

This is a high resolution image of 02-1109. If you look carefully at the “911′ images & video, you will see much of the same details, albeit at a low grainy resolution. But they’re there; especially the 2 pitot tubes sticking out and casting a shadow. Likewise, the white plate in the lower half of the ground view window. Also visible on the “decoy”

I’ve seen others point out other things to prove it’s not a real plane. Like, “there’s no engine inside the nacelles”. The “black hole” proves there’s no engine. Really? With this kind of lighting, you’re not going to see a spinning engine.

A head on view of the engines, maintainers replacing the inboard engine.

Boeing brochure on the F117 engine. Notice that the 1st stage fan is set back about 4 ft from the lip.  The engine itself, measured at the 1st stage is 84.5 inches, just over 7 ft in diameter.  The civilian variant is used on the 757, like Trump Force 1.
Below is a “naked” F117 engine

People have said “02-1109” has its wings removed at McChord AFB and is “enjoying a wash every day…” I followed the link and came to this page. Of the 4 images, none of them are with the wings removed. If wings are removed, it’s for a purpose and most likely would have been performed at Tinker AFB, OKC, and would have been done with the intent of reinstalling after repairs.  In any case, I’ve searched for any image of a C-17 sans wings to no avail.

In AF speak, “Wash.” (red circle) is the abbreviation for “Washington”, like “Mich.” is short for Michigan.  The arrows point to front and main landing gear doors, which is what some of the Afghanis are hanging or standing on.


As for people sitting on the main landing gear doors, just how large are these doors? The following 3 gives perspective.

Nose landing gear for perspective

Painted windows? This from “Stars & Lies” about a C-17 making an emergency landing at Kandahar AB Oct 2020.  If you watch the video again, you will see the color and transparency shift as the plane crosses the camera’s field of view

It’s an inflatable decoy?  OK.  Have you ever seen real decoys?  They’re meant to fool observers from a distance, not up close.


These are what inflatable decoys, by http://www.inflatechdecoy.com, look like. They are so light, they have to be anchored down.

Assuming the USAF is a party to the deep state; surely we would have heard of them bringing said decoy to Kabul, a civilian international airport, not Bagram which was an Air Base, set it up, then recruit a bunch of dumb Afghanis to run next to the decoy as it’s towed around the airfield. Confirmation bias much?


F-22 decoy by https://i2kmilitary.com/military-inflatables-gallery/

Note the static tiedowns.  It’s one thing to build a decoy F22, quite another to build a C-17 which would require 10x the material and inherent issues like maintaining structural rigidity. One would practically need to fly in a C-17 just to deliver said decoy and equipment to Karzai International airport.

As for those claiming that the C17 is a decoy, just not an inflatable, they need to bring the receipts of the existence of a C-17 decoy.

Yes they are laughing at us. “They” being those who started the “fake news” that it’s a decoy, and they are also laughing at our confirmation bias for making it go viral.

This is a classic case of Gell-Mann Amnesia.  You know we can’t trust the media, yet we believe the fake stories claiming that the plane doesn’t exist as depicted in the video because…

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” 
– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

Plain and simple, these idiot tribesmen don’t know any better than not to surround a moving plane, so the pilots had to move slowly at idle, probably with just two engines running. And no, the engines won’t literally suck anyone up at idle. I once watched a yellow bird, about the size of a canary “escort” a 777 engine, mere 5 to 10 feet away from the intake for several minutes from my window, before flitting away, as we taxied towards takeoff in Honolulu.

So why are the Afghanis laughing?  Because they think they’re getting out of Dodge on a magic carpet.  For the same reason they do this when traveling by other means.  For the same reason, they will first stand on a toilet seat, then squat to do their business, wipe with their hand, then go over to the sink and stick each foot in the sink to wash off the splatter or splash back before washing their hands.  It’s how they roll.


Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport on August 16, 2021

Once 02-1109 was clear of the crowd, the crew probably had no idea that some were still hanging on to the wheel well doors.  Here the plane is taxiing along at a faster clip, about 10 to 15 knots getting ready to take off.  Most likely, nearly all of the young men hitching a ride on the wheelwell doors here jumped off when the plane got to the end of the runway, while a few fools tried to find a stowaway spot inside the wheelwells.  Only to meet their grisly end.

Afghanis hitching a ride on the main landing gear doors.  C-17s are loud, but they’re not shrieking loud like older engine technology.  And the flaps are up, meaning exhaust air is not deflected towards the ground.

Poor Afghani trapped by main landing gear door and body flailing against the body. Only thing to do is extend the gears to dump the body then close them again.


Bottomline, some people did something and paid for it with their lives

All that for a Deep State LARP?

Remains of 17 year old stowaway.
This is the teenage Afghan national youth team footballer who reportedly died when he became trapped in the landing gear of a US evacuation flight in a desperate attempt to flee the Taliban. He attended a prestigious international school in Kabul alongside the children of diplomats and his social media profile is one of an aspiring influencer, filled with western-influenced modelling style photos. His football team the Khorosan Lions reported that he had been among the teen’s videoed clinging to the side of a US C-17 transport. Mr Anwari’s remains were reportedly discovered in the wheel well of a US C-17 transport jet when it arrived in Qatar, after the plane had taken off from Kabul with despairing Afghans clinging to the fuselage on Monday. Afghan journalist Babak Taghvaee said: ‘Very sad to hear that one of the youths who tried to leave #Kabul through grabbing the landing gear bay of a #USAF’s C-17A transport airplane few days ago was a player of #Afghanistan’s National youth soccer team, Zaki Anvari. ‘His body parts were found in the landing gear bay.’

Oh wait, what’s this? Air Force launches investigation after human remains found in C-17 flying out of Kabul. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/08/17/air-force-launches-investigation-after-human-remains-found-in-c-17-flying-out-of-kabul/

Exactly what I told a friend of mine when we first saw the video of bodies falling out because they couldn’t hold on as the gear retracted.  I said, “I’ll bet whenever that plane gets to where it’s going, they’re going to find some bodies crushed and mangled to death inside the wheelwells”.

As far as I know, there’s been about 125 known cases of wheelwell stowaway causalities.  Never underestimate the “stupidity” of desperate people who have nothing to lose.  How many were never discovered because although they managed to avoid being crushed, they froze to death then fell out, already dead from hypoxia and hypothermia into the waters before the plane landed?  I do know of one case where somebody actually survived having his blood frozen when they found him, still clinging to the gear in a frozen death grip, while his friend died.  They managed to thaw him out and resuscitate him and he currently lives in London.

Let this be an object lesson in trust but verify.  We wanted to believe something sinister about “1109”, but 02-1109 is nearly 20 years old and has been to SWA, including Afghanistan umpteen times. 

The week before Kabul, was spotted flying a training loop around McChord AFB.  As of Sunday, 29 August, 02-1109 was seen flying, as RCH625, from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, back to McChord AFB, Wash.  https://planefinder.net/flight/RCH625/time/2021-08-29T18:45:00.000Z/speed/1

Search results for “02-1109” and no, I’m not going to pay for a subscription so I can unlock all the details.

MonkeyWerx loves airplanes, but he doesn’t “know” know airplanes and sometimes I clench my teeth when I hear him get something wrong, but I chalk it up to him not being a pilot or an aircraft maintenance guy, that worked around airplanes for a living. In his case, I don’t chalk it up to willful deceit.  Just a tendency to lean on his biases into how he interprets events.

But the Chicken Little folks running around with “it’s a decoy”, clearly haven’t a clue.  I’ll also bet they believe that if a Colt .45 was emptied inside the plane at 35,000 ft, people would be sucked out of the plane from the resulting massive hole.  Yet, the continue to look for proofs that it can’t possibly be a C-17 moving with people around and under it.  So they show us cars getting blown over by a 747, while neglecting to inform the viewer that the engines are at max power.  My rule is simple; “false in one thing, false in all“.  Unfortunately, there are too many among us that will ignore inconvenient fact just to play up to our biases.

That said, I have no opinion one way or another, as to the claims that we airlifted 20 Afghani refugees for every American evacuated.  The pictures could be photoshopped or not.  Or that we left 80 billion dollars worth of equipment behind… Too much information swirling.  Since we have no way of proving one way or the other, or even who is generating the disinfo, I won’t even dwell on them.  Except to note that we’re still in a war, and in scenarios where I can’t do anything one way or another about it, all I can do is make a note of it and wait to see what comes of it, even if it is days, weeks, months or years from now.

Or as Confucius would say, “Too soon to tell“.

COVFEFE!!!

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