Originally posted by ANOK
Blah blah blah Zaphod...
So tell me again, which part of a 757 weighs the most?
The fuselage? Full of people but really not the heaviest part, no?
Engines? Hmmmmm pretty darn heavy, I know I used to work on them.
Or the wings, as you yourself pointed out hold the fuel tanks?
Now what was that equation of yours again?
You claim the weight helped the A/C to penetrate the 2 Ft. thick reinforced (Reba) concrete wall, OK...
Where does the weight come from? You said the fuel 61,200 lbs....
Now, where are those fuel tanks again?
As usual, another reply without even bothering to note the facts already outlined in this thread (4th page 11th post I think). Yeah the engines
"weigh a lot" they weigh, as a matter of fact, 11,900lb
including struts.
According to the NTSB: Data from the flight recorder showed that; the plane was traveling at 400 knots (780 ft/s) (512.9 mph) at a magnetic
bearing of 70 degrees when it struck the Pentagon. It had approximately 36,200lb of fuel (5,300 gal) and weighed approximately 181,520lb
According to Boeing Engineers:
The weight in each wing was composed of the following:
Exposed Wing Structure: 13,500 lb
Engine and Struts: 11,900 lb
Landing Gear: 3,800 lb
Fuel: 14,600 lb
Total: 43,800 lb
The balance of the weight was in the fuselage. In the normal course of operation, the center fuel tank is the last filled and the first used. Thus the
weight of the fuselage at the time of impact was 181,520 - (2 x 43,800) = 93,920 lb. Of this, 7,000 lb was fuel [36,200 - (2 x 14,600) = 7,000 lb].
I know that I can see that 93,920 lb is almost twice the weight of a wing, you can too right? It actually weighs more than both wings combined.
Now that you have the FACTS in front of you (hey what do you know, they've been freely available in this thread since page 4 the moment I discovered
the data had been released from the Flight Data Recorder) do you STILL desire to delude yourself that the engines comprised some magic massive amount
of the total weight of the 757?
I do not understand why you guys form these opinions, without educating yourself on
solid
facts before posting (if you want solid facts, this document from the American Society of Civil Engineering / Structural Engineering Institude
is something you should read from start to finish). I'd be far too embarrassed to repeatedly state "facts" that were in reality just some bs I
rambled on about just because it fit with MY perception of the way things should be...
-=-
Now for some 7th grade science!
I also know that a cylinder has an immensely greater penetrating power than a long surface such as a wing, but don't take my word for it! Try this:
take a potato, and 2 drinking straws - now slap the potato as hard as you can with the side of the 1st straw, I bet you saw the potato won... a straw
sure isn't very strong on the side is it... Now take the 2nd straw and stab the potato dead on as hard as you can -- wow! The same 'weak' straw not
only drove into the potato but if you were unlucky it might have even gone all the way through and into your hand! Imagine that...
Lets expand on that slightly... Lets take the same straw, make it 13 feet across and 155 feet long. That sure sounds like a big straw. Now, lets ram
that straw into the side of a building at 500mph, I wonder what would happen? I bet it wouldn't flatten like a pancake or shred out to the sides like
a cartoon stick of dynamite. I bet it would ram right into that building just like an arrow, or like a smaller straw into a potato...
My next post will respond to "where did the engines go". I see where, you would too if you actually read anything or looked at photos and applied
the correct angle of attack for the aircraft.
[edit on 3-7-2005 by CatHerder]