Within a whisker of failure

In article , Bill Wright
scribeth thus

"Vic" wrote in message
...
YOUR goose will be cooked if you try that................

Me and my mate got into some right bother at school for dropping a crate of
milk from the fourth floor. It landed right next to the history teacher. He
never did like playground duty.

When I left I had a job for a bit as a stop-go man and it was on his route
home. I used to give him a cheery wave and he used to give me the fingers.
Right old mysery he was.


Wonder why;?.

Who'd want to be a teacher;???
--
Tony Sayer

The message
from Robin Faichney contains these words:

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 03:24:50 +0100, Johnny B Good
wrote:

The message
from Robin Faichney contains these words:

The bar-headed goose. But it would never fall anything remotely like
30k ft. They only climb to that level to cross mountains
(http://audubonmagazine.org/birds/birds0011.html), so would fall onto
the mountain, not to sea level. Even if they got down as far as base
camp, that's still 18k ft.

Yes, that's the one! I agree, hence my use of the phrase "extremely
unlikely" :-). However, I thought I'd mention this one 'possibility' to
head off any "Smart Alec" responses.

Fairy nuff.

Whilst we're on the subject, do you think it's worth the effort to
point out the fallacy in Bill's posting regarding air friction heating
of the deceased Bar-headed Goose? :-)

I'll let you tell it, you'll do it so much better than me. :-)

That's evading the question (I wasn't volunteering either of us for the
job :-).

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

The message
from "Bill Wright" contains these words:


"Johnny B Good" wrote in message
.. .
Whilst we're on the subject, do you think it's worth the effort to
point out the fallacy in Bill's posting regarding air friction heating
of the deceased Bar-headed Goose? :-)

Could we do a practical experiment? Next time I'm working on a tower block
I'll drop a frozen turkey on a traffic warden's head and see if it arrives
cooked.

I suppose that's the "Royal We" but, if that's _your_ plan, please post
the results back here. :-)

Personally, assuming your aim is accurate, I _know_ the frozen turkey
will remain so immediately after the unfortunate PA's head has been
smashed to a bloody pulp. It's not an experiment I'd endorse, despite
the involvement of a PA.

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 23:45:25 +0100, Johnny B Good
wrote:

Whilst we're on the subject, do you think it's worth the effort to
point out the fallacy in Bill's posting regarding air friction heating
of the deceased Bar-headed Goose? :-)

I'll let you tell it, you'll do it so much better than me. :-)

That's evading the question (I wasn't volunteering either of us for the
job :-).

You brought it up. However, I'll point out that people have sky-dived
from similar heights and not gotten cooked. To get really hot, you
have to be re-entering the atmosphere, I believe. Otherwise, you just
don't fall fast enough. I believe sky-divers never fall faster than
about 120mph, due to friction.
--
http://www.robinfaichney.org/

In article , Robin Faichney
wrote:

To get really hot, you have to be re-entering the atmosphere, I believe.

Depends on your definition of "really hot"! :-) My recollection is that
Mach 2 at 50,000 - 60,000 ft is enough to get a skin temperature of the
order of 100 C in sustained flight. That's my (unreliable) recollection of
figures for Concorde. Can't recall values for missiles at higher
velocities.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

The message
from Robin Faichney contains these words:

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 23:45:25 +0100, Johnny B Good
wrote:

Whilst we're on the subject, do you think it's worth the effort to
point out the fallacy in Bill's posting regarding air friction heating
of the deceased Bar-headed Goose? :-)

I'll let you tell it, you'll do it so much better than me. :-)

That's evading the question (I wasn't volunteering either of us for the
job :-).

You brought it up. However, I'll point out that people have sky-dived
from similar heights and not gotten cooked. To get really hot, you
have to be re-entering the atmosphere, I believe. Otherwise, you just
don't fall fast enough. I believe sky-divers never fall faster than
about 120mph, due to friction.

That's not entirely true (the sky-diving bit). That 120mph figure is
the oft quoted "Terminal Velocity" for a sky-diver free falling in a
spreadeagle configuration. Higher speeds are easily attainable by
striking a 'Diving' pose to reduce air friction.

The word terminal in the phrase "Terminal Velocity" does not
necessarily refer to the impact speed in the event of 'chute failure. It
actually refers to the ultimate speed of falling that can be attained
when the friction force balances the gravitational force.

As you pointed out, the risk of getting 'cooked' normally involves
re-entry (at several thousand mph speeds) into the atmosphere. The
following quote, taken from
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_holds_the_record_for_highest_freefall_jump nicely illustrates the fallacy of Bill's statement:

"On August 16th, 1960, Air Force Capt. Joe Kittinger Jumped from a
helium balloon at 103,000 feet as a part of the space program. The jump
was to test the effect of outer space on the human body. When he stepped
from the platform on the balloon, 99% of the earth's atmosphere was
beneath him. Kittinger fell for 4 min. 36 secs. reaching a speed of 714
mph."

103,000 feet works out to be just a touch over 19.5 miles high. The
speed of sound at sea level (Mach 1) is about 760mph, however, at an
altitude of 36,000 feet it is somewhat lower (654.6mph), so Capt Joe
Kittinger will also not only hold the record for the highest free-fall
jump but that of breaking the sound barrier.

The forces involved due to reaching a peak speed of 714mph would not
have been all that much greater than those experienced by
sub-stratospheric sky divers since the air density would have been
considerably lower at this point in the dive.

HTH&A

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

In message , ":Jerry:"
writes

"Johnny B Good" wrote in message
. ..
snip

Well, freezing something that is otherwise relatively harmless when
used as a projectile was proven to have potentially fatal
consequences
by BR when they loaded the test cannon with a frozen chicken to
verify
that the driver's screen on the HST was bird strike proof. They got
rather a shock when they managed to prove the screen wasn't
_frozen_bird_ strike proof!

Nor was the bulkhead behind were the driver would have been sitting
either IIRC!


Sorry, it's an urban legend. Never happened.
--
Kevin Seal
F800ST
{walrus1 at gmail dot com}

"Kevin Seal" wrote in message
...
In message , ":Jerry:"
writes

"Johnny B Good" wrote in message
...
snip

Well, freezing something that is otherwise relatively harmless when
used as a projectile was proven to have potentially fatal
consequences
by BR when they loaded the test cannon with a frozen chicken to
verify
that the driver's screen on the HST was bird strike proof. They got
rather a shock when they managed to prove the screen wasn't
_frozen_bird_ strike proof!

Nor was the bulkhead behind were the driver would have been sitting
either IIRC!


Sorry, it's an urban legend. Never happened.

How do you prove that a thing hasn't happened?

--
Max Demian

"Max Demian" wrote in message
...
"Kevin Seal" wrote in message
...
In message , ":Jerry:"
writes

"Johnny B Good" wrote in
message
k...
snip

Well, freezing something that is otherwise relatively harmless
when
used as a projectile was proven to have potentially fatal
consequences
by BR when they loaded the test cannon with a frozen chicken to
verify
that the driver's screen on the HST was bird strike proof. They
got
rather a shock when they managed to prove the screen wasn't
_frozen_bird_ strike proof!

Nor was the bulkhead behind were the driver would have been sitting
either IIRC!


Sorry, it's an urban legend. Never happened.

How do you prove that a thing hasn't happened?


Actually it did (sort of) happen, BR - yes it was some years ago -
were having problems with idiots dropping things off over bridges into
the path of the approaching trains and carried out various test to see
if they could find a way of protecting the driver from items fully
penetrating the windscreen, the tests were carried out buy 'shooting'
various items at various designs of windscreens mounted into a spare
HST cab front. Not sure if the 'Frozen Chicken' is an urban myth, an
unofficial test carried out as a joke or part of the actual planed
tests (a frozen chicken being a conceivable weapon that a vandal could
use as a missile, being available in many a supermarket), if it was a
joke I suspect that once the story got out it would have been covered
up PDQ (probably by saying it is just an urban myth...) as BR couldn't
have been seen wasting tax payers money in those days.

The point is, tests were carried out, what is not clear is just what
projectiles were used, it would have been a bit silly to publicize
what idiots could use and cause the maximum damage...

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Robin Faichney
wrote:

To get really hot, you have to be re-entering the atmosphere, I believe.

Apparently people falling out of planes at 30,000 feet have all their
clothes stripped off by the time they reach the ground - I don't know
whether they are burnt off, or ripped off.

Or maybe, knowing they are about to die, they are sufficiently uninhibited
to disrobe voluntarily...

--
Max Demian