Originally Posted by
halls120
And again, none of this has anything to do with TSA's "improvements" to gate security.
My brother is a DL Captain and FFDO. I've asked him what he would do if your delta force tried to take over the aircraft. He told me, and trust me, you wouldn't be attain your objective.
I've seen FFDO training. It's decent, but it's a one week course. Some range work, some sims work. Good stuff, but not enough. Their recurrent training that they're up for now is better IMO. They have an excellent facility and even better trainers. They're better off with the FAMS, as the training will be top notch. Still, it's not a lot of training, and, until you've pulled the trigger for real, you don't really know if you can do it. If five guys with knives breach that door one guy with a gun is going to do some damage, but the odds are still against him unless he has incredible shot placement (CNS shots). And all it takes is one to get into range to grapple and tie up his arms and soak up shots and let the rest stab him to death. I'll put it to you this way - I've had waaaaaay more training and experience in CQC and shooting and tactics and all that than 99.99999% of the FFDOs out there and if I was facing 5 guys with knives at close range that would be a bad, bad, bad day. Lots of heavy lifting there.
The real trick of post-9/11 flight is to keep the door shut. Period. Do that and the missile angle is out. Then all you have to worry about insofar as hijacking is concerned is the old fashioned type.
And how many of the 9/11 flights were going international?
The way I look at it, FFDOs should handle domestic flights and FAMs international. Of course, the FFDOs wouldn't like that, especially if the government started telling them where to fly if they wanted to keep their FFDO designation.
