At 03:16 PM 2/17/99 +1100, Time Bates wrote:
>Perhaps an example will suffice.
>
> "If one throws a glider horizontally and
> simultaneously drops a second body from
> rest, the two objects strike a horizontal
> plane at the same instant."
>
>Hmmm. no.
>
>A 747 is not "an object" it is an active agent in the air.
IAN: A 747 without a forward section is not a 747, it's a wreak. I posit, though I know its not a popular view, that an the opened cavity of the interior fuselage of FLT800 would act like a massive airbreaking parachute, like those the Shuttle deploys, which I propose is why they give the opposite shape to the noses of aircraft. To apply the aerodynamics of a normal 747 to the wreak that was FLT800 seems absurd to me, but the CIA says it rose 5 times faster than the book-value climb rate, and over twice the maximum operational climb rate, and that seems to be overwhelming evidence to most people.
I suspect if the CIA did a video that said pigs could fly I'd be here battling it out, arguing that they can't. Oh ya, they DID make a video that says "pigs" can fly and I am here battling it out. Life is stranger than fiction!
Speaking of gliders, Tim, what about if the nose was chopped off it! Check out this glider with no nose, what happens to it when it comes off?:
http://home.earthlink.net/~neteagle/Modeltest
Granted there are scaling issues, but the overall physics involved gives us a reliable indicator.