From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Mon Feb 22 1999 - 23:41:45 MST
Guys, it is still me, spike. I am going to try to use upper case
letters
for a while. I gave it up for a year, because I was having trouble with
carpal tunnel and I thought it might get better if I did not reach for
the
shift key. It didnt. {8-[
> I don't think your statement that there is never any oxygen in a tank is true. The
> reason why tanks don't blow up so often is that the pumps and sensors are built so
> well that they almost never expose bare conductors to the inside of the tank....
Mike, this troubles me. With hydrocarbon fuels, it requires a lot more
air than fuel to make an ignition. Too rich and it wont even burn,
never
mind explode. Having a fuel tank leak would cause some air to be vented
in, I just dont see how you could get the magic 15 to 1 air to fuel
ratio
inside a fuel tank.
> ...happened to the plane, but there is so much of the plane (especially in the area of
> that fuel tank) that is still missing, that I am afraid we will never know.
Perhaps. This whole thread started with the contention (I think) that
the CIA report was trying to cover something by claiming a 29
second plunge of the crippled plane into the sea. I realized that
the number 29 in itself is an indication they hoped to minimize the
time, just as Frys electronics puts a new electronic gazazzafratz on
sale for 29.99 because that sounds less than 30 bucks. 29 seconds,
well, thats less than half a minute. I imagine it really took about a
full terrifying minute for the doomed, and likely conscious, passengers
to end their suffering. I would still like to pretend it was only 29
seconds
even if I know better. Either way, I suspect a fuel leak started a fire
outside the tank which then (somehow) caused the tank to explode.
When I was a teenager, I and my friends were mentally retarded. We
used to take aerosol cans, hold a match under the spray and make a
torch. We found that engine starting fluid made the best torch: oh my,
one could raise hell with one of those things.
One day, while burning trash, an empty (presumably) hairspray can
exploded. Made a great fireball. We reasoned that a full can would
do all that much more, so we bought a full can of engine starting fluid,
built a fire, threw the can in and ran like hell. We waited and after a
surprisingly long time (a couple of minutes) in the fire, the can
finally
burst.
Did you guess what happened? It doused the fire! No fireball!
Waste of three bucks! {8^D I hope I never have kids. spike
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