BOB.T

Right chaps, chapesses, I need some help in the following areas

How high was the rubble from the World Trade Centres? I've been told it was 1.5 miles high, bearing in mind that's 7920 ft.... the original building was only 1350!!!

Could a Harrier jet take off and rise, vertically, to 10,000ft? I'm positive beyond all reasonable doubt it can't do it in 3 seconds and also have doubts it could do it all, fuel would have to be an issue?

Would it be possible to do work experience at Church Fenton, or any RAF base for that matter, around 11 years ago?

Could an aircraft set light to moorland with it's afterburners? He did say it was a Harrier but I've already dismissed that as they don't even have afterburners!

I dare say there will be some more gems by the end of the day....

Thanks, Bob

Dream Weaver

1. Not that high - in the programme last night, they were stood on the rubble the next day, and said there could be 30-40ft drops underneath - thats all though.

2. Certainly not in 3 seconds, if at all.

3. No

4. Dont tell me he has landed on moorland

Sounds like a nobber this man/boy.

DW

bros2

Rubble from the WTC was nowhere near the height of the original - all the air, y'see. Possible the dust cloud was 1.5 miles high, but that's it

Harrier VTO to 10,000 feet? No, can't do it, would run out of fuel before it got there (running at maximum power for VTO). Not sure if it would actually be possible, but I suspect not.

Don't know about work experience, but I'd be VERY surprised.

Afterburner/moorland? Well, depends on how close it was going. Flown to RAF guidelines, of course not. Flown 10 feet above the surface, entirely possible, but the idea of a pilot flying that close to the ground with afterburners on is laughable in the extreme.

BS merchant, perchance?

Bros

MarkO

Unless the plane was taking off from moorland (which in itself is unlikely) it's almost certain the plane couldn't light heather with the afterburners. Think about it - the plane would be travelling at some 400-500 knots, so the heat from the engines would be spread out/blown about/sucked along where it would never get a chance to light anything.

TelBoy

Bob, this is fantastic, i love people like that.

PLEASE talk to him some more, i want to know what other complete BS he believes in!!

MarkO

The pilot would be dead anyway, cos that's a rather large number of g's to handle.

ozzy

Yeah, I'm sure some brainiac on here would tell you exactly how many G's you'd be pulling.

Bob, I think your man's only good at pulling one thing

Stefan

nigelward

If the after burners were on when the aircraft hit the moorland then they may set the moorland a light, assuming of course that the aviation fuel doesn't do it first.

ozzy

This reminds me of a bloke I used to work with. He was a nut case though and not just some sad tw@t.

He told me that he was in the army and needed to go to Saudi and they had to scramble a jet to take him across. Never saw trained pilot or navigator on his CV

We organised a paintball day for everyone at work a few years back. So, he turns up in full camo gear, his face camo'd up and a big fecking knife strapped to his leg

So, guess who got the **** shot out of him all day. Never seen someone with so many paintball marks all over them and most of them were on his back

Stefan

V5

He's not about, oooohh 27ish and called Martin Tanner, is he, Bob? Cos he was a great one for bull$hit stories. Landed a Chinook whilst on an air experience flight as a cadet, tha knooows!

Funkii Munkii

My dad used to work at RAE in Farnborough and one day some gypo's set up camp right up against the surrounding fence, they were kindly asked to leave but refused, the next day the gyp's did their washing and hung it along the chain link fence, after a second kind request and further refusals and abuse the Raf rolled a Jaguar up to the fence and started up the engines and dried their washing for them or should i say incinerated it!! the gyp's left pretty sharpish after that!!!!

Dave

chopper

Well considering 1G is about 32.19 ft/s2, pulling around 93 Gs is going to turn any pilot's squashy bits into , er even more squashy bits.... unlikely!

MarkO

Sorry, but I simply don't believe this story. It sounds like and urban myth, or just plain BS to me. For a start, the heat would warp or even destroy the fence. And secondly, aviation fuel is pretty f**king expensive - I suspect it wouldn't be wasted on some trivial larf like that.

bigmac

Bob.T - his name is not Matt is it?

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

100g

Suggest pilot would be dead

(I think my maths is right)

9.8m/sec downwards gravity = 1g (life)

We have to rise 2940m in 3 seconds. So we divide that number by 3 (assuming constant acceleration ), then divide that number by 9.8 (the number of meters sec equiv to 1G) to get the number of Gs that need to be pulled to achieve that rate.

Bottom line, 1 flat pilot



PS - Is this the "computer man"?

DavidRB

1. It all depends on how wide you make the pile. Seriously, how can something fall down and end up even taller? 1.5 million tonnes of rubble sounds about right though.

2. Even ignoring acceleration calculations, to cover 10000 feet in 3 seconds at constant speed you'd need to be travelling at over 2000 mph, no way could you accelerate to that speed (or faster in order to do it 3 seconds) in that time.

3. Dunno.

4. Only if it ploughed into the ground shortly afterwards.

paulr

Dont debate it with him Bob..........a smack in the gob should suffice

ps,just to say i only read the thread heading

Funkii Munkii

MarkO
I have no reason to doubt my father, the man helped develope the Olympus engines on Concorde and those of the Lynx helicopter, as well as working for BAe, Rolls Royce, Hawker Sydley and the MOD, a clever ****** he was and certainly not a bullsh1tter.

Sorry I cant confirm the story as he passed on 7 years ago!

Dave

druddle

My fiance did work experience when she was 15 at RAF Cottesmore in Leicestershire and worked with the Tornado squadron, mainatining them and even helped swap a gearbox of some sort.

That was 6 yrs ago.

Dave

MATTeL

I've worked on BAe sights and the RAF guys at those places have an interesting sense of humour... I can entirely believe they would "suggest" the gypsies move on with a Jaguar.

The heat from the engine would be enough to burn clothes before the fence melted. Anyway the pure fun of doing it would be worth a section of fencing!

I remember talking to one test pilot when he came back in from a flight and asked him if he realised that every low and I mean (knock you over with a wing low) pass rocked the buildings and set of every car alarm.

"Of course I do, why do you think I do it 10 minutes later!"

Pure class...

MATTeL

Ummm just one thing forget the pilot in the Harrier... the wings would snap off!

BOB.T

can't stop chuckling!

Cheers dudes

Shark

Very funny thread Cheers

The_Gza

Bob - just do the classic sniff the air gag

Wait until he is dribbling more of this dross and then pipe up in a loud voice:
"Does anyone else smell that?"
Cue someone else "What?"
You - "Kind of smells like.......bullsh1t?"

Well I like it anyway

dsmith

MarkO you're giving our fine armed forces rather too much benefit of the doubt here. If something is worth a laff then it will be done. My neighbour works on army helipcopters and has just returned from 3 months away. unfortunately the base was "dry". so him a few others and a pilot nipped over to a greek island for a night out. They didn't take the local ferry

Having been a cadet at school I think I could lay claim to various "work experiences" on RAF bases so thats also possible.

Also as a cadet I spent a week at RAF Odiham - and got several joyrides on Chinooks. The crew gleefully pointed out the homes of the "complainers" which were used religously as navigation points.

In the University Air Squadron we spent a month flying in Norfolk. A local resident took exception to the appearance of a whole 4 new light aircraft fying daily over him and complained for the entire month. When we left to go back to RAF Leeming, said resident was treated to a low level air display by the instructors most local shows would die for

I'm sure our resident RAF pilot can provide many more and better examples....

Deano

Tommy 2000

Funkii, I thought it was a great story - respect to your old man.

....don't be so naive to think that the forces give a s*** about wasting tax payers money!!

jasonwrxowner

Just post his e-mail address in the Muppets hutch or give it to Astraboy.

Both will have the desired effect.

MrDeference

just a bit bored, so whipped out the calculator.
Equation for distance:
d = vt + .5at^2.
Means:
3048 (metres) = 0 + 4.5a
gives constant acceleration of 677metres per second per second.
gives 69g. Add on one for the normal 1g and call it 70g.

So, from force = mass * acceleration. Empty weight : 7050Kg, Max VTO weight : 8595Kg.
Force required somewhere between 5.8 and 4.7 million newtons. The engine will provide at most 105thousand newtons. The shortfall is a factor of 49.
Source of Harrier stats

BOB.T

wow, thanks for the stats guys!

He is "the computer man"

Is 27 but none of the people mentioned.

Mr DBM, that'll be near Preston then eh? I'm at Skipton

To fill you in a bit... he's always been one for "adding a little" to stories but after starting to work with him I just can't take it anymore, I honestly can't believe he stands there thinking I believe what he's saying, it's to the point I'd go outside to check if he said it was raining!

The Harrier was alledged to have flown over him as he was out for a walk, it then lit it's after burners and pulled up into a vertical climb, lighting the moorland as it went

At Church Fenton, some 11 or 12 years ago he did a weeks work experience, now before we get onto the proper story, I think the base had been shut by then, but I will stand corrected on that! So then, he had helped to fit a new engine in a Jaguar, hmm, ok! They took it out onto a runway and strapped it down, then, ran the engines up to full power..... on the runway, tied down with him sat in the back seat!!!!! Then... this is the best bit! A hawk, being flown by a student pilot was coming in to land, the instructor decided to abort the landing and retracted the undercarriage, the student carried on as normal with his approach and landed the hawk on it's belly! Then, a rope ladder came out of the cockpit, they climbed out and started fighting... the big main boss dude of the entire airfield pulled up in his car and also joined in the fighting! I swear to God that is exactly as he told it to me

Other gems include, Carl Fogarhty coming into his work, on his race bike! Colin mcCrae also went in, with his rally car, he then took all the lads out for a ride in it aswell! I think he blagged a drive of a BMW touring car once too, he worked for BMW at the time

There's loads more, they don't tend to sink in anymore though

Bob

Turkish1

I did work experience at RAF St. Athan 9 years ago (god, am I that old now) working on Tornados, well standing around watching others work on Tornados anyway!

Turkish 1