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Free Flow: If The Fuel Tanks On Airplanes Could Talk
International Herald Tribune ^
| 12 July 2006
| Don Phillips
Posted on 07/12/2006 11:09:51 AM PDT by Hal1950
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To: Hal1950
21
posted on
07/12/2006 11:49:12 AM PDT
by
VOA
To: malia
22
posted on
07/12/2006 11:51:13 AM PDT
by
ml/nj
To: AxelPaulsenJr
"Ok, I admit it, I shot the plane down."Ha!
And I was only two when I shot JFK
23
posted on
07/12/2006 11:51:59 AM PDT
by
#1CTYankee
(That's right, I have no proof. So what of it??)
To: Hal1950
Wasn't there also a Swiss Air flight out of NY in the 1990s that crashed into the Atlantic. And I seem to remember an Egypt Air flight as well. Planes don't fall out of the sky from high altitude--but along this particular route they seem to.
24
posted on
07/12/2006 11:57:36 AM PDT
by
LSUfan
To: #1CTYankee
> Don't they have to heat this stuff and spray it into a mist to get it to burn?
And then some. I recall reading about an incident that happened to another 747 where a lightning bolt hit one wing, traveled through the center wing tank and out the other wing, and even THAT didn't blow the tank!.
25
posted on
07/12/2006 12:02:48 PM PDT
by
ADemocratNoMore
(Jeepers, Freepers, where'd 'ya get those sleepers?. Pj people, exposing old media's lies.)
To: theDentist
NY to Paris is only about 3,000 miles. 747 can fly much further with full tanks--not needed for that trip.
Plane went up in altitude when nose blew off because plane just lost a lot of weight, and became tail heavy.
26
posted on
07/12/2006 12:04:07 PM PDT
by
johnandrhonda
(have you hugged your banjo today?)
To: LN2Campy
a "near empty" fuel tankat the START of its transatlantic flightQuite possible. They only take on a full load of fuel if it's needed for the flight plus reserver. If the plane isn't fully loaded they'll take less fuel because the extra weight adds to the fuel consumption.
27
posted on
07/12/2006 12:04:07 PM PDT
by
Squawk 8888
(Yay! It's Riding Season!)
To: #1CTYankee
Don't they have to heat this stuff and spray it into a mist to get it to burn?No, you're thinking of diesel oil; jets burn kerosene. Whenever you mix air with fuel vapours, things can go kaboom. That's why empty gas tanks give an explosion while full tanks just give a fireball.
28
posted on
07/12/2006 12:07:27 PM PDT
by
Squawk 8888
(Yay! It's Riding Season!)
To: LSUfan
The Swissair flight was brought down by an electrical fire in the cockpit. The crew were trying to divert to Halifax but didn't make it.
29
posted on
07/12/2006 12:09:27 PM PDT
by
Squawk 8888
(Yay! It's Riding Season!)
To: ADemocratNoMore
I recall reading about an incident that happened to another 747 where a lightning bolt hit one wing, traveled through the center wing tank and out the other wing, and even THAT didn't blow the tank!.That's because the airframe acts as a Farraday cage, directing the energy around everything inside. The NTSB report cited arcing INSIDE the tank.
30
posted on
07/12/2006 12:11:30 PM PDT
by
Squawk 8888
(Yay! It's Riding Season!)
To: #1CTYankee
It's one of several tanks that are fillable independently.
31
posted on
07/12/2006 12:24:45 PM PDT
by
Ouderkirk
(Don't you think it's interesting how death and destruction seems to happen wherever Muslims gather?)
To: malia
I'm not a tin foil hatter(not implying you are either)...but I have to agree. This whole thing smelled bad right from the beginning. With Clinton running for reelection in a few months the last thing they needed was a terrorist incident. While it may very well have been an exploding fuel tank, I have a hard time with that since jet fuel (aka Kerosene) is not as flash flammable as gasoline.
Include my complete distrust of anything Clinton and we now have the makings of a conspiracy.
32
posted on
07/12/2006 12:30:29 PM PDT
by
Ouderkirk
(Don't you think it's interesting how death and destruction seems to happen wherever Muslims gather?)
To: LN2Campy
yes, a "near empty" fuel tank at the START of its transatlantic flight??A 747 burns 125 pounds of fuel a minute at idle! Most of the fuel is carried in the wings anyway.
33
posted on
07/12/2006 1:23:24 PM PDT
by
Aeronaut
("Endless repetition is not a coherent argument." —Thomas Sowell)
To: #1CTYankee
Because the plane has at least 3 fuel tanks, and it is awesomely expensive for planes to carry more fuel than they need to reach their destination, due to the extra weight. This plane is capable of longer flights, and if it had been going to, say Moscow, this tank wouldn't have been empty.
To: johnandrhonda
Plane went up in altitude when nose blew off because plane just lost a lot of weight, and became tail heavy. The center fuel tank is in the wing box for the main wings. When it blew up, the wings came off. What you are saying happened, didn't.
35
posted on
07/12/2006 7:43:25 PM PDT
by
Big Giant Head
(I should change my tagline to "Big Giant Pancake on my Head")
To: Hal1950
Found this on IMDB.com:
"In the middle of the film, Dolly Parton and her colleagues send a nosy secretary to the Aspen Language Center in Colorado to learn French. The particular TWA 747 shown in the film later was used in reality on the ill-fated flight of TWA 800, which exploded off of Long Island, NY."
Kinda goes with this thread.
36
posted on
07/12/2006 7:50:36 PM PDT
by
NCC-1701
(RADICAL ISLAM IS A CULT. IT MUST BE ELIMINATED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH.)
To: NCC-1701
BTW, that was from "9 to 5"
37
posted on
07/12/2006 7:51:33 PM PDT
by
NCC-1701
(RADICAL ISLAM IS A CULT. IT MUST BE ELIMINATED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH.)
To: #1CTYankee
"Why would a plane traveling from New York to Paris have a nearly empty fuel tank?"
Welllll, you know how those EMPTY tanks can explode so much better than a FULL tank would have exploded. The EMPTY tank can explode with the force of a few gallons of fuel, whereas a FULL tank explodes with 1000's of gallons of fuel, which of course isn't nearly as powerful as the empty tank full of air.
All that liquid fuel from the full tank just douses out it's own flames, especially after being ripped and cooled with air at over 400 MPH. You know, the way that Challenger was saved when the liquid tank came apart and that fuel quenched the flames out.
/sarc
38
posted on
07/12/2006 8:07:27 PM PDT
by
HighWheeler
(A true liberal today is a combination of socialist, fascist, hypocrite, and anti-American.)
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