Transparent / Glass cockpit doors? [Archive]

Zulu

29th Oct 2001, 01:55

I'd be the first to admit I've not thought this fully through; but would a perspex/glass/transparent cockpit door help with many of the security issues being raised at the moment?
If it was one-way-mirrored (silvered), like security windows you see in shops; then:
1) We can see straight into the cabin without having to get out of our seats to look through the peephole
2) We can see that the person knocking at the door is the No.1 with a drink, and not someone else
3) We can see if the cabin crew are "compromised" in the cabin.
4) Pax. can't see in.
Drill a couple of holes at the top and bottom, sorts out the de-pressurisation issues, and voila!
Am I mad, or is this actually a good idea?

Fubaar

31st Oct 2001, 16:36

Yeah, right. So it’s a dark night and you want a darkened cockpit but the pax/cabin crew outside understandably want to be able to see what they’re doing. How do you block the light from entering the cockpit?

A curtain?

You’ve just undone your whole rationale for having a glass door.

What about (the necessary) blow out panels?

And as for the new bullet proof doors I saw being tested on the TV news yesterday, I think even the most unimaginative among us have (at last) come to realise that the people we’re up against aren’t cave dwellers with no knowledge of things Aviation. So we install heavy duty bullet proof Kevlar cockpit doors. What’s to stop Ahmed bin Hyjaquer simply walking around into the forward galley and removing the meal containers and then emptying his whole magazine through the (very thin) aluminium wall separating the galley and the cockpit?

I’m afraid most of the very expensive measures we see being adopted now are classic ‘slamming the stable door behind the long ago bolted horse’ stuff. (Or another way of looking at it - ‘fighting the next war with the last war’s weapons and tactics’.) I’m first to agree there’ll be copycats and crazies and we need to protect ourselves from such amateurs. However, I believe the professionals have ‘done’ aircraft hijackings for the moment and, professionals that they are, will now go in search of other, softer targets that will cause another knee jerk (and expensive and disruptive) reaction by the authorities.

I also think it’s very unlikely they’ll try anything over the next few days, as the hapless US Government have (again) told the world they will after receiving ‘credible word from reliable sources’ (again). Cry ‘wolf’ often enough and people will stop believing you, and the bad guys need only to keep leaking ‘credible threats’ every week or two and the US Government spokesmen will have lost all credibility with Joe Public. And when no one’s taking any notice of the warnings? Wham! Strike again.

But not now, for the bleeding hearts in the Western media are doing an all too effective job on behalf of the Taliban and/or Mr bin Laden. At the current rate of progress, we’ll be seeing a carbon copy of Vietnam on our television screens within a week or two, where American bombs kill no one but defenceless women and children and seem magically to avoid males of military age. And people will swallow it, just as they did in Vietnam.

Those calling for a halt to the bombing now are, with the best of intentions, only prolonging the suffering of the hapless people caught up in this madness - as are the ‘useful’ idiots in the Media who are playing up the civilian casualties for ratings. Saying in ‘shock! horror!’ terms that civilians are being killed in a protracted bombing campaign is a bit like saying that craters are being left behind by the bombs. There’s simply no avoiding it. I’d suggest such people get ‘A Few Good Men’ out on video and watch again Jack Nicholson’s character (the nasty Marine Colonel) make his speech about people ‘at home’ not wanting to know what goes on ‘on the city walls’ to allow them to continue to enjoy the good life in safety. After Sept 11th, that speech takes on a whole new dimension.