Ok let me see if I can make this simple for everyone. Basically what you're saying is if the plane was traveling 700 ft a second a missile or projectile is fired from about 100ft away from the nose of the plane. For the missile to catch up it has to be going 100ft per second faster than the plane (of course I'm just rounding numbers.) So that would be 800 ft a second. This assumes it was fired one second out. Fair enough, so let's take a 40 lb missile going to fast. It would generate 590490 joules of energy. Not to shabby. But I've seen estimates that the plane was going 895 ft a second. That would mean the missile is traveling 1000ft a second, or 924160 joules. Even more powerful. Now I don't know the exact amount of joules it would take to penetrate the column, but I would think even the low end is pretty close.
You seem to have missed (or ignored?) my
post # 631. So let my try again (this is fun - thinking your thoughts through to their inevitable end).
Let's go with your higher estimate of v
plane = 895ft/s = 273m/s and v
missile = 1000ft/s = 305m/s (both rounded up).
And let's also accept your mass of missile = 40lb = 18.15kg
I get a kinetic energy of (0.5 * 18.15 * 305
2)J = 860,481J - slightly below your value. I guess that's because of rounding errors as you convert ft and lb to SI units? I go with my values.
What you are missing first is the fact that the 40lb of missile already has a kinetic energy of 0.5 * 40lb * (895ft/s)
2 =
676,351J before being fired. So the
missile adds only (860,481-676,351)J =
184,130J of destructive energy to the plane.
Now, the plane had a mass of 115,980kg
according to my research. I believe your estimate is higher, but since my lower estimate is in favour of your missile theory, I am doing you the favour of going with my lower estimate, but I use your (higher) estimate of the speed, as we use the same for the missile.
Kinetic energy of the plane is thus
E
plane = 0.5 * 115,980kg * (273m/s)
2 = 4,321,936,710J
To this, your missile adds 184,130J, or 0.004%.
You'd need 234 of these missiles to add only 1% of kinetic energy to what the plane already has!
To add the same destructive force, the plane could carry an additional 5kg of load. That's ome more piece of carry-on luggage.
Man, we don't know the mass of the plane to within 1%, and don't know the speed of the plane to within 1%! Our calculation of the kinetic energy has a margin of error of at least 20%! That margin of error is nearly 5000 times greater than what your flimsy little missile can add!
That missile is absolutely, totally irrelevant! Insignificant as can be! Not noticed! You see, it is like this: Suppose I want to break a plank of wood by stepping on it. Suppose I weigh 70kg. What would you think about the following reasoning? "
I may be too light to break this plank of wood with my weight only, hm hmmm is there a way that I can make sure I break it ... Ah! Heureca! I will place one 10-cent coin (Euro cent that is) on the plank just before I step on it, that will surely guarantee success!" Sounds nutty to you? Foolish? Laughable? It should! If it does, then now you know how we have been feeling and thinking about you since the start of this thread.