I wonder, if the phones of the passengers are ringing?
angelburst29 said:
No discernible patterns emerge on this map, besides the fact that the most commonly disappeared plane model is the Douglas DC-3, ...... 19 of which have gone missing—and that five aircraft were swallowed up in or around the supposedly paranormal Bermuda Triangle. What does that teach us, other than that the paranoid should perhaps avoid flying on DC-3s over the Bermuda Triangle?
Map:
_http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2014-03-13/vanishing-planes-mapped-since-1948.html
Those incidents - especially ones in the Bermuda region might have happened, I think, because of the all metal content of the DC-3, its whole body was made from 24S aluminum alloy that had
three times more magnesium in it than their previous sheet metal version user for airplane construction.
Alcoa developed a new, higher strength alloy in the 1930s called 24S. The major change from 17S to 24S was to increase the magnesium level to 1.5% from the 0.5% of the previous alloys. This increased the design strength of 24S to 50,000 psi from 40,000 psi of the earlier alloys. In addition it was found that some moderate cold working, such as stretching or rolling sheet material, immediately after water quenching and then aging could further increase the design strength of 24S to 57,000 psi.
All of these properties could be produced with Wilm's original room temperature aging treatment called natural aging. When heated at temperatures of 300 to 400F, called artificial aging, the strength of 24S could be increased to 71,000 psi if cold worked after water quenching. This alloy was the major construction material for the first commercially successful passenger plane, the Douglas DC-3 ..(
_http://metals-history.blogspot.hu/2010/04/discovery-of-strong-aluminum-charles-r.html
This specific metal mix - aluminum and the earth metal: magnesium - in the DC-3's body must have reacted more violently with Bermuda's electrical storms having those "super volatile" peculiar "EM vortexes" - I think.
Also because of how the DC-3's wing was constructed it was basically a VHF antenna: a lightning and EM wave attractor, I think. See figure #10 in this PDF:
_http://www2.esm.vt.edu/~zgurdal/COURSES/2104/2104-Docs/HOMEWORK/WoodToMetal.pdf
Understanding the processes that define the preliminary stage of lightning discharge has been a major problem. In its most developed phase, this stage lasts approximately one tenth of a second, and consists of numerous (up to 10,000) relatively weak discharges [3, 4]. Widespread experimental efforts have demonstrated several peculiarities at the preliminary stage, proving it to be a very complex and puzzling phenomenon: Firstly, two subintervals (of approximately
equal duration) may be selected in the preliminary breakdown stage. The first subinterval contains very high frequency (VHF) pulses, which appear without any visible DC field changes
_http://www.ursi.org/Proceedings/ProcGA02/papers/p1095.pdf
A320's body is
Consisting primarily of aluminium alloy, the A320 is also built with high technology materials such as carbon composites, Kevlar and fiberglass.
They use titanium for rivets, which has low electrical conductivity (not that it matters much if it holds aluminum sheets of the fuselage).
_http://www.airbus.com/aircraftfamilies/passengeraircraft/a320family/
Also they might be using CFRP - carbon fiber for the wings and:
Ten years later, in 1988, Airbus began delivery of the A320 with an all composite tail fin, and construction of vertical stabilizers from plastic composites became the standard for all its aircraft. [9]
_http://www.globalresearch.ca/ground-the-airbus/14025
[..] The A320 does not have this problem, and putting longer landing gear on the 737 is such a large task that it would warrant starting over. The 737 has had an amazing run, but it is coming to a close. I believe that this makes the most sense for Boeing's next new aircraft. The big question is whether it will be an aluminum or CFRP fuselage; the wing will undoubtedly be CFRP
_http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4791392/?threadid=4791392&searchid=4791699&s=TomB
Now, this webpage speculates about the engines,
The engine type has a history of cutting out in heavy rain / hail. It’s a bit eary to jump to conclusions but it sounds like the weather could have been a factor. Several fan blade failure incidents were experienced during the CFM56’s early service
_http://heavy.com/news/2014/12/airasia-flight-qz8501-missing-lost-contact-course-crash/
...but it was not the engines that caused this plane to fail, but
the nose part was responsible, i think. I mean a structural failure that a lightning storm can cause, like the C's mentioned quadruple strength lightning environment around the plane: a stress bearing hull surface section tearing on the nose cone and causing the A320 216 to lose its normal "aerodynamic balance" and tumble uncontrollably. Also probably losing the radar being in the nose, but the radar might have been their smallest problem by then.
Usually a normal strength lightning is no problemo:
Initially, the lightning will attach to an extremity such as the nose or wing tip. The airplane then flies through the lightning flash, which reattaches itself to the fuselage at other locations while the airplane is in the electric "circuit" between the cloud regions of opposite polarity.
_http://petergreenberg.com/2014/04/07/what-happens-lightning-strikes-an-airplane/
This plane managed to land even when its upper fuselage was torn:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
"It only gets really serious when the radome [nose cone] is struck, the only part of the plane's shell not made of metal, as this is where the radar is located. But nose cones have special lightning conductors for just this reason."
Yeah, its nice in theory, but if the nose cone suffers a structural failure - tear or hole - then the lightning that even might somehow get inside reaching the electronics doesn't matter too much, when the whole nose cone is flying apart.. pilots losing control. Are they lucky, if the plane remains together and there might be a density border thinning, so they might fall into a hole in between "dimensions" into a "zero time pocket".
_http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2012/may/16/worried-lightning-striking-plane
Now we can feel safe and buy an AirAsia tickets in these times, when the number of super lightning storms and density border 'thinnings' are increasing..