The TSA

[HeyYou]

No, it won't instantly depressurize, but, it will be rapid enough to be rather exciting....... Generally, the larger the aircraft, thus, more air volume inside.... the more exciting it becomes.

[Syco21]

No it wont. It might get people excited, but even a blown out window couldn't even disturb styrofoam peanuts in the isle.

[Lisnpuppy]

The TSA always manages to get my hairspray when I forget the size I am allowed to have in my carry-on...yet they never ask about my insulin injection which I assume could be made into something bad. I mean they should at least acknowledge it...I don't mind if they do.

Might have something to do with it being medically necessary. The TSA needs to screw off. There is no terrorist threat.

 

On the un-related note...The British also invaded the U.S. or am I the only one that remembers the War of 1812 and Dolly Madison saving President Washington's painting? :P

 

@Marharth: I suggest not quitting your day job.:P

 

I must have missed Bastard's mentioning of it.

 

As for the medical necessity...yes I know it is..however how does the TSA know it is? I do not carry it in a container with even my name on it much less a copy of the prescription.....they don't ask..they don't look...but they take my hairspray can. I point this out as I belive that the TSA concentrates on the wrong things more often than not.

[Syco21]

Might have something to do with the ADA.

[Harbringe]

If the bullet punctures a window, that's a problem. When or if the window blows, the plane will depressurize over the course of several seconds. Since all of the air in the cabin is rushing toward the said window, a lot of debris will be heading in that direction with it. Does that make a difference in your estimation?

The window will not blow. A blown window is not enough to cause devastating decompression. The hole will not grow, the windows are reinforced, they are not break away glass.

 

It depends on the altitude the plane is flying at. At 2000 ft not a problem , at 30000 ft a big problem . In one terrorist event in the 90's a very small bomb went off on a plane travelling at 30000 ft . The bomb only had the explosive power to blow a hole in the outer fuselage , but the sudden decompression was sufficient to tear away a section of the inner fuselage , tearing 2 passengers seats from their moorings and ejecting it and the woman sitting in one of those seats outside of the plane .What made this event of interest was that the hole itself was only about a yard and a half across , physically smaller than the passenger section that was ripped away but not smaller than the woman's body.

 

In another event over Hawaii a section of the planes outer skin peeled away and that decompression event tore away an entire section from one side of the plane to the other , one person was blown outside the plane.

 

Aloha Airlines Flight 243

 

Here are a few more

 

•On Nov. 3, 1973, a National Airlines Douglas DC-10's engine exploded near Albuquerque, sending shards into a window on the plane. A passenger sitting next to the window was sucked out and died.

 

•Two passengers died on Dec. 22, 1980, on a Saudi Arabian Airlines Lockheed L-1011 flight near Qatar suffered an explosive decompression. A wheel on the landing gear exploded, ripping a hole in the bottom of the aircraft.

 

•Nine people died on Feb. 24, 1989, when a cargo door broke loose on a United Airlines 747 after it took off from Honolulu. The poorly designed door triggered an explosive decompression that sucked the passengers out.

 

Notice the first one , the shards didn't go through the window but into , yet it was enough to cause the window to fail and the passenger sitting next to it was sucked out of the plane.

 

The stresses involved in a decompression event at the point of decompression , say a bullet striking a window are extreme in the least and its not only likely that the window would fail (again depending on altitude) but would likely suck out any person in the nearest seats , assuming they weren't strapped in.

 

Sorry Sys your just completely wrong.

 

@ Moveing

 

"Imagine this had happen under Bush, everyone would be outraged,... "

 

Oh I don't think so , your not getting away with that implication . This all started under Bush and people were outraged but in those days if you raised concerns you were attacked as being unpatriotic ,unAmerican or even sympathetic to terrorism.Funny how things change, now its an outrage when its not a Republican that's in Office. But that's not even the real outrage.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e1Z2oiSbsQ

 

So let me get this straight one of the principal architects of all this TSA body groping and radiation scanning is Michael Chertoff the former Bushie Director of Homeland Security and this individual has basically engineered 2 choices for you , either allow some TSA employee to grope your junk or go through a body scanner and subject yourself to doses of radiation by machines that he happens to have been pushing and lobbying for, for years and happens to be in the business of making through his business The Chertoff Group and somehow or another we are supposed to lay this all on Obama ,Oh give me a break. Now if you are going to blame it on Obama you can fault him for signing off on this crap started by people like Chertoff. Or the bailouts to the Banks or the NDAA or this recent Jobs Act Bill which is nothing more than a recipe for financial fraud ( supported by a near unaminous Congress) and many other things but at least blame him for the right reasons.

 

As for the former Miss USA thing , if I were the offending TSA's supervisor I would have severely reprimanded her , then proceeded to take over the groping , cause no job is worth doing unless done well. :tongue:

[Syco21]

It depends on the altitude the plane is flying at. At 2000 ft not a problem , at 30000 ft a big problem.

Nope, this has been addressed. It is what we have been talking about this entire time.

 

In one terrorist event in the 90's a very small bomb went off on a plane travelling at 30000 ft . The bomb only had the explosive power to blow a hole in the outer fuselage , but the sudden decompression was sufficient to tear away a section of the inner fuselage , tearing 2 passengers seats from their moorings and ejecting it and the woman sitting in one of those seats outside of the plane .

I would guess you're talking about Philippine Airlines Flight 434?

 

 

In another event over Hawaii a section of the planes outer skin peeled away and that decompression event tore away an entire section from one side of the plane to the other , one person was blown outside the plane.

 

Aloha Airlines Flight 243

This has been brought up. It's evidence that a single bullet hole isn't going to cause catastrophic failure. The plane's skin was weakened, had a tear in it. When the tear ripped open, it caused explosive decompression. The rest of the craft was in piss poor condition, it also had a design that made the damage a lot worse. This wasn't one failure, it was a chain reaction of failures. But at anyrate, a bullet sized hole isn't going to cause explosive decompression. The hole simply isn't big enough.

 

 

•On Nov. 3, 1973, a National Airlines Douglas DC-10's engine exploded near Albuquerque, sending shards into a window on the plane. A passenger sitting next to the window was sucked out and died.

You mean to tell me that a window, being shotgunned by an exploding engine, failed? Doesn't prove a bullet hole will make a window fail, though.

 

•Two passengers died on Dec. 22, 1980, on a Saudi Arabian Airlines Lockheed L-1011 flight near Qatar suffered an explosive decompression. A wheel on the landing gear exploded, ripping a hole in the bottom of the aircraft.

Another explosion. Bullets aren't miniature, they do not explode and certainly not with the same kind of force.

 

•Nine people died on Feb. 24, 1989, when a cargo door broke loose on a United Airlines 747 after it took off from Honolulu. The poorly designed door triggered an explosive decompression that sucked the passengers out.

Last I checked, they don't make a small arms caliber the size of cargo door. Next. :rolleyes:

 

Notice the first one , the shards didn't go through the window but into , yet it was enough to cause the window to fail and the passenger sitting next to it was sucked out of the plane.

It doesn't say it didn't penetrate the window, not that it would matter. It also doesn't state the size of the fragments, which does matter. Multiple fragments, especially if they are large fragments which is highly likely, is going to cause the window to fail. They don't have to penetrate the window, just do enough damage over the surface of the window to cause it to weaken. Do you remember that game "Don't Break The Ice?" Same concept.

 

The stresses involved in a decompression event at the point of decompression , say a bullet striking a window are extreme in the least and its not only likely that the window would fail (again depending on altitude) but would likely suck out any person in the nearest seats , assuming they weren't strapped in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi1_1l7M8FA

 

Sorry Sys your just completely wrong.\

It's Syco, not Sys. And you were saying?

[Harbringe]

@ Sysco

 

You don't actually believe that MythBuster experiment was valid . Think about where they are doing the experiment , at ground level and is atmospheric pressure the same at ground level as it is at say 35000 ft , answer no it isn't its 3.46 psia vs 14.7 psia at sea level and assuming they were at least 500 feet above sea level it would be 14.4 psia . That's more than a 4 - 1 ratio in atmospheric pressure . So they took a plane and pressurized it to the pressure it would have been at whatever altitude they had chosen and then blew it out into an atmospheric pressure that was in no way relevant to the outside atmospheric pressure if they had actually been travelling at the proscribed altitude. Sorry that was one of worst experiments Mythbusters ever did (I'm from Canada and watch Mythbusters) and is ample reason why people shouldn't get their science from TV shows who's biggest thrill is the blowing up of things . Which is why I watch it , pretty cool some of the things they blow up.<br><br>The point of giving all those other examples is that they do design planes to be able to withstand a decompression event , but what they design and what happens don't always meet eye to eye and its usually a bad result.. Yes they do design windows to remain intact but at 35000 ft its an extremely risky proposition to test and I would bet that you would not find one manufacturer of airplane windows who would give you an iron clad garantee that it couldn't happen.<br>

Edited May 28, 2012 by Harbringe

[Syco21]

Really? The Mythbuster video clip was the only thing you could argue against? At anyrate, I disagree. The Mythbuster experiment obviously isn't hard science, but I think they do adequately demonstrate what to expect in those situations. Real life tends to agree somewhat with their results. After all, the examples you provide is what's seen in the experiment video at least somewhat.

[bben46]

Actually the Mythbusters pressurized the plane to the differential pressure - making the pressure differential between inside and outside the plane equivalent to what it would be at 30,000 feet. NOT what internal pressure actually is at 30K. so the internal pressure is MUCH higher than outside pressure. In order to simulate what would happen at that pressure differential.

 

The other alternative would have been to build a giant barometric pressure chamber, Then reduce the differential pressure OUTSIDE of the plane while keeping the internal pressure constant. As this would have very expensive, they chose to INCREASE the differential pressure by raising the internal pressure while keeping the outside pressure constant.

 

NOTE: The actual internal pressure in a passenger plane at 30,000 feet is actually LESS than the pressure at sea level. So, if they had used the actual pressure as you seem to believe, it would have acted as a vacuum sucking outside air in instead of blowing out. Quote from the WIKI on aircraft cabin pressurization. http://en.wikipedia...._pressurization

A typical cabin altitude, such as the Boeing 767's, is maintained at 6,900 feet (2,100 m) when cruising at 39,000 feet (12,000 m).

- For comparison, Denver Colorado is at 5,280 feet and Laramie Wyoming is at 7,165 feet. Laramie's actual pressure is LESS than what most airliner cabins normally see. :tongue:

 

In the US, FAA regulations on cabin pressure specify an equivalent pressure of less than 8,000 feet altitude. This means the REAL pressure differential is not the difference between surface pressure and aircraft altitude, but the differential between 6,500 feet and 30,000 feet. This is actually irrelevant as an explosion big enough to do that much damage will probably kill you before the depressurization - IF you are close enough to the hole it blows in the aircraft.

[HeyYou]

One thing the mythbusters experiment did NOT take into account was, their aircraft was sitting on the ground. It didn't have air rushing past the hole at 400+ miles per hour. High velocity air is going to be lower pressure than the simple difference between cabin pressure, and atmospheric at any given altitude.