Live Video - "The
Skipping Airbus""
At a first glance there does not appear to
be anything wrong with the UA175 aircraft in the Live Video. Analysis shows
that the UA175 aircraft increases in length as it nears the towers and the bank
angle increases linearly throughout the approach.
What appears to be a bulge on the forward section of the fuselage
is in fact the starboard engine nacelle rising up from behind the fuselage as
the bank angle increases. The high position of the starboard engine nacelle
gives the illusion that the forward section of the fuselage is bulging in a
similar way to the Boeing 747. The is more noticeable in the CG comparison
image below which was scanned from the DVD front cover of 'REMEMBER September
11, 2001'. Click here to view the DVD front cover in its
entirety.
The airframe is more or less the correct size and would have
appeared as a silhouette because the sun was behind of, and in front of, the
aircraft. Dynamic reflectivity testing in Flight Simulator showed that there
would be no noticeable specular reflections off the UA175 aircraft from the
cameras viewpoint.
But a closer examination from the DVD video shows that the
fuselage ahead of the wings is too short for it to have been from a Boeing
767-200, and the port engine nacelle looks slightly out of place further down
the wing and protruding further in front from beneath the port wing than it
should be. After searching through various aircraft models the closest match I
could find was the Airbus A310-200/200C/300:
Even though the Airbus A310 is the closest match for the UA175
aircraft (see below) seen in the "Live" Video there are still
noticeable visual differences between the two. The port engine nacelle looks
surprisingly small, the sweep back angle / wing dihedral angle conflicts with
the CG A310 and the starboard wing has a marked amount of curvature to it.
These effects could be the product of limitations in the video recording
process and the motion blur on the UA175 aircraft (either real motion blur or
simulated motion blur).
United Airlines were not operating this particular type of Airbus
model in 2001. The Airbus A310 option would account for the visual appearance
in the Live video but why would the movie makers opt for an aircraft that was
at odds with the forthcoming 'official version' of events? Was the wrong choice
of aircraft deliberate or accidental?
What is even more peculiar about this Live Video is that the UA175 aircraft
does not seem to be flying a smooth descent path like the other UA175 aircraft
from other videos. There appears to be a downward stepping effect at regular intervals
that gives the appearance of a kind of downward skipping (see below) effect
which would be impossible for any kind of normal aircraft.
Here I've isolated the step in photoshop using the 'time lapse'
technique to eliminate camera shake.
My calculations show that each step equates to about 3 or 4 times the native
descent path:
Unless this stepping effect can be explained as a byproduct of the
video recording process or an aerodynamic consequence of high speed flight then
the Live Video can not be showing us a real aircraft. It is conceivable that
the aircraft has been dubbed live into the video to conceal what was actually
there and that this stepping effect could be the hallmark of the video
technology that was utilised for this effect.