Boeing 777 shot down

Dis86 said:
Except it was a cannon round that the German pilot is claiming hit it...

I'm pretty sure if people bothered to read this thread they'd see that the possibility of it being anything to do with an su-25 was debunked several pages ago using facts and first hand knowledge...
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I'm amused how you can take my post anything other than simply stating that even if the su-25 can't fly that high, it's missiles can.

I'm not here to discuss what may or may not have happened, this thread is full of people taking any picture, video or social media post as fact in their own arguments and beliefs. It's why I stay out of these threads unless to, as above; simply state an obvious oversight :P

Though, a commercial pilot alone has no more claim to knowledge on the matter than you or I.
 
ChrisJSY said:
I'm amused how you can take my post anything other than simply stating that even if the su-25 can't fly that high, it's missiles can.

I'm not here to discuss what may or may not have happened, this thread is full of people taking any picture, video or social media post as fact in their own arguments and beliefs. It's why I stay out of these threads unless to, as above; simply state an obvious oversight :P

Though, a commercial pilot alone has no more claim to knowledge on the matter than you or I.
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So then why post a completely irrelevant point? People were discussing how an su-25 fired its cannon in to the cockpit. Not missiles. Cannon.
 
Dis86 said:
So then why post a completely irrelevant point? People were discussing how an su-25 fired its cannon in to the cockpit. Not missiles. Cannon.
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I know, I understand that the article mentions cannon fire.

However, the point is Stolly said or implied through lack of detail that it's incapable of engaging targets that high and I simply said that it could.
I guess you missed the part where I said I'm not debating(discussing) about what happened, how convenient for your argument.
 
ChrisJSY said:
I know, I understand that the article mentions cannon fire.

However, the point is Stolly said or implied through lack of detail that it's incapable of engaging targets that high and I simply said that it could.
I guess you missed the part where I said I'm not debating(discussing) about what happened, how convenient for your argument.
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So if you weren't discussing or debating then why quote someone in the middle of the debate who was saying it was impossible for the plane to be shot down with a cannon from the SU-25?
 
Dis86 said:
Except it was a cannon round that the German pilot is claiming hit it...

I'm pretty sure if people bothered to read this thread they'd see that the possibility of it being anything to do with an su-25 was debunked several pages ago using facts and first hand knowledge...
Click to expand...

There have been a few different theories proposed (not all posted in this thread) involving a SU-25 shooting it down - most of the posts including mine have been more addressing the theories generally rather than any one specifically.

If it was shot down with 30mm or similar cannons then it suggests something other than an SU-25 was most likely the attacking vehicle.
 
MoRT489 said:
What causes a plane like the SU25 to have such a low operating ceiling? What happens if the plane tries to exceed this height?
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Nothing as such it will just be a lot harder to gain altitude/can't generate enough lift. It isn't a hard set limit. Pressurisation isn't really an issue just will become increasingly less comfortable above ~15K feet.

EDIT: SU-25 is designed to be a heavily tanked plane for air to ground engagement and similar duties which tends to make it more limited in climb capabilities than typical.
 
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MoRT489 said:
What causes a plane like the SU25 to have such a low operating ceiling? What happens if the plane tries to exceed this height?
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It's when the drag is equal to the thrust of the engines at full speed. The Aerodynamics of the Aircraft effect this as well as payload.

Basically it cannot produce enough thrust to overcome the drag and create lift.

The SU-25 is not designed to fly high as it is a ground attack aircraft. It's designed to carry a big payload, drop it on the target and then fly out at it's max height.
 
ubersonic said:
MH17: >33,000 feet
SU25: max 23,000 feet
SU25 Cannon: max accuracy 2600 feet against air targets.

Yeah, lol.
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They can project rounds to 8000-10000 feet even with that degree of altitude separation but as per someone's post earlier in the thread - at ~2600 feet you have around 1 second time to target compared to 12 odd seconds at the range they'd have had to have been shooting at MH17 compounded by the huge loss of velocity by that point and that even the smallest factor would be having a big impact on accuracy and its a feat and a half to pull it off.

EDIT: Also at the extreme end of the range you'd normally see more signs of tumbling in the impacts, the images that purport to show 30mm round impacts are more consistent with <1km.
 
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Rroff said:
the images that purport to show 30mm round impacts are more consistent with <1km.
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I agree, in fact they're more consistent with someone finding the wreckage on the ground and shooting it with either a ground based 23mm system (ZSU-23-2 etc) or the 30mm from a BMP-2 depending on what size the actual holes are in the cockpit.
 
The holes in the cockpit aren't consistent for cannon fire, it's definitely shrapnel. There's too many, different sized and shaped holes.
 
From what I've read the SU-25 can physically fly up to twice its 7,000m service ceiling which is in itself an artifical limit to protect the pilot because of cockpit pressurisation, so from a technical standpoint if Ukrainian forces deliberately intended to shoot down a passenger jet to blame on Russia it's probably not going to be too difficult to pull off.

American B17 WW2 bombers had ceilings of 30,000-35,000ft and their crews had nothing more than warm clothing and oxygen masks.
 
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Interestingly, it appears that the media claim that the black boxes have revealed that the plane was destroyed by massive explosive decompression consistent with a missile, has been traced back to a single source - a Ukrainian Colonel (Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council). The actual investigators in the UK (where the black boxes are) have neither confirmed nor denied this (yet).

So once again, the media has been putting the cart before the horse. Now some media orgs are backtracking, adding "Ukraine says...", rather than just "The black boxes reveal...".

So as far as I know, the official story regarding the black boxes at present, is that "Valid data has been downloaded from them"?

Anyone hear anything further about any investigation results, from the actual investigation team?
 
Jokester said:
The holes in the cockpit aren't consistent for cannon fire, it's definitely shrapnel. There's too many, different sized and shaped holes.
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Not sure about the cockpit as its in too much of a mess to make any real conclusions from an image - 2 of the supposed "deleted" images plus one subsequent image to the original story show marks consistent with what you'd see from a close range strafing run on a target range but no idea as to their authenticity.
 
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