Text 20501, 76 rader
Skriven 2005-12-31 08:37:38 av Peter Knapper (3:772/1.0)
  Kommentar till text 20440 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: Re: Lack of Gratitude
=============================
Hi Ward,

> You need to be able to accept that some people really do think different
> to you and I, to be able to accept that they had intelligence. They
> certainly needed some sort of intelligence to be able to have the plan
> work as well as it did, just look where the planes hit, at the precise
> location of the weakest point in the structure and at an angle designed
> to do the most damage. That simply HAD to conceived and executed by
> intellgent thinkers...

 WD> I think you are stretching it a bit too far.

The "reports" I read suggest that perhaps the single biggest factor was that
both planes hit at an angle so that both horizontal and vertical beams were
weakened and that fire would be almost guaranteed to start. Both planes points
of origin were selected to ensure they had a good supply of fuel left before
the impact...

 WD> The point of impact was relatively harmless, 

Some "relatively harmless" hit!!! I doubt that anyone expected the structures
to collapse as a result of a direct hit (at least at the design stage the
structure was expected to withstand a direct hit by an aircraft of the type
flown at that time), simply because it is fairly common knowledge that steel
structure buildings have a major weakness once the steel has been heated to a
certain point. Until that happens they are reasonably sound. That is the sole
reason why so many people managed to escape, it took time for the steel to
weaken to the necessary point of collapse. 


 WD> it's the fires afterward that did 
 WD> it, without fire there would simply have been a big 
 WD> hole and a much smaller number of people that perished.

Exactly. 


 WD> The second plane came in too low, too fast and at the 
 WD> wrong angle. The person flying the plane had to execute 
 WD> a drastic high-speed left-turn in order not to miss the 
 WD> building. Eventually it was a very lucky hit, by 
 WD> crashing in the building at the spot it did hitting 
 WD> nearly exactly one of the support points. It's a half-
 WD> miracle it even took 40-45 minutes before it collapsed.

No, time was need to heat the steel to the level required to weaken it, an
immediate collapse was very unlikely.

 WD> I think when you fly a plane on that kind of mission 
 WD> you are not worrying about left or right, or between 
 WD> the 77th and 81st floor, or about structural 
 WD> considerations ... you just turn your brain to zero, 
 WD> try to hit the thing where-ever whenever and be on your 
 WD> way to eternal glory, happyness and 70 virgins.

As I see it the optimum criteria that could reasonably be expected was -
 1. The hit needed to be about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the building height (to
provide weight to ensure the maximum collapsing effect),
 2. The hit needed to span 2 or more floors vertically (this helped ensure a
vertical collapse was likely),
 3. The planes needed to still be carrying sufficient fuel (so that a fire
could be almost guaranteed to take hold and provide the REQUIRED weakening of
the structure).
 4. Horizontally, there was an optimum location of impact to involve the
vertical support beams (as you point out this was more luck than anything).

Without fire both building's would probably have survived, it was teh Fire that
almost guaranteed to collapse. A precise impact point would not have been
required, a hit anywhere within a range of vertical floors could have done the
job.

Cheers........pk.


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