Posted on 08/21/2006 8:19:46 PM PDT by AnimalLover
It's not like the plane was going mach 2 or outside the range of the stinger. Yes, it was at the limits, but definitely still within range. Also, I'm not sure that what the witnesses may have seen was some sort of flash coming off the aircraft after it exploded, and being confused later as to whether it was going up or down. Nighttime, relflections off the water, and big flashes of light can and will confuse any eyewitness. Therefore, my opinion is, if it were an attack, either an explosion on board the aircraft or very possibly a smaller plane flying into it.
You were going to tell us where in the NTSB report Boeing said the engines were producing no thrust......
You were going to tell us where in the NTSB report Boeing said the engines were producing no thrust......
How long did TWA-800 remain in the air after the initiating event?
I found one comment he made to be pertinent to your claiming a pilot would understand:
"The climb calculation will be counterintuitive for pilots, who know that they can zoom an aircraft by pulling all the way back on the yoke and letting the AOA drift up towards stall condition as the aircraft climbs. The problem is, very few pilots have pitched-up an aircraft, and fewer still are around to tell about it. The answer to the puzzle is in the swiftness of the pitch up and the lack of alpha control. The vertical velocity does not have a chance to build up very much prior to stall."I also found this statement by a Boeing Engineer who worked on the 747:
"No aircraft as large as the B747 could have done anything but stall and descend, when confronted with the loss of its second most major aerodynamic section - the nose."There are two reasons for this.
"First, as others have aptly pointed out, the center of gravity would have shifted aft of the wings, causing the remaining airframe to compensate by rotating on that center to a tail down configuration.
"When that happened - as that happened - the engines would all have then gone into a compressor stall configuration, as the air would have been rushing past the inlets, causing air starvation or rarefaction in their compressor sections.
"Upon this stall configuration, there would no longer be any usable thrust, and quite likely one or more of the engines would have experienced a flame out condition, in consideration of both the current altitude, and attitude: the air at 13000 feet is nowhere as near as dense at sea level, and the recovery of a stalled engine would have required a more direct, head-on airflow, or one which benefited an increased airflow.
"The attitude alone would have slowed the airframe considerably, and have resulted in its eventual loss of altitude, simply because there was now no air under the wings. The wings are the prime surface which make an airplane fly. Merely pointing them in any particular direction will not make the airframe to which they are attached go in that direction.
"The attitude of the total airframe, in consonance with the thrust vector is what makes an airplane go in any particular direction. Depriving the airframe of that consonant quality, will lead only to failure.
"With a loss of thrust, the airframe would simply have begun to drop tail down, and proceeded to roll to one side, and have begun its descent.
"None of this mentions that the aircraft nose, having separated from the main section, would have taken all control of the engines - and every control surface - with it, and have posed an absolutely insurmountable aerodynamic quandary: Without the previous CG, and with no predetermined preset conditions governing the flight laws of the control surfaces, every aspect of flight would now be at the whim of whatever wisp of air happening upon the airframe.
"If, in the most propitious circumstances, the engines had all managed to default to a 'flight idle' condition, that is, about 30 percent thrust, there is no way on this earth that that 747 would have gone anywhere but straight ahead - assuming the ludicrous by neglecting the the extreme of air turbulence as a result of the open hole where the forward section was - or straight down."
Incidentally, I question the accuracy of your Adobe Acrobat PDF search because the word "idle" is definitely in there... once at least in Chairman Hall's opening statement where he decries "idle speculation" and another in the transcript of the CVR where the comment "idle detents" and "Check" were transcribed. However, I am not surprised that the Boeing statement about the engines reverting to idle is not in the NTSB report... there is a lot that isn't in the report. For example, Dr. Loeb's conclusion about the zoom climb being possible is in the report... but his proofs and math are not. The FBI's lab reports on the foreign bodies removed from the bodies of the passengers is singularly missing. (The FBI now claims they cannot find the reports!) The NTSB, the FBI, and the CIA have yet to release any of the data they used to make the famous zoom climb cartoons despite years of FOI lawsuits.
Where did I get them? Boeing's web site on the 747... they are hard to find but if you persevere you can find the specs. They aren't bogus. I know about the "trade offs"... and that the figures I used are averages for altitude ranges. I could have posted the Boeing charts of altitudes and climb rates that show far more detail than any body needs, but the averages were just as useful in a discussion of this type.
By the way, you seem to have a problem with the rates.. those are feet per minute... not feet per second.
I would be interested in those "conditions under which a 747 could be made to climb at a rat of 20,000 or 25,000 feet per minute for a few seconds." Can you describe them?
The "fact" that a Manpads missile cannot reach an aircraft flying at 13,700 is a myth... a little research shows that there were Tier Two Manpads available in 1996 that could easily have hit TWA-800. Here is a post I put up
TWA-800 was at 13,800 feet when the Initiating Event (whether a missile or a spark in the Center Wing Tank) occured. 13,800 ft, is just at the outside range of several Russian made tripod mounted Ground to Air missiles.
A tripod mounted Mistral MANPAD missile, complete, ready to fire, was found set up and abandoned on a country road in Maryland two years before the TWA-800 disaster:
October 11, 1994 Associated Press report datelined 09/28 23:55 EDT V0009 (1994)
A State bomb squad destroyed a French-made surface to air rocket launcher armed with a live missile and explosives ....along a rural roadside in Westminster, Maryland.
The FBI and NTSB stated that there are no Man portable missiles that are capable of reaching that altitude... this is false. There are many that can.
The French made Mistral Missile is capable of reaching TWA-800s altitude (4-6km range) and is a fire and forget infra-red heat seeker. The Mistral is used in the militaries of 28 nations including several islamic nations. It is only one of several that have the range to reach TWA-800's altitude and still be effective.
The Mistral missile uses a two stage rocket propellant. The first stage ejects the missile from the launcher and spins the missile to provide stability in flight. The sustainer motor accelerates the missile to supersonic speed towards the target. The missile is equipped with an infra-red homing head supplied by SAT and based on an indium arsenide detector array operating in the 3 to 5 micron band of the infra-red spectrum. The missile has a 3kg high explosive warhead loaded with tungsten balls. The warhead is fitted with contact and proximity fuses.
Strangely, the coronor reported many of the bodies of the TWA-800 victims had small metallic balls in them...
The Mistral is a Tier 1 Manpad... but Tier 2 Manpads are also available. A Tier 2 Manpad could easily reach TWA-800 and knock it out of the sky:
Every one of the red dots on the plot is a location where a Tier Two Manpads could launch and hit an aircraft taking no evasive action at ~13,700 feet of altitude traveling at 370 knots.
In addition, at least 11 other airline crews reported missiles or missile like objects in near misses of their flights near Long Island in the months before and after TWA-800.
More ad hominem argument... a logical fallacy
I know who the founding members of ARAP are... and I know who my father was... I don't know who you and Mindbender26 are.
Associated Retired Aviation Professionals
Post Office Box 90, Clements, Md 20524; USA
E-Mail: ARAP
Membership
Admiral Thomas Moorer USN/(Deceased)
Admiral Moorer, is the former Chairman of the JointChief's of Staff
and the most Senior Retired Military Officer in the Group
Brig. General Ben Partin, USAF/Ret
General Partin was instrumental in developing continious rod-missile systems.
CMDR. William S. Donaldson USN/(Deceased)
Commander Donaldson is the former Officer-in-Charge of Carrier Battle Groups Air Traffic Control Center,
an air crash investigator and the author of the Interim Report to Congress on TWA Flight 800
Captain Al Mundo TWA/Ret
Captain Mundo is a retired TWA Pilot
Captain Howard Mann TWA/Ret
Captain Mann is a former TWA Pilot, an air crash investigator, participating in four air crash
investigations during his career and the most senior retired commercial pilot in the group.
Major Fred Meyer NYANG/Ret
Major Meyer is a decorated Vietnam Pilot and an eyewitness to the downing of TWA Flight 800.
Rear Admiral Mark Hill, USN/Ret
Admiral Hill, is the former Commanding Officer ofthe USS Independence and an Air Crash Investigator.
Cmdr. Bruce Valley, UNS/Ret
Cmdr. Valley is a retired Naval Aviator and currently President of GlobNet, Inc.
Dr. Gregory A. Harrison, P.E.
Dr. Harrison is a professional Fire Safety Enginneer with a Phd. in Safety Engineering.
He has extensive experience in fire investigations, flammable liquids and explosions.
Dr. Harrison is court qualified to testify on forensics in Md/VA/DC/NJ/PA/LA/TX and FLA.
I have independently calculated the physics of the flight... and found it confirmed by work done by others such as Dr. Thomas Stallcup (Physics). I provide links and examples of the math involved. I see you and mindbender26 making assertions ex-cathedra but little or no documentation to back up your claims... and certainly no math.
Did anyone happen to read Mr. Cashill's article today?
CNN and the disappearing zoom climb
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51661
NEVER FORGET
I would like to know who changed the Topics and Keywords
in my original post?
Have you read Peter Lance's book, Coverup?
It's a must-read for understanding Flight 800's destruction.
Thanks for the head's up - I hadn't heard of that particular book.
No, but thanks for the info. I just read the blurb about it on Amazon- published in 94, I guess it was too early to include info about Able Danger. But it all fits together.
In your Post 135 you stated
Have you read Peter Lance's book, Coverup?
It's a must-read for understanding Flight 800's destruction
Strangest thing - look what showed up on World Net Daily
August 31
Burying the mistakes of 9/11
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51757
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