🚀 go-pugleaf

Jeffrey Siegal (jbs@quiotix.com) wrote:
: Merlin Dorfman wrote:
: > 
: > trebor@sirius.com.no.more (user@example.com) wrote:
: > : Merlin Dorfman <dorfman@rahul.net> wrote:
: > 
: > : >: All this prattle about the danger of puncturing the skin or blowing out a
: > : >: window is nonsense.
: > : >
: > : >     You're wrong, and I can't remotely understand why you want to
: > : >deny the danger of explosive decompression.
: > 
: > : Is the pressure differential great enough to cause explosive
: > : decompression? Or would there just be a loud whistling sound as
: > : pressures equalized?
: > 
: >      The point is that the skin of an airliner is very thin
: > aluminum alloy (to use anything else would incur a huge
: > weight penalty that would degrade performance extensively).
: > A bullet would not just make a clean hole .357 inches in
: > diameter or whatever; the pressure differential around the
: > hole would lead to a much larger rupture.

: No, the point was your (now admitted to be bogus) claim of explosive

     Admitted by whom?

: decompression.  I agree that a bullet would probably not make a "clean
: hole" because bullets generally don't (there is some amount of
: stretching and heating of the target material before the bullet breaks
: through), but how much larger is the hole likely to be?  Assume it to be
: twice the cross sectional area of the bullet and redo the math.  You'll
: still find that decompression will take a long time.  

     You may assume what you wish.  "Much larger" does not mean 2 X
.357 inches.  It means "much larger."

: I don't believe the pressure differential is likely to affect the size
: of the hole by any significant amount; the amount of force on the small
: area surrounding the impact is quite small.

: And, by the way, even in case of truly explosive decompression (due to
: airframe failure) passengers have survived, thanks to access to oxygen
: and the flight crew acting to quickly descend to a breathable altitude. 
: Decompression is no picnic, but people don't explode or otherwise
: instantly die the way they do in movies.  In a desperate situation it
: may be a relatively minor concern.

     Yes, there was a Hawaiian Airlines (Aloha Airlines?) plane
that lost a large section of fuselage due to metal fatigue.  The
pilot managed to land the plane but several lives were lost due
to the decompression.  I do not consider this to be an acceptable
approach to deterring or preventing hijackings.

: >      I did a quick web search for a report confirming or
: > denying that a bullet-size hole would lead to explosive
: > decompression, but did not find anything on either side
: > that would pass for authoritative.

: Then why did you make the bogus claim in the first place?

     Is anything that cannot be verified by a quick web 
search "bogus?"
     You might want to try reducing your Prozac dosage,
Jeffrey.