Posted on 09/15/2001 5:39:27 PM PDT by imberedux
And these particular planes weren't carrying a full passenger load either (so we were told) - so this 767 perhaps only carried half the max fuel load (still around 12,000 gallons of jet fuel)?
It's going to be worse than that. I don't know how much of the underground they count in the tower structure, but the holes these things were built over are tremendous.
A friend of mine used to ride the train from Jersey. It came up through the basement. For months, the view of the construction site was all plywood, then one day the plywood was gone. He was astounded to find himself in riding a subway in a place that appeared to hundreds of feet above the bottom of the foundation floor. You will notice that the 300 foot antenna came down straight and the top of it is not far above ground level, and much of the tower is under it.
You have essentially answered yourself. Fort building went on long after cannons first started breaching stone walls. The last really biggy I suppose was the Maginot line, not counting all the nuke shelters.
The ground in Manhattan's financial district I suspect is just too damned valuable to leave as open space. I can't imagine New Yorkers accepting a smaller building, it would be admitting defeat. Neither can I see them settling for anything but the tallest building in the world, and the ground site should be big enough. If not, they will make it bigger.
As for the plan business, that was easily preventable, and we should be kicking ourselves in the butt for not expecting someone to try something already put into the movies. The government solution will cause real headaches, but he headaches will soon force the arrival of real and intelligent solutions.
Overall, the thing least likely to survive this event will probably be the Bush administration. Over 60% of Americans say we are at war. Over 60% say they don't know who we are at war with. It's a near impossible plate for anyone to digest.
For sure there will be a debate. I did some work a while ago at a regional IRS center, my first impression was; why is this center spread out so far and wide, acres and acres of a one story building? They simply answered, security. This is nothing new.
BTW, the "War on Terrorism" sounds too much like the "War on Drugs." Sounds fishy.
Security from the taxpayer no doubt. The government bureaucracy thrives on defeatism and fear; and it loathes self-sufficientcy and the idea of a nation of individuals working on common principles to diffuse goals being stronger than massa's new cradle to grave plan. The WTC was built that way because it was a commercial endeavor, not 'the consensus of the plunder of the public purse." As such, it was a failure and became quasi-state supported, but it still was infinitely more integral to our strength than the IRS is, was, or ever shall be.
BTW, the "War on Terrorism" sounds too much like the "War on Drugs." Sounds fishy
Damned right. It's really just an attempt to fix and or cover up the failure of a long term and un-Godly failed foreign policy. It's trying to build a new house on a foundation of sand. I pray sensible hands will guide it, but I don't really believe that will happen.
The 747 went into service on 21 January 1970 with Pan Am. First flight occurred on 9 Feb 1969. Design of the buildings probably began in 64 or 65.
Boeing website:
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767-300/product.html
OK engineers, someone want to get out those slide rulers and calculate the kiloton yield of a fully fueled Boeing 767 cruise missile traveling at 450 knots?
I read somewhere that the number one product and export of Afghanistan is opium. So it looks like we might get to kill two birds with one stone on this one. Can anyone confirm these Afghani production and export facts as well?
They can, but it is sort of the wrong approach. Fuel explosive power depends on it's mixture with air. All things considered, the impact was largely kinetic, and quite awesome in that regard. I would like to know whether the plane cut through the amy of the steel beams, though I suspect it was just shredded. The meaningful calculation is how much heat the burning fuel was able to produce over time, and whether any sort of built in foam systems could be devised to defeat that.
I read somewhere that the number one product and export of Afghanistan is opium. So it looks like we might get to kill two birds with one stone on this one. Can anyone confirm these Afghani production and export facts as well?
The war might put a real crimp in some of our CIA activities and capabilities to deal in drugs there. By the same token, our history of doing that there may be part of the reason the administration is so eager to go there.
The last really biggy was Saddam's front line; which we easily attacked from behind.
I would have to side with the idea that Osama, and others who planned this had no idea that the buildings would come down. I think they would have wanted the burned out hulks to remain in the great satans skyline.
Our countries reation and call for war are a much bigger blowback to them than they had in mind. They wanted us defeated and frightened. Not empowered. We are so much more dangerous now than ever.
I didn't count it because we used it so effectively as an instant graveyard, plowing it right over on them at about 30 miles on hour. As a defense, it seemed somehow simply to amatuerish in it's day to be creditable. At least, as far as events actually played out.
There was however that giant system built at a resort outside Washington to house Congress in a national emergency that was finally compromised and then abandoned. I would imagine that really only happened after they built a new one under a Casino Atlantic City or some such place.
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