Mr_Christopher
Posts: 1238
Joined: Jan. 2006
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I am no expert but I am familiar with a few points...
| Quote | | • World Trade Center Towers 1, 2, and 7 are the only steel-framed skyscrapers to ever have suffered total structural failure—ever. While WTC 1 and 2 were hit by aircraft (certainly an unusual event), WTC was not. According to the official story, relatively minor structural damage and relatively minor fires caused the total collapse of WTC 7. By contrast, the Windsor hotel in Madrid, Spain, a 32-story hotel, burned for eighteen hours on ten floors last year without a total structural failure. |
I am not familiar with the Windsor fire, but the first question would be was the center of the Windsor structure the epicenter of an explosion of a 747 jet with full fuel tanks?
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• All three towers collapsed vertically downward, into their own footprints. Normally it takes weeks of preparation from highly-experienced companies specializing in demolition to produce the same results.
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There was a recent episode of Modern Marvels (History Channel) that explored catastrophic engineering failures. The show was not conspiracy or controversy related. The emphasis was purely from an engineering standpoint. They also avoided the gore and horror aspect which I appreciated.
The Twin Towers was one of the subjects and they interviewed numerous engineers and architects including some who helped design and build it. The also used some computer animation. I am not an engineer but the explainations offered were compelling. They speakers were very much "when we build/deigned this, we did not plan for X to happen" They showed where the buildings were dedinged to withstand a lot of stuff, but jet fuel and a internal exposion was not one of them.
They also demonstrated how the impact affected certain braces, how once the temperature from the fire hit a certain level a literal structural melt down would occur. Certain structures would melt or crumble and the floor would drop a certain bit as what was left was now holding up the entire floor/building. They gave a pretty good blow by blow analysis including the final vertical drop.
It's worth watching if they ever show it again.
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• The level of piloting expertise demonstrated by the hijackers was nothing short of breathtaking. Despite never having flown jetliners before, the pilot of Flight 11 managed to hit a 200-foot-wide target within 15 feet of its centerline at a speed of ~400 MPH. The pilot of Flight 174 managed to hit the south tower flying at almost 500 MPH, and while he didn't quite manage to hit the target on its centerline, he managed to hit it with the aircraft banked at almost 30 degrees, causing damage to four contiguous floors. The pilot of Flight 77 managed a spectacular 270-degree spiral dive, passed over an adjacent freeway at a low-enough altitude to clip the tops of streetlights, and impacted the Pentagon at exactly zero altitude (in the least-occupied part of the building).
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a) I am not a pilot. I'm sure someone here can speak to your question but do we know at what point during each flight exactly when the hijackers actually took control of the plane versus making the pilot manuever as they commanded?
Also, I think the .Skeptical Inquirer has dedicated an issue or two to this subject within the last couple of years. I take the hard copy but I think much of their stuff is online. You might poke around there and see what kind of evidence they have come up with.
I always check them out for the latest on any fantastic claims. Joe Nichols is my hero. That's where I learned about the intelligent design hoopla.
Finally, my Iranian cab driver tells me Bush is behind 911. The Twin Towers thing is a Bush conspiracy. "Sam" claims Bush "wants the oil" and it was Bush who used controlled 747s to bring about 911. Sam is always on time and greets me with a big smile and some Iranian pastries so I just smiled and said that was an interesting theory.
Anyhow, it will be interesting to hear some of the engineers to chime in
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Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants - Stephen Matheson
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