On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:51:08 GMT, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 01:31:13 GMT, Alan Moore
brought forth from the murky depths:

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:17:42 GMT, Gunner
wrote:



I'm watching the rather entertaining show "Myth Busters" where they try to prove
or disprove urban legends.

Tonight they decided to see if planes really decompress explosively if a handgun
is fired through the skin or a window. They took a derelict airliner and pumped
the internal pressure to 8psi. Then they rigged a Sig 9mm pistol to fire
remotely [using a soda vending machine mechanism]. They fired through the
fuselage and through a cabin window. Neither caused explosive decompression.

Was their derelect moving through the air at upwards of 300 knots when
the skin was punctured?

Just recall what used to happen with the British Comet -- the first
commercial airliner -- just from developing fatigue stress cracks at
the corners of the windows. Those gaps were much smaller than a bullet
hole.

Speaking of Americans, Brits, and airplanes:

Those Clever Americans!

The FAA has a device for testing the strength of windshields
on airplanes. They point this thing at the windshield of the
aircraft and shoot a dead chicken at about the speed the air-
craft normally flies at it. If the windshield doesn't break,
it's likely to survive a real collision with a bird during
flight.

The British had recently built a new locomotive that could
pull a train faster than any before it. They were not sure
that its windshield was strong enough so they borrowed the
testing device from the FAA, reset it to approximate the
maximum speed of the locomotive, loaded in the dead chicken,
and fired. The bird went through the windshield, broke the
engineer's chair, and made a major dent in the back wall of
the engine cab.

They were quite surprised with this result, so they asked the
FAA to check the test to see if everything was done correctly.
The FAA checked everything and suggested that they might want
to repeat the test using a thawed chicken.

More on the famous chicken. It is not entirely true
http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.htm
geoff