12 Sep
2001
12 Sep
'01
3:20 a.m.
On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Terry Collins wrote:
both planes were turning a circle into the towers (one wing higher
than other) and I would consider that much harder than follow the
straight line.
They were most likely flying the planes by hand. A perfectly straight
line can indeed be quite difficult to fly; corrections need to be made.
In the second WTC crash, for instance, you see the plane banking left at
the last minute and notice later that, while it dealt a most damaging
blow, it was a little right of center. The pilot was trying to make a
correction.
How hard would hitting the side of the Pentagon be?
(45 degree descent
apparently).
Harder than you think, even assuming a total lack of target defense
capabilities. Airplanes can't or won't always go exactly where you point
them. In a single-engine prop plane, for instance, gyroscopic precession
of the prop gives the plane an affinity for turning left. Other kinds of
planes have other issues. Vertical movement has complications resulting
from changing airspeed. If you put the nose of a plane
into even a slight
dive, airspeed will increase *quickly*. You've got to
arrange some way of
decreasing airspeed (throttling down the engines, extending the flaps,
etc.), or else the plane will soon begin to break apart. A 45-degree
angle seems horribly steep.
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss(a)subatomix.com