Friday, October 26, 2012

If a Carrington Event Happened today?

If a Carrington Solar Flare event happened today it is said the effect would shut down all or most power plants on earth, damage or destroy permanently all satellites that were turned on in orbit, end most magnetic memory on most computers and computer systems and networks on earth.

My question is: "Could Passenger jet planes and fighter jets stay in the air during this kind of situation? The reason I'm asking this is that small planes are completely mechanical with wires pulling control surfaces in the wings and tail and rudder of the plane. So, even if a Carrington type Solar Flare occurred at least theoretically if all the pilots of small planes knew how to glide without their engines running they could land their planes if they could find just a free road or something to land on while in a glide path without an engine that was functioning because the electrical would likely freeze up and there would be no battery or spark plugs that could work to make the engine run.

But--- a passenger jet plane has to have assists because of the length of the distances to all the control surfaces and those assists likely are powered electrically or hydraulically which are also powered by electric motors. The same likely is true for fighter jets. So, my question is this:

"If a Carrington like Solar Flare hits earth can the 4000 to 10000 passenger jets and fighter jets and military aircraft of various kinds stay in the air under those circumstances without losing control and crashing here in the U.S.? And if that happened to 4000 to 10,000 planes at once if you think about 100 persons on board each plane as an average would we lose a minimum of 400,000 people as those (at a minimum 4000 planes crashed within a few minutes of the beginning of such an event when the engines shut down as well as everything electrical on board all planes?

As I understand it a Carrington like event could stop everything electrical working on the planet and if this was true how many lives would end as a result in the air, on the sea and on land if it were something like a worldwide EMP event?

Even if this was temporary, say about 10 to 20 minutes most of the planes would have crashed by then with complete loss of control and loss of power.

Also, the minimum would be 4000 just for the U.S.  You might get an equal amount for Europe, China, Russia, Japan and everywhere else because all countries would be affected by this end of electrical power to various degrees.

Later: The other problem I foresee with this type of event is an automatic triggering of "Doomsday weapons" in the U.S., Russia and China and any other countries that might have them operational. Doomsday weapons might be configured to go off if all electricity goes off over enough of the country like an EMP would create from large nuclear blasts. However, a Carrington like event would also be like an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) but would not be from a war or accidental war it would be from the sun. However, Doomsday weapons built in the 1950s and 1960s and still maintained might not be configured for a Carrington like Event. And to make matters worse since nothing electrical could potentially operate backup generators that are diesel or gas because of this event might not be able to start up to protect such systems either because of the event. However, if such weapons were electrical in nature their systems likely would be gone too unless they were deep enough underground not to be affected. And them being operational because of being deep underground with no possible communication available above ground might set them off as well.

Note: Government and private experts in the U.S. decided that if a Carrington like event happened today (especially in the next two years during the present solar maximum) that it would cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars out of the global economy or wherever it hit. It would also take 4 to 10 years to recover from worldwide. Since nothing like this has occurred in my lifetime except maybe World War II(just before I was born) I think comparing a Carrington event to World War II in it's catastrophic nature might be appropriate at least in terms of damage to the world infrastructure of anything electrical or electronic on earth, under the sea or in the air.

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