http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18778723

This really sticks in my craw.

You want your mad "war on terror"? Fine. You want to deploy military assets? Fine. But for pity sake leave civilians out of it, they didn't ask for it, some of them clearly don't want it and commandeering civilian buildings in this manner is morally and ethically questionable, especially since we're not even in a state of war. I don't see why civilians are suddenly fair game for the MoD and frankly I don't like the implications.

I'm fairly certain we didn't spend (waste?) £37 billion on the Eurofighter Typhoon just to "defend" London's airspace with SAM sites. Just what is the Royal Air Force for, exactly, if not exactly this situation?

Quite frankly if David Cameron authorises the shooting down of a plane over one of the most densely populated cities in the European Union then he belongs in Broadmoor, not Downing Street.

I must say, I tend to agree. We're not at war. Unless we are, in which case, someone ought to let us know.

I’d think it hard to justify the current state of affairs as a “war” - as observed many times, what if some maniac decides to aim a 747 at the Olympic site? What’s a SAM going to do? Nudge it away? If they decide to shoot it down, that burning debris has to go somewhere.

Other Olympic games have been similarly protected - but we’ve never been privy to the protestations of those near the rocket sites - possibly because in China they just did it and told anyone who didn’t like it to STFU. They certainly would not have allowed any media coverage of it.

The IOC has demanded certain kinds of legislation to ensure the sanctity of sponsors in Olympic sites. I am wondering if they will start to demand legislation to tone down or even silence media coverage of other matters, such as the security arrangements surrounding the games.

Probably wouldn't have to. It's entirely possible for the UK Gov to classify such things as 'national security issues' and slap a DA notice on them if they felt like it. In this case you've got a group of people actively protesting (and taking the government to court) so there's no way they could keep it quiet.

jon

To be honest I'm with the government on this. Not that I think missiles are a good idea, but it's a pubicly owned building (ie government owned) and I find the 'human rights' argument stupid. People try and claim human rights for every little thing these days.

with all the referances in films etc the threat will be underneath the stadium not in the air

what, moles? Trip up the hundred metre runners, that kind of thing?

are you quite illegal? you are partially right as the place apparently will be highly "molested"

More likely a Transit Van chock full of Ammonium Nitrate and Diesel.

TBH, I don't mind the placement of the missiles - it's hardly going to make any of those buildings a target, is it?

Agreed. Some nutter with a nail bomb backpack just before a security check our in a railway station.

On a lighter note. That could be a cheap way of knocking down that horrible sixties tower at no cost to the tax payer if it does become a target

For me it's not about them being a target, it's about the principle of the military commandeering civilian buildings for military purposes - all at a time when we're not even in a state of war.

I could understand if it was necessary to counter a ground threat - say sniper cover, because there is not necessarily a military alternative available. But in this case we have the Royal Air Force.

The RAF wouldn't be any use in such an incident.

Firstly there's the question of how one is supposed to detect a rogue aircraft. Usually the only way tell if a large plane is definitely flying towards an obstacle is when it gets within a couple of miles - it's not like one like you can just look at a plane and tell. A plane going off course, while not routine, is not exactly uncommon either. The only way to tell would be to have a large (between 20 - 30 miles) exclusion zone around the venues However, in order to do that we'd have to shut down Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City Airports for the duration of the games. Not going to happen.

But let's be charitable. Let's assume that instead of diving into a strafing run before entry into the main Heathrow landing stack, the pilot heads straight towards the venue with 30 miles to spare. Let's further assume that we have a means of figuring out that a plane is rogue. By the time an aircraft is known to be rogue and needs to be shot down, it could be 30 miles out over the Thames estuary flying at 500mph towards central London, a flight time of under 3.6 minutes.

Meanwhile the nearest Typhoon is at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, 111 miles away. Even at maximum supercruise speed - 1550mph - that's a flight time of 4.3 minutes, which doesn't include the several minutes it takes to scramble an aircraft.

So let's just move the Typhoon to Heathrow. That's just not possible. The amount of kit, staff, fuel and spare parts required to keep just one fast jet in the air is colossal. Even the Quick Reaction Alert bases can only support a small number of Typhoons. And besides, it still takes several minutes to scramble an aircraft.

So let's have a Typhoon in the air at all times. Which venue of the 40 does it hold station over? There are Olympic venues in Dorset, Cardiff and Glasgow - do they get a patrol each? So you can't have just one aircraft in the air at any one time; I reckon you'd need at least 12 air patrols at all times just to provide coverage. But you can't fly a plane 24 hours a day and, in case of aircraft failure, you can't provide just one aircraft per patrol. A Typhoon can only provide about 3 hours on station and nobody would allow air-to-air refuelling over populated areas so you'd need to swap them out. So that's one in the air, one being readied, one coming back and one being serviced. That's eight aircraft per patrol area or 72 aircraft in total - from a fleet total of 86. If you factor in that after even just a few days' patrol, a Typhoon will require an extended downtime, you'll probably want a ninth spare for every patrol area. That makes 84 in total - leaving just 2 to cover non-Olympic threats like incursion by unidentified aircraft.

And that's not to mention the cost. 84 combat aircraft on constant patrol for 17 days? Fuel, parts, man-power, ancillary staff and support? The money required would be eye-watering.

And then assuming that we can both detect the aircraft in time and get a pair of Typhoons to it in time, there's the thorny issue of what exactly they're supposed to do. Once the threat is over a populated area you're no better off than if you'd used SAMs anyway.

So no, I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist about the RAF tbh.

Uhm... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2138488/Typhoon-fighter-planes-stationed-RAF-Northolt-Olympics-military-build-up.html

That article exactly proves my point.

That's 4 aircraft to provide 24-hour standby cover which means that either there'll be a single aircraft on patrol or they'll wait for a threat and scramble.

Even assuming the former, a 737 straying into the "restricted zone" at cruising speed will be 3.6 minutes flight time from the stadium. That's less than 4 minutes to fly to the correct area, find the rogue aircraft, attempt to make contact, check whatever the possible terrorists tell the pilot, communicate with commanders, have those commanders communicate with Cameron, have Cameron to decide to shoot down the area, have that order relayed to the pilot and then have him shoot it down.

It's laughable.

There's a handy guide for pilots detailing what the protocol is http://olympics.airspacesafety.com/media/7037/asi_intercept_leaflet_v5_lr.pdf.
Website here: http://olympics.airspacesafety.com/

I suspect they don't need to wait for Cameron's approval to start shooting, depending on orders given to the flight.