trey kule wrote:
As to sending up unarmed aircraft if that is all you have..of course. But that begs the question as to why the aircraft were not armed and ready doesn't it?
You need to put the situation into perspective. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the perceived threat to US/Canada was very low: Russian bombers were not flying close to our airspace anymore. As a result, the US and Canada decreased their alert status. There was no perceived need for armed fighters on alert. At the time, the ONE mission (intercepting suspect civilian planes) did not exist.
You cannot fly all your aircraft armed all the time; there are some serious implications of doing so. You cannot park the aircraft on the same ramp you would normally use. You need to park it in a Designated Loading Area. Minor, but this needs to be considered.
The more important point to me is the implications of what you cannot do in-flight with an armed aircraft. Just like you wouldn't point a loaded gun at someone's face, the same principles apply (to a point) to live missiles. In the US, you cannot partake at all in training if you have live missiles. In Canada, you can, but you cannot take trigger (making the training essentially useless). You cannot go through the motions of arming up the aircraft, taking trigger and seeing all the cues that appear. More importantly, you cannot assess your shots.
My (educated) 2 cents on the matter..
