Larry ponders:
> If the gun is misfired and the first object it his is the airplane
> skin then what, will it penetrate?

Probably.  But I don't know that the plane "explodes" at that point.  I
think you just have a leak, maybe not enough to notice.  I suppose this
depends again on the type of ammunition used.

I know that when aircraft fuselages are shipped across country on rail cars
they have to enclose them in boxes so that people can't tell what they are,
otherwise they arrive shot full of holes.

Now if you hit a window, I don't know if it could blow out the whole thing
or not.  I'm sure the answers to these questions are well known somewhere.
If the window goes then you probably don't want to be sitting next to it at
the time, but it is not going to bring the plane down.

> But, then there's usually some interior plastic it would have to penetrate
> first thus sparing the skin of the plane.

Most of what you see in an airliner is purely cosmetic, put there primarily
to make you feel better.  I don't think it would slow down much of any
projectile.

Oh, and as we've discussed here in the past, I don't believe you can open
the door of a pressurized airliner in flight if there's any pressure
differential between the inside and outside, no matter how much you might
want to.

G.

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *