What's the truth about 50 cal guns vs. jetliners?

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Kurush, I am corrected. There is a magic spot on a DC-80 where a failure of a single part brings down the plane. I'm quite surprised by that. I note that the DC-80 is an old airplane, and I think designers have gotten more safety-focused since then.

But none of this has anything to do with 50 cals. You could have a terrorist camped out near every airport in the US taking shots with 50 cal rifles every day and it would cause a lot of expensive repairs, it might kill an unlucky passenger if the bullet happened to hit him, and it would cause a lot of planes to have to land and make repairs, but I still don't think it would take down a plane. Maybe if they did it for a hundred years they would eventually get just the right shot.

Going back to the original subject, as Patrick said, they won't mess around with rifles that have barely any chance of working when they can use a known-to-be-effective method like a bomb.
 
okay, so we know that hitting the plane itself would extremely difficult, let alone hitting any crucial component. so rather than endlessly debate astronomically improbable what ifs, why don't we try to find a way to educate people? the antis have a massive machine working for them but we have to do something to get the truth out, right?
 
So you are looking at paying $3000-8000 for the rifle, another $3500 in ammunition, 30 hours of loading magazines, hauling at least 4250 lbs of gear to the airport, 6.6 hours of shooting to bring down a plane, on average.
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Dang! Where can I get .50BMG rounds for that kinda money?!??!

Try more like TWENTY FOUR GRAND worth of shells for 12000 rounds.
 
> Hitting the cockpit and shattering a window (lucky
> shot): I'm not sure what would happen to cockpit glass
> if it got hit by a 50 BMG. If it shattered and the
> plane is moving at 500mph, I would assume that pilots
> would lose control and be in trouble. I assume this is
> some very tough laminated glass which would not
> shatter, in which case the pilots would be able to get
> the plane back onto the ground.

I really don't know what would happen, but cockpit glass is *very*
strong. I once saw a video of two men trying to shatter a cockpit windshield
with a sledgehammer, and they could not so much as crack it. That said, the
danger here would be the window fracturing and causing a decompression. Decompressions alone aren't apt to be perilous, but combined with a blown out windshield...who knows? Planes have survived windshield blow-outs before. In any case, this would take a very lucky shot.
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Jet glass IS laminated, to resist against bird strikes. It is very similar (but not identical) to laminated bullet-resistant glass on say ARMOURED CARS.

However, a .50BMG ball (and certinly AP) round will hole both.

It would likely NOT shatter, and MOST CERTINLY WILL NOT decompress the aircraft, catistrophically or not.

It will not decompress the plane either slowly or rapidly, as it will be moving at the most ~220mph on aproach/landing and be no more than a thousand or two feet in the air at most.
 
The only remote way a .50 could bring down a jet would be:

Set the fuel tanks on fire (damned difficult, even with API/API-T rounds.) And, nothing a .30-06 deer rifle with tracers can't do either.

Kill both pilots (really f**** damn difficult even before rotation and after power-up while plane is still on the ground, let alone in the air.) .30 cal would have hard time going through window, but easy time going through any other part of the plane.
 
Harry, that one was actually caused by voticies generated by another large passendger jet, which caused the Airbus to shed it's stabilizer. Once that happened, there was no saving it.
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Actually, it wasn't the vortices from the 747, it was the pilot rapidly reversing the rudder from stop to stop in response to the vortex, thereby swinging the tail out far enough that when the rudder was reversed the final time, the aerodynamic load exceeded the ultimate load of the tail and the tail came off. The plane then continued to yaw and came apart in midair.

Aviation Week did a quite in-depth study of that crash (American Airlines flight 587, I think), and a simple calculation of the force on the tail at that airspeed, yaw angle, and rudder deflection significantly exceeded the calculated failure load of the tail.

Back to the original point of the thread--even if a plane is ON THE RUNWAY and coming STRAIGHT TOWARD YOU, it is almost impossible to hit a pilot or an engine due to bullet time-of-flight issues. An anti on Common Ground Common Sense and I were debating this (he said it would be easy to take out the pilot and copilot), so I ran some calculations and posted the following reply:



"Let's explore that scenario a bit. You pretty much have to have a straight frontal shot so you don't have to lead the plane by 100 feet, so that means your hypothetical sniper will be set up at the departure end of the runway. Using his ultra-sniper camoflage skills, we'll assume he's only, say, 200 yards from the departure end. But to hit a pilot, he'd have to hit the plane before it starts to rotate, because once the nose lifts putting a round into the cockpit would be extremely difficult due to obstruction (both visual and ballistic) by the nose angle. So your hypothetical terrorist sniper would probably be looking at an 1800-yard shot, given runway distances and such.

That's right at the maximum effective range of the .50 as given by the U.S. military. Let's run some numbers on a hypothetical 1800-yard frontal shot on an airliner on its takeoff roll, to see if it's a realistic scenario.

The trajectory table below is from from http://www.eskimo.com/~jbm/ballistics/traj/traj.html. These are from a calculation I had previously run on a target five feet off the ground, but the numbers would be very close for a target 15 feet off the ground. So:

.50 BMG

Bullet: 750-grain Barnes, ballistic coefficient 1.07
Muzzle Velocity: 2800 feet/sec
Downrange Wind: 0
Crosswind: 3 mph
Temperature: 59.6 °F
Barometric Pressure: 29.92 in Hg
Relative Humidity: 0.0%
Altitude: Sea Level
Zero: 1800 yards
Target Height: 5 feet off ground

Elevation: 62.952 moa

Range.....Velocity.....Energy.......Drop
(yards)...(ft/sec)....(ft-lbs)....(inches)
...0.......2803.0.....13083.2.......-3.0
.200.......2629.0.....11509.6......119.6
.400.......2462.1.....10094.3......222.0
.600.......2301.9......8824.1......301.4
.800.......2147.8......7682.0......354.6
1000.......1999.1......6655.3......377.5
1200.......1857.0......5742.6......365.6
1400.......1722.1......4938.4......313.3
1600.......1594.7......4234.8......214.1
1700.......1534.2......3919.5......144.4
1750.......1504.8......3770.8......104.1
1800.......1476.0......3627.9.......60.0
1850.......1447.8......3490.7.......11.9
1900.......1420.3......3359.4......-40.4
1950.......1393.6......3233.9......-97.0
2000.......1367.5......3114.2.....-158.0

Target is moving toward the shooter at a speed of, let's say, 150 mph, or 220 feet per second. That's 73 yards per second. The target is roughly 4 feet high seated. The bullet at that distance is dropping roughly 4 feet per 50 yards. So the shooter would have to estimate the range to the airplane within 50 yards, when the airplane is moving at 73 yards per second, to even have a chance of hitting one pilot. That is an impossible shot even for a highly trained military sniper.

To hit the second pilot--we'll allow the hypothetical shooter two seconds to settle in from recoil and acquire a second sight picture. The still-accelerating airplane has moved another 150 yards toward the shooter, changing the bullet point of impact by 12.5 feet, but there's no time to readjust the scope so the shooter needs 12.5 feet of holdover, and still has to guesstimate the range to within 50 yards or so on a target moving 73 yards per second. A shot even more impossible than the first.

SO, I think we can say that long-distance shots on small, fast-moving targets are essentially IMPOSSIBLE with a .50 BMG rifle, even from straight ahead. If you had a .50 machine gun on a pedestal mount, and tracer ammunition so you could just walk the stream into the target (like the old .50 AA guns on WW2 battleships), maybe you'd get a hit. But not with a sniper rifle.

There's a reason why even the special forces use the .50 for disabling parked airplanes. Shoulder-fired missiles are a credible threat to airliners in the vicinity of an airport, but .50 BMG target rifles just aren't."
 
No no no, there were two separate crashes, one before and one after 9/11. I remember them both because my mom was on a flight landing 5 minutes before the first crash at the same airport.

The first one was attributed to some sort of static electricity problem or a fuel leak or something even though multiple witnesses described a trail of fire/smoke before it fell apart. Some theorize that a nearby naval ship fired a missile at the plane as part of what was beleived to be a naval exercise. Didnt get to hear a lot of details on that theory either.
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I believe you are referring to TWA Flight 800. I think that's what it was anyway. That would be the one that everybody seems to think was completely destroyed by a single Stinger missle.
 
Dang! Where can I get .50BMG rounds for that kinda money?!??!
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Doh, I looked up the wrong price for ammo. Hehe yes you are correct. It would cost close to 8-10x more than the number I listed. Which makes the anti's arguments even more absurd.

For close to $35,000 for the rifle and ammunition, they could just go to some former eastern bloc nation and purchase a truckload of SA-7 or SA-14 shoulder launched SAMs and have a much more realistic chance of downing an airliner.

Actually I think for that kind of cash they might be able to find some unscrupulous, underpaid Russian air force generals that would sell them a complete MiG.
 
If Jim Rockford could shoot down a plane with a .38 snubby, then a .50 should be able to bring one down with ease.
 
If Jim Rockford could shoot down a plane with a .38 snubby, then a .50 should be able to bring one down with ease.
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Magsnubby:

The TV people would also have us believe that a small Nun can fly....

Or that common people shouldn't have guns....

Probably not a good place to put much trust.

Regards,
 
Of course, once make a big enough stink and someone proves it is impossible to hit a moving airplane out of the sky with numbers and science fact, as opposed to science fiction, they revise their argument and argue snipers shooting at stationary airplanes on the ground, which starts the process all over again.

You just can't win with these idiots. You have to educate the people who hear the voices of these idiots.
 
WHAT???NUNS CAN'T REALLY FLY??? :what:

That's just great. Next you'll be trying to tell me there's no Santa Clause. :eek:
 
The ban of .50 caliber rifles in California is not a surprise, that's a typical "feel-good" legislation to give Californians a false sense of security.

Like many have mentioned here, a terrorist would have to shoot hundreds of .50 caliber BMG rounds at an airliner in order to do substantial damage, let alone bring it down. The fact of the matter is, modern airliners have composite materials in many areas, someone with sinister intentions would have to stand no more than 100 yards away to be able to penetrate the skin of the aircraft with a .50 BMG. Plus modern jetliners have redundant systems in case of failures in the fuel, hydraulic or electrical systems.

I'm also sure that if someone thinks he can shoot down a jetliner with a .50 cal BMG, people would definitely see him. There's heavy traffic around the perimeters of most major airports in the United States, so a terrorist a with .50 BMG will not go unnoticed.
 
The problem is that one cannot say that its *impossible* to down a jetliner with a single round of 50BMG. There is always a 1 in a million chance of hitting one of the very few parts that would matter (in theory a well placed round could kill both polits for example). As long as its not strictly IMPOSSIBLE the antis can argue that it is possible, and then their logic would be "well it COULD be used to shoot down a plane, and since there is no legitimate reason to own a .50BMG why take the risk?"

The sad fact is that this is a fight that is better counters on the basis of civil rights than science. If someone says "a 50 can shoot down a plane" one *could* argue that it was unlikely at best, however that doesnt actually counter the point. Strictly speaking a 50 CAN shoot down a plane. Its already been proven that a box-cutter can bring down multiple aircraft. The better answer to the "a 50 can down a plane" argument is this: "so what", safe airtravel doesnt trump our civil rights.
 
C_Yeager - Its already been proven that a box-cutter can bring down multiple aircraft.

Again, the problem is not the "box cutters", just like .50 caliber rifles. You may not see a need for a such a weapon, but there are people out there who like to have them. I have no need for one, at least for the time being, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the gun owners out there should not be allowed to own them thinking that it can make air travel safer. Terrorists are using other types of weapons and I don't think they're going to resort to the .50 BMG to cause havoc. They're the type of people who strap bombs to themselves and kill innocent civilians and with that being said, they don't have the sophistication and intelligence to come up with more elaborate ways to bring down jetliners, afterall, look at the methods they used on September 11th.

Like I said in my previous post, the 50 cal round by itself cannot bring down a jetliner, and the chances of that happenning are next to nothing. They have cockpit windows that are made of strong plexiglass material that can withstand the tremendous pressure they undergo at cruise altitudes and the stresses that are experienced in flight. Like others have said here, you'd have to shoot hundreds of rounds before you can seriously damage an aircraft to bring it down.
 
Kurush, I am corrected. There is a magic spot on a DC-80 where a failure of a single part brings down the plane. I'm quite surprised by that. I note that the DC-80 is an old airplane, and I think designers have gotten more safety-focused since then.
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Some clarification here:

There is no such aircraft as a "DC-80". There is a DC-8, and a DC-10.

Furthermore, there are LOTS of places on an aircraft where a single point failure will result in the crash of the aircraft. The main wing spars (the beams that give the wing it's stiffness) are an excellent example.

HOWEVER..........a single hit from a .50BMG round is NOT enought to destroy that wing spar in it's entirety. So, trying to use a .50BMG to result in a "single point failure" is an exercise in futility, for the most part.
 
Magnum Mike,

I think you're misinterpreting Yeager. He knows that it isn't the object that is the problem.

The problem is one of credibility and basic debate technique. It is theoretically possible (although statistically stupendously unlikely, it is not "impossible") for someone to, in this case, bring down an airliner with a .50 BMG rifle.

If we claim it is "impossible" as the keystone of our argument why the round and weapons should not be restricted, we open ourselves to contradiction. The minute we have been shown to have lied or misrepresented the truth we allow people who are against us to point that "lie" out and justifiably lower our credibility on the argument to the uninformed and undecided in general. There's no reason to give the anti's that hook, by acknowledging it, we preemptively disarm their argument and make them appear ridiculous to continue to spout it.

We're better off acknowledging the one in a million nature of it happening, by explaining, as you do in your post, why the chances are infinitesmal, but basing the meat of the argument on the fact that all sorts of things are also "possible" and many times more likely, but don't deserve to impinge on our freedoms.

The best way to sway the uninformed and undecided is by analogy to things in their daily life, say, the old warhorse of the variety of one-in-a-million car mishaps.
 
I know this has already been said, but I'd like to say it my way.


.50BMG is not a threat to a jetliner. Unless of course some miracle shot is placed on the fuel tank area with an armor piercing incindiary round. This might cause a fire or explosion.


.50BMG is not a threat to a plane in flight, on a runway, possibly, in flight....I'd like to see someone make that shot. Even near an airport, you're talking well over 800 yards..and a moving target at over 170mph. Good luck.



The whole debate is utterly absurd. The .50BMG is NOT EFFECTIVE as a sniper rifle, or single shot system. It is ONLY effective as a belt-fed fully-automatic weapon with full barrel length.

The .50's mounted on Humvee's, tanks, or other weapons of war are not used to fire 1-2 shots. They fire big automatic bursts. They usually fire on positions or lightly armored objects, or light barriers. Anything remotely tough gets a HEAT tank round, or a Helfire missle.


.50BMG used in the sniper world is only effective against personel at long distance, or against lightly armored or thinly skinned materiel. Like hitting an anti-aircraft missle battery, right on the missle sitting on the rack.


Of course, this is at the hands of a professional, military trained sniper who does it with the full dedication of his life, spends years working at it, with the finest training in the world.

They lost the AWB...not going to happen federally any time soon. .50's they can work on from a terrorist perspective. Have to ride that post-911 bandwagon ya know.


Shameless, but then again, look at who we are battling against.
 
Hollywood

That's the real problem. Far too many people believe what the see in the movies or on TV. My girlfried asked my why I carry 2 spare mags because 1 shot would stop anybody. I asked where she learned that. She said the movies. You shoot a person and the fall backward and never get up. :banghead:

This is the problem, too many people think Hollywood is truth. I had a little chat with her and she now understands the basic laws of physics. :evil:
 
Like I said in my previous post, the 50 cal round by itself cannot bring down a jetliner, and the chances of that happenning are next to nothing.
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This sentance is self contradictory. You say that it is both impossible and highly improbable for a .50 to down an aircraft. This is why the argument falls flat.

Im not countering the rest of your post because i happen to agree with you, which i thought was readily apparent.
 
The problem with "Junk Science" is that if something is possible, regardless of it's improbability, the "for the children" crowd will grab it and run with it.

They will, of course, not bother to mention the improbability, and the media, being uncritical of that group, won't notice it either.

A slightly cleaned and paraphrased example of a post I saw the other day:

Media Bias? If George Bush walked on water, the media would report: "President Bush can't swim." :cuss:

Regards,
 
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