[TheForge] O/T Survivor

[John Husvar]

GHS wrote:
> Phlip, IN NO WAY, am I in favor of disarming the populace. Previous 
> posts of mine will stand witness to that.
> 
> I just would not want to be in the plane , flying at altitude, when 
> someone pops out a window.
> 
> Mike Graf
> 

Well, you'd be a little cold and maybe uncomfortable in the ears for the 
time it'd take the pilot to make a controlled descent to an altitude 
where pressurization is no longer needed. That's about it: That and 
using those execrable oxygen masks. :)

God, how I wish Goldfinger had never been made!

Explosive decompression is a myth, folks. Gad, even Mythbusters did a 
show on the subject. Status of myth: Busted. (Discovery Channel, IIRC)

The pressurization control valving on an airliner adds up to about the 
diameter of a basketball when wide open. All a bullet through the skin 
of an airliner would cause is that valving would have to be closed a 
little tighter. Loss of an entire window might mean the pilot would have 
to descend to below 10,000 feet in a little bit of a hurry.

Getting a whole window to blow out would be a little more difficult. 
They puncture more like a car windshield.

Anybody remember the airliner over the pacific, out of Honolulu, that 
lost 1/3 of its cabin roof at 30,000 feet? One fatality when a flight 
attendant was blown out of the cabin by the 400+ MPH slipstream, several 
minor injuries, and a safe return to Honolulu.

Airliners are pretty hard to hurt. Even that plane that crashed in Sioux 
City kept flying with most of the hydraulic controls disabled by an 
engine compressor coming apart. Pilot came very close to landing it 
under control. The airlines and manufacturer rerouted some of the lines 
to make such an event less likely.

I oughta keep a couple of text files on this subject. That way I could 
just cut and paste. :)

-- 
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in one pretty and well-preserved piece.
One should rather skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,
totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- "WOW!  WHAT A RIDE!"