Ace Baker Chopper 5 article

[ian neal]

http://www.acebaker.com/9-11/ABPlaneStudy/Chopper5Velocity2.html

An analysis of the live WNYW (Fox 5) helicopter video of UA Flight 175 striking the World Trade Center

I'm encouraged to see this type of analysis where someone has taken the time to set out their arguments and evidence. I don't suppose this will end the arguments one way or the other and I lack the expertise in video analysis to add much but at least articles like this bring the evidence together and allow those with the technical knowledge to debate the evidence in a way 'youtube' videos can't.

Together with the recent Fetzer/Woods radio shows that link their discussions to a web page of evidence that allows them to talk through their analysis is surely the way to go (see Andrew Johnson's site for details)

Childish trading of 'truthlings' type insults will get us nowhere

If there is demand I'm happy to convene a moderated debate in which only those with the required technical knowledge and expertise participate and those like myself who don't pretend to have this knowledge keep out.

[chek]

Ok - two things strike me immediately.

Firstly, something I've mentioned before about the viability of analysing digital video as if it's optical film. It can't be done.

With optical film, a pane of photo sensitive material (that is activated almost instantaneously) records the light being focussed at that point in time as that frame of film passes a lens at mechanically regular intervals.

This is known to record events with a high degree of accuracy, as hi-speed photographs - frozen in time by passing hundreds of frames per second in front of the lens - faithfully capture the life cycle of a droplet splash, or the passage of a bullet through an apple.

Digital video on the other hand moves at a speed just high enough to fool the eye into seeing continuous movement (25-30 frames per second) and after conversion through a CCD, has to further process the image by means of 'frame comparison' to determine which elements of the frame need to be updated compared to the previous one as part of the compression process that reduces file size to aid data processing and storage requirements.

Bear in mind that back in 2001 a Pentium II rated at 400 MHz was hot stuff, and certainly not fitted in devices like cameras.

We can't therefore be sure that each frame of digital video represents an equal portion of time, due to the differing amounts of processing
required by successive images, and therefore the speed graphs merely measure the time taken to render each frame image rather than the actual speed of the aircraft.

I'd contend that some input from an video engineer would be necessary to
give a valid opinion on the practicality and limits of using digital video to capture hi-speed events without recourse to additional specialist hardware and software.

Secondly, there is the suggestion that the 'haloing' effects around the aircraft are due to digital compositing - and nothing else.

If we examine the situation, we have a large 100 ton jetliner moving at a speed of approx 540 mph (NIST NCSTAR 1-2B Chaps 1-8 p.165) through dense coastal air at an altitude of 1000 ft. In those conditions, the speed of sound is approx 760 mph. The forward speed of the plane is therefore approx Mach 0.72.

1."As an aircraft moves through the air, the air molecules near the aircraft are disturbed and move around the aircraft. If the aircraft passes at a low speed, typically less than 250 mph, it is observed that the density of the air remains constant. For higher speeds, some of the energy of the aircraft goes into compressing the air and locally changing the density of the air."
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/BGH/machrole.html

2."At Mach numbers beyond 0.7 or so the fact that the air is compressible has an increasing influence on the flow around a body."
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/4707/Aeronotes/Mach_Numb er.htm

This is significant for two reasons.

While the forward speed of the aircraft is one thing, local airspeeds will be exceeding it - the air travelling over the top of the wing (and around other curved surfaces) for instance, will be moving even faster to create the low-pressure condition called 'lift' and other areas will be moving more slowly, creating turbulence effects.

We thus have a general situation where due to the compressibility of air, there is a build up of pressure in a zone ahead of the aircraft's nose, and a lowering of pressure behind the wing. 'Air pressure' is just another way of expressing 'air density', and with differences in density come light refraction effects.

While not visible to the naked eye these have been recorded by the camera and made visible by the highly filtered close-ups - with the high pressure zone ahead and the low pressure zone behind exhibiting different refractive effects, as would be expected.

I'm no scientist, but I wish NPTers would at least eliminate the bleedin' obvious before jumping to conclusions. If you set out looking for 'fakery' you'll find it.
Just like you'll find witches to burn if you really go looking for them.

[gruts]

I think it's good that an NPT believer has actually tried to present and analyse the evidence in this way and it would be interesting to see how well his analysis stood up if he posted it on a video/photography forum....

leaving aside the problems with his premise that all photos and videos showing planes hitting the WTC must be fake and all eyewitnesses must be wrong/lying/being mind-controlled and all the other implausibilities that are required to make a "no planes scenario" work (and the irrationality of putting them all in place when it would be so much simpler to just fly planes into the buildings) - the main flaw that potentially makes his entire analysis meaningless is that he's clearly not using original footage - just a quicktime file whose chain of custody is unknown, that he's downloaded from somewhere.

he also makes the same pivotal assertion about the "nosecone" as "september clues" - ie that what comes out looks the same as what goes in, when it clearly doesn't - which invalidates his entire case. the fact that he avoids making a direct "in vs out" image comparison when this is crucial to his argument speaks volumes....

I only had time to skim through the article - but he seems to be claiming that they took a video of a comparable plane flying through the sky, removed the background, added just the plane to the live stream from the fox chopper and made it disappear behind the tower - so I really would like to know what hardware and software that was available 6 years ago was used and to see a demo of exactly how it was done, but I doubt if he'll be showing us anytime soon....

and I'd also like somebody to explain why the perps would risk trying to create fake footage in this very risky way when there was no need for them to do so, and why on earth they decided to do it from a moving helicopter - when by the time the second plane arrived they had cameras filming the wtc from any number of locations. why make what was already an unnecessary risk even riskier?

it doesn't make any sense at all....

[Ace Baker]

Thank you for the interest in my Chopper 5 velocity study. The most updated version is here:

http://www.acebaker.com/9-11/ABPlaneStudy/Chopper5Velocity2.html

Chek said

[gruts]

[Ace Baker]

Yes, I'm in contact with Eric Salter. He has confirmed the chain of custody, de-interlace methods, etc. He is reviewing the paper and analyzing my control videos. I approached him knowing he is not inclined to agree with my position, and knowing that he is a video engineer. I am awaiting his review.

Gruts, it is clear to me, based on your questions, that you have not read my paper. If you did, you didn't understand it.

To answer you question, which is covered completely in the paper . . .

The velocity of the airplane in the Chopper 5 video is unstable because it was recorded with camera motion. Camera motion will make the velocity of any moving object unsteady, by exactly the amount of camera movement.

This camera motion is present, even when the video is stabilized, so it could not have come from the motion of the camera aboard Chopper 5.

[gruts]

[ian neal]

Yes good to see.

Like many others here I know nothing about video manipulation. Referring this to people who do have some expertise is definately the right direction. Thanks Ace B