New research on Hindenburg disaster

[shegeek72]

Did anyone catch "Secrets of the Dead: What Happened to the Hindenburg" on PBS? Was very interesting. A hydrogen specialist from NASA did forensic reseach and experiments, including getting some of the original skin from the Hindenburg, and discovered the cause of the fire WASN'T the hydrogen sparking (though it certainly contributed to the fire), but was the external skin that was coated with a mixture of aluminum particles and iron oxide (the solid fuel in the shuttle rockets!) that first ignited from the build-up of electrostatic energy.

For anyone who's fascinated by Zeppelins (like me) there's some great archival footage of the huge sailing ships!
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[The Avon Lady]

Don't tell me!

Bush and Rice knew about it before it happened!

[d@rk51d3]

reminds me of the magnesium alloy used for the engine blocks on volkswagens. Once you light one up, there's no turning back.

[bookworm_020]

I remember hearing of a tale from a German night fighter ace about how to tell at a distance which sides aircraft had been shot down. The British aircraft would burn yellow and red because of the fabric used in the bombers (don't know how it went later in the war with all metal aircraft). German aircraft burned white, as there was a lot of magnesium alloy in the engine construction.

I know that B-29 has a lot of magnesium alloy in the aircraft, especialy around the engines, which caught fire on a repeated basis in earlier production aircraft.

[shegeek72]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Don't tell me!

Bush and Rice knew about it before it happened!

Don't know about that. The Germans did similar research and came to the same conclusion, but covered it up, among other reasons for insurance.
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[SkvyWvr]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Don't tell me!

Bush and Rice knew about it before it happened!

And Rummy did it.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Don't tell me!

Bush and Rice knew about it before it happened!

No, but FDR planned it.:rotfl:

[JSLTIGER]

This isn't actually new research, as this hypothesis has been present in the field for the last ten years. Check the original airdate on that episode...I guarantee that what you saw was not its premiere.

[TteFAboB]

Indeed. I've heard this on Discovery channel many years ago.

[I-25]

Originally Posted by d@rk51d3

reminds me of the magnesium alloy used for the engine blocks on volkswagens. Once you light one up, there's no turning back.

I'v had my share of experiances with this..... hahah i use them as "flash" bombs ,dont douse it with water now:rotfl:

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by shegeek72

...the external skin that was coated with a mixture of aluminum particles and iron oxide (the solid fuel in the shuttle rockets!)

That's not the shuttle rocket fuel, that's thermit (welding and incendiary material). The SRB's only contain a very small amount of iron as a catalyst, they're mostly made with aluminium, ammonium perchlorate and rubber.
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/s...ystem_SRB.html (on the left)

[Hylander_1314]

Also, the "dope" that was painted over the fabric was highly flammable, like the WWI planes. The dope would help to make the fabric taught, and would have aluminum powder blended into it. The same for airplanes. This would reflect sunrays, which helped keep the fabric from breaking down. The iron oxide was used as it left the surface a red colour, which helped again to "block" sunrays.

The only problem though, is that these "paints" created an acetate layer, which is like old motion picture film. A very flammable "plastic" like coating when it dries.

But look at how fast those WWI planes burned up once they were ignited.

The old hydrogen airships were almost as dangerous as the Me-163 Komet as far as riskiness is concerned.

[KeybdFlyer]

That PBS special was pretty good, yes. I noticed though that yet again (like many other documentaries) it neglected to mention that the Hindenburg was intended to utilise Helium, which would have prevented such a conflagration from happening. The US was just about the sole supplier of Helium at that time, but refused to supply Germany (presumably to show their distaste for what was happening in Germany at that time).
A case of high principles having disastrous consequences?

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by KeybdFlyer

That PBS special was pretty good, yes. I noticed though that yet again (like many other documentaries) it neglected to mention that the Hindenburg was intended to utilise Helium, which would have prevented such a conflagration from happening. The US was just about the sole supplier of Helium at that time, but refused to supply Germany (presumably to show their distaste for what was happening in Germany at that time).
A case of high principles having disastrous consequences?

Let's see..................

1937. Hitler. Nazis. Third Reich. Massive German rearmament.

Yeh. America's fault.

Most probably Bush's.

[August]

Originally Posted by KeybdFlyer

That PBS special was pretty good, yes. I noticed though that yet again (like many other documentaries) it neglected to mention that the Hindenburg was intended to utilise Helium, which would have prevented such a conflagration from happening. The US was just about the sole supplier of Helium at that time, but refused to supply Germany (presumably to show their distaste for what was happening in Germany at that time).
A case of high principles having disastrous consequences?

Actually the Hindenburg was in the US to get a supply of helium. Much of the reluctance to give Germany helium however was over their use of zeppelins to bomb England and Paris during the 1st world war.