Posted on 05/04/2007 10:51:10 AM PDT by Hal1950
False. The zoom climb scenario's were created solely to discredit the eye witnesses. The cartoons were used to impeach their statements so that there was no eyewitness "testimony" allowed in the hearings. A good number of them were familiar with missile trails and ordnance explosives and some were quite explicit in what they saw. NOT ONE was allowed to testify before the NTSB because they had been "discredited" by the CIA/NTSB zoom climb cartoons explaining away of what they said they had seen.
Again you come back with "inaccurate data points" without providing any evidence of inaccuracy. They are inaccurate because YOU claim them to be. I cannot believe that the Islip Primary Radar is inaccurate by "hundreds of yards"...
Also your "engines at idle" assertion is just that, an assertion.
No, it is a statement from Boeing... when the signal from the cockpit is lost, the engines revert to idle. It is not an assertion that is even challenged by the NTSB. It is accepted as a fact.
You can't fathom that the engines could have stayed at full power because it doesn't fit your template.
No, it doesn't fit YOUR template. The designer and builder of the aircraft says that the engines will revert to idle when the signal from the cockpit is lost... but YOU want them to stay at full power so you ignore what the experts testified to. You are the one who is dancing... and you don't do it well.
Even if you had credible evidence that no climb occurred, it proves nothing in regard to a missile.
There we can agree... that's why I refer to the start of the TWA800 tragedy as the "initiating event."
In past threads on FreeRepublic I have posted the exact math... formulae and all... showing the results of which I have posted here. I challenge you to fit the CIA's 3200 foot zoom climb or the NTSB's 1600 foot zoom climb into the time available and the energy available.
Both the CIA and the NTSB have refused to release their calculations even in the face of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. They claim it would reveal "proprietary information" belonging to Boeing. However, Boeing released a statement also questioning the zoom climb and stated that they had provided no information regarding such a climb.
I haven't even gotten into the insignificant differences that either an additional 3200 or even 1500 feet would appear in relation to 13,800 feet of altitude to witnesses viewing the incident from the various viewpoints. Do the trigonometry... the few degrees of change certainly could not be mistaken for "rising from the horizon," or "appearing over the roof," etc.
Let's accept the government's Center Wing Tank explosion theory for the moment. The Center Wing Tank is not just an empty space that can be filled with fuel... it is structural as well. In fact, aside from the keel of the aircraft, it is probably the most important structural component. It is a box built of transverse structural girders to which the wings are attached to the fuselage. It bears the weight of the plane and transfers the forces of the engines' thrust and the wings' lift to the aircraft. If it had "exploded" the structural integrity of the box would have been severely compromised... in fact, that is one of the reasons the left wing was not found with the main body. How, then, did these wings remain attached under extreme stress of a zoom climb? We are talking huge, beyond design tolerance, forces that are required when the forward momentum of the aircraft is supposedly converted to upward momentum through lift.
Lets test your Physics, Aeronautical and/or Engineering degree.
It's not like it is Fadec or even electronically controlled.
There is a cable to the FCU. If the cockpit breaks off and the cable goes with it, those engines could run at full thrust until they ran out of gas.
That is NOT what Boeing told the NTSB. I am open to hearing from someone who has greater expertise than Boeing on what the engines they install in their 747s will do.
Sorry about taking so long to get back to you.
I disagree that there is a discrepancy. Something was the cause of the initiating event (IE) at 13,800 feet... The witnesses all state the streak's climb to be "5 seconds," "seven to ten seconds," "for about five seconds," "for approximately ten seconds," etc. I averaged this to 8 seconds and counted time backwards from the IE to establish a launch time. This is consistent with the burn time and flight time of a missile that can accelerate to Mach 2.1.
Untrained eyewitnesses tend to compress events. Time estimation is one of the first discrimination abilities to go in shocking events.
Although many witnesses saw one explosion, several witnesses reported the explosion as two explosions... a bright, white, high velocity, ordnance type explosion, then later a large, reddish fireball indicative of a low pressure explosion. Those who saw a double explosion tended to be more experienced with observing explosions... pilots, ex or current military, etc.
One of the witnesses you quote above (thank you) states "At this time, the object disappeared in an intense bright white explosion." Fuel/air mixture explosions, low velocity explosions, are characterized by orange/yellow light... not brilliant, intense white explosions which are more characteristic of high velocity explosives. I think Meyer also made the distinction that the explosion he saw first was a white, ordnance explosion... as did several others who were experienced in seeing such ordnance explosions.
I think other, less experienced, witnesses assuming that the second explosion was just a continuation of the first event, compressed the first explosion into the low energy explosion of the air/fuel mixture that I propose occurred approximately 26 seconds after the first when fuel gushing from the now broken off left wing was mixed with the air by the spinning plane, which was possibly ignited by a mechanical breakage spark. Until the fuel was sufficiently mixed with air, especially Jet A, it is hard to detonate.
Faret's and Wendell's reports, as well as the other air born witnesses' reports of the altitude of the "massive fireball," were instrumental in my placing that event at ~7,500 to 7,000 feet.
My reasoning is that sometime between the fifth post IE radar sweep and the sixth, the crippled aircraft makes an extreme change of vector, a change greater than 90º! To make such a change of vector requires a lot of energy. I think that change of vector is caused by the opposite and equal reaction of tossing off the left wing.
It is at the loss of the wing that the amount of fuel mixing in the air would be greatest. I tend to think the explosion occurred closer to 7,000 than 7,500 because Faret and Wendel said the top of the fireball was at 7,500 as did Meyer. My estimate is that the fireball was 1,000 feet in diameter at this point. If the plane were at the center of this fireball, then ~7,000 is the altitude.
As to the time after the IE that the fireball developed:
For TWA800 to get from 13,800 to 7,000 feet requires time... and it could not have taken a fireball from an explosion at 13,800 with it down to 7,000. That's not possible. Ergo, the initiating event produced little in the way of a fireball. However, for the crippled, nose-less aircraft to reach the altitude where I postulate the fuel/air explosion, it would take a minimum of sixteen seconds if it FLEW in a straight line directly there at the 423 MPH (620 feet/second) we know it was flying at before the IE. I think it followed a ballistic arc, losing forward momentum and speed due to drag... making the time about 8-10 seconds longer.
Because of the time stamp of Sven Faret's radio report to ATC at 8:31:38, I may have to revise the time line to put the explosion a couple of seconds earlier and 6-800 feet higher... but that is still within the ball park... and it is possible the severe change in vector between the two radar sweeps I noted above may have been caused by the explosion itself as well as the loss of the left wing.
Does this explanation help?
When the front third of the plane separated from the back, several things happened simultaneously. Each of these three scenarios below can each be analyzed individually. Each one alone is capable of immediately tumbling and destroying the plane. On flight 800 all three of these occurred together.
1) As the front third separated, the center of gravity shifted aft behind the center of pressure of the airplane. All flying bodies must have the center of gravity in front of the center of force (aka the center of pressure). The instant the center of gravity goes aft of the center of pressure, any flying body will tumble in an attempt to correct adverse torque put on the body and reposition the center of gravity back where it belongs: ahead of the center of pressure. This is a fact of physics. When the nose separated, this plane immediately entered an unrecoverable tumble. Any aircraft, including rockets, will tumble the moment the CG goes aft of the CP.
2) With the aerodynamic nose torn away, two significant problems result: the forces on the nose increase substantially, and these forces are not equally distributed across the face of the fuselage. One side will have a higher force than the other. This unbalanced force alone will immediately cause the aircraft to start to depart from the original line of flight. The moment the plane begins this departure, the forces will accelerate the tumbling of the plane.
3) This plane used dual push-pull cables to move each of the control surfaces, such as the right wing, left wing, trim tabs, tail, and rudder. The explosion would have had to have cut all these cables immediately, cleanly and simultaneouly, which is impossible. As a result, as the nose fell away, the cables would all pull until they broke - one at a time. As this occurred, the aft portion of the plane would shudder, twist and roll as each pair of cables were pulled to their limit and snapped. At the end, only one of the cables of the pair for each of the main control surfaces would pull that control surface to its extreme limit, and cause the plane to tumble.
It is absolutely impossible for this plane to fly its own length before it would begin tumbling.
I hope this helps.
You're stating facts not in evidence. What you think was motive is not defector fact. The NTSB looks at all accounts. Whether or not they give it a podium at public hearings is another matter.
The number of eye witness accounts that falsely detail an explosion or fire before an airplane crashes is tremendous. I assume you believe that these are all conspiracies as well?
Again you come back with "inaccurate data points" without providing any evidence of inaccuracy. They are inaccurate because YOU claim them to be. I cannot believe that the Islip Primary Radar is inaccurate by "hundreds of yards"...
Believe it. Take the pulse length of the radar (time) and multiply it by the speed of light. These systems are not designed for precision targeting, the extremely long sweep time should clue you in to that. To search a long distance a radar requires a low frequency and high power. Neither of which is conducive to a short pulse. And that is forgetting about calibration issues. Long range search radars are not designed to be, nor or in practice calibrated to be exact. Why? Because precision is not the point. One does not break out a micrometer to pinpoint where to aim with an ax.
No, it is a statement from Boeing... when the signal from the cockpit is lost, the engines revert to idle. It is not an assertion that is even challenged by the NTSB. It is accepted as a fact.
And if Boeing told you to jump off a cliff...? Boeing's statement is a matter of design intent. One would then have to determine what constitutes a signal and what level of certainty there is that it was interrupted. Wires passing through an area of damage does not equal immediate severing of signal. Further, Boeing could be wrong about their own design. I'm betting that if Boeing told you that a missile could not done the damage to the aircraft, that you would be very quick to dismiss the word of Boeing. Consistency and conspiracy theories are rarely good bed fellows.
No, it doesn't fit YOUR template. The designer and builder of the aircraft says that the engines will revert to idle when the signal from the cockpit is lost... but YOU want them to stay at full power so you ignore what the experts testified to. You are the one who is dancing... and you don't do it well.
My only dog in the engine to idle fight is that aircraft that crash due to mechanical problems are often found to have not followed the designers rules. To take the engines to idle from high power requires an action. For you to insist that there is nothing that could have interrupted this action is absurd. Improper installation, bad software, poor maintenance, etc. could easily have such a result. Whether the aircraft zoom climbed or not is inconsequential to me.
I challenge you to fit the CIA's 3200 foot zoom climb or the NTSB's 1600 foot zoom climb into the time available and the energy available.
Try to solve a false problem based on bad input, no thanks. If the engines stayed at full power to impact that really messes with your numbers doesn't it? As does your reliance on air search radar to provide exact locations.
How, then, did these wings remain attached under extreme stress of a zoom climb? We are talking huge, beyond design tolerance, forces that are required when the forward momentum of the aircraft is supposedly converted to upward momentum through lift.
Humoring your obsession with the zoom climb, design tolerances are not equal to failure point. The fact that the aircraft crashed and the left wing separated does not appear to impress you that the failure point was reached.
You still haven't provided the type of missile that would be able to go to that altitude, leave a fiery trail on the way, nor the reason the US government would attempt to hide it. I'm listening.
Electromagnetic waves = C. C/1,000,000 = 983 ft. Now multiply that by the pulse width in microseconds and you have your precision.
Using 2 microseconds you get a possible deviation of position of almost 4000 feet from one return to the next. If that error is applied to a 5 second return time, it makes your fine tuned mathematical calibration of the aircraft’s path a joke. And none of this takes into account the calibration errors in the radar.
Conspiracy minded people believe what they want and reject the rest.
An air search radar generally has a pulse ranging from 2-8 microseconds. A microsecond = one millionth of a second.
Electromagnetic waves = C. C/1,000,000 = 983 ft. Now multiply that by the pulse width in microseconds and you have your precision.
Using 2 microseconds you get a possible deviation of position of almost 4000 feet from one return to the next. If that error is applied to a 5 second return time, it makes your fine tuned mathematical calibration of the aircraft’s path a joke. And none of this takes into account the calibration errors in the radar.
Conspiracy minded people believe what they want and reject the rest.
— — — —
Yours is one of the whackiest explanations of RADAR I have ever seen. You can’t use the EM radiation speed as the measure, you use the frequencies within the spectrum. For local Earth based measurement, it is virtually instantaneous and therefore the accuracy is virtually perfect. Just as your eyes can continuously see things (almost) exactly where they are, so does RADAR. The only difference is in the distance to the object being viewed. On Earth based viewing, that distance is considered negligable - not even close to the thousands of feet as you think.
RADAR is similar to your eyes looking at something, except that your eyes see the visible frequency spectrum, and RADAR uses select radio frequencies.
Where do you get a 5 second return time for RADAR??? EMI can go to the Moon and back in only 2 and a half seconds. So when you look at the Moon you can only see where it was 1.25 seconds ago.
UNGN: “There is a cable to the FCU. If the cockpit breaks off and the cable goes with it, those engines could run at full thrust until they ran out of gas.”
- - - - - - -
And you know this for sure, how?? You should stop speculating on things you obviously know nothing about.
Ever heard of the term “failsafe”? You even have that feature on your car’s gas pedal. If the cable breaks the engine goes to idle.
Imagine the terrible result on a tarmac if an engine would go to full throttle because a cable connection broke or a wire shorted or opened, all because it didn’t have a failsafe system to return the engine to idle.
Why was the United States Central Intelligence Agency brought in on the investigation of an ordinary airplane crash? Are they supposed to be some kind of super-duper transportation safety experts? How come we’re not seeing them looking into all sorts of other aircraft crashes and other accidents?
Your ignorance is unbelievable. I've taught radar theory. The length of the pulse is the minimum accuracy achievable, period. If you send out 8 microseconds of energy and receive back energy, you have no idea what part of the original signal was sent back. The margin of error remains the length of the pulse at the speed of transmission.
Nearly instantaneous
Perhaps using your pocket watch, but when every nanosecond counts a microsecond is a lot of distance. At 186,000 miles per second "nearly instantaneous" is a joke of a statement. Do you know the speed of light? Do you know what a microsecond is? Can you do the math?
Read the post. The 5 second return time is the time of sweep from the last position. That is the time of return for the sweep to acquire a new position, not the return time of the pulse.
but can they build a plane that is clinton-proof?
IIRC, Boeing got a big contract after TWA 800.
From who?
Sales of tinfoil were dropping off and big foil wanted to get those numbers up. Therefore they openly involved the CIA, because they knew that the conspiracy theory folks couldn't miss such an obtuse signal.
OR
Although the government was magically efficient in completely muzzling hundreds/thousands of people from telling what they knew, they were too stupid to keep the CIA from making a report, because not one of the master conspirators thought about your cunning ability to connect the dots.
Take your pick.
This might help you. http://radarproblems.com/chapters/ch01.dir/ch01pr.dir/c01p3.dir/c01p3.htm
And we haven’t even begun to cover the inherent error from the beam width (equal to the width of the beam). There is a reason that you can’t use an air search radar as a targeting system.
Any more nonsense from the peanut gallery?
Now let's try again: Why was the CIA involved in this airliner downing investigation and not in other incidents before or since? Gee, one might think that the CIA {and maybe even the Clinton Administration} could have had some kind of prior warning of a bombing or an attack and dropped the ball. Certainly nobody in power would ever want to cover their asses would they?
Oh, you're a radar expert. Wonderful.
Got you... radar is worthless. At a distance of 10 miles, the possible error of position is 7.5% Right. OK.
I might also point out that there were at least six radars of various types sweeping the area at the time of the TWA800 disaster. Triangulation is a useful tool to check the accuracy of any of them.
Of course the main body of the wreckage just happened to be found directly under the last (8th) Islip radar return position... not 2000 feet away. You know that these positions were used by the NTSB in their reports as well... they've been out there almost ten years and YOU are apparently the first one to claim such criticisms. Amazing.
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