Category Archives: aviation
Criminalated Warmongers
Posted on November 11, 2019 by manuelgarciajr
Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959)
The Dawn Patrol is a 1938 film about British World War I fighter pilots, roistering and dying in an aerial war of attrition in France with their German counterparts. It was directed by Edmund Goulding from a screenplay written by Seton I. Miller and Dan Totheroh, which was adapted from a story by John Monk Saunders. The film starred Errol Flynn (Captain Courtney), Basil Rathbone (Major Brand), David Niven (Scott), Donald Crisp (Phipps), and Morton Lowry (Donnie Scott), and was produced by the Warner Brothers Studio as a remake of their earlier 1930 film of the same story.
The film features wonderful aerial combat sequences, filmed in 1930 with real and old World War I fighter planes, and with additional realistic scenes of action in the air and on the ground filmed in 1938. This film has no female characters at all, which was also true of the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, also a World War I spectacle.
While ostensibly an action picture set in wartime, with the riotous camaraderie among young, enthusiastic, free-spirited, gung-ho, fun-loving and serially drunk air aces, The Dawn Patrol unfolds as an increasingly grim and unrelenting Greek tragedy of the loss of human connections and human lives into the maw of a vast industrialized plague of mechanized warfare. I think this film reflected the end of the period of unanimous American antiwar isolationist sentiment prior to World War II (1939-1945), which was most vividly reflected by the 1930 film All Quiet On The Western Front, which was based on Erich Maria Remarque's incredible and timeless 1929 book of that title.
The Dawn Patrol is an excellently made film, it never drags as the sequence of scenes, whether action-packed, comedic, tense or reflective, flow smoothly across the viewing screen to present us with the braided threads of the story.
To my mind the gem among these scenes is one where Errol Flynn, as Squadron Commander Captain Courtney, is speaking privately with a fresh replacement pilot with no combat experience, Lieutenant Donnie Scott, played by Morton Lowry. Captain Courtney is welcoming this new man into the squadron, and giving him a feeling of full inclusion into the camaraderie of his fighter pilot group, before Donnie Scott's first mission the next day, which will also sadly be Donnie's last as we learn later. Courtney's little speech is quiet, warm, personal, friend-to-friend and bracingly honest about the war, instead of being officious, patriotic and militaristic, from a superior to a junior officer. Courtney tells Donnie that:
The war is "a great big noisy rather stupid game that doesn't make any sense at all. None of us know what it's all about or why. Here we are going at it hammer and tongs, and I bet you those fellows over there feel exactly the same way about it, the enemy… Then one day I suppose it will all end as suddenly as it began. We'll go home till some other bunch of criminalated sitting around a large table shoves us into another war and we go at it again… Do you remember my father used to be a professor of biology at Queen's? He always used to say: man is a savage animal who periodically to relieve his nervous tension tries to destroy himself."
When I first heard this monologue, I heard "criminal idiots" for "criminalated." But over many repeated listenings to the recorded monologue, I could only hear 5 syllables as in "criminalated" and not 6 as in "criminal idiots." Is "criminalated" an English word that has fallen into disuse, or is perhaps archaic?
In the trailer to The Dawn Patrol, which includes a part of this scene, one clearly hears "criminal fools," which would be logically appropriate but is only 4 syllables. In the actual film itself the recorded speech of that scene contains the 5 syllable word which I can only decode as "criminalated." This is true on 2 separate DVDs issued by Warner Brothers, one of the complete movie, The Dawn Patrol, and one of a documentary on Errol Flynn, The Adventures of Errol Flynn, which includes this entire scene.
Through the wonders of the Internet I learned that "criminalated" appears in the text of The Enchanceried House, a short story for juvenile readers written by Edith Nesbit (1858-1924), and included in her 1905 book Oswald Bastable and Others. One of the features of Nesbit's stories was the misconstruction of words spoken seriously by the fictional boy Oswald Bastable, for a comedic effect on the reader. "Criminalated" appears as follows:
"No English gentleman tells a lie — Oswald knows that, of course. But an English gentleman is not obliged to criminalate himself. The rules of honor and the laws of your country are very puzzling and contradictory."
We can imagine that Donnie Scott was born in 1897, and as an 8-year-old in 1905 read The Enchanceried House. So, in 1915 as an 18-year-old hearing from superior officer Captain Courtney, probably four years older at 22, about the meaning of World War I, that Courtney would characterize the criminality of the perpetrators of the catastrophe that would engulf them both, by using a childhood and childish reference — "criminalated" — to belittle the remote statesmen who blundered Europe into that early 20th century effort of man to destroy himself.
Men and women filmgoers in their 40s in 1938, who had read and remembered Oswald Bastable stories, could easily have recognized the "criminalated" reference in Captain Courtney's monologue to Donnie Scott. If so, it would have given the scene added poignancy for them, since it would cast the tragedy of World War I fighter pilot deaths as a meaningless sacrifice of children.
In 1938, when Errol Flynn gave one of his best performances in The Dawn Patrol, his biologist father, Theodore Thomson Flynn, served as the Chair of Zoology at Queen's University of Belfast. It seems Flynn's script included a reference to his real father-son relationship, as an inside joke.
Regardless of whether one hears "criminalated," "criminal fools" or "criminal idiots," the accuracy of Captain Courtney's description of the futility and criminality of World War I is indisputable. This is a gem of antiwar expression that remains relevant to the present day, within a fundamentally antiwar film that connects with its mass audience as an exciting aviation action cinema entertainment.
World War I, "the war to end all wars" lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. It ended 101 years ago today.
The Dawn Patrol (1938 film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_Patrol_%281938_film%29
The Dawn Patrol (1938)
The Dawn Patrol — Trailer
https://youtu.be/RGQYpP60J70
"But an English gentleman is not obliged to criminalate himself."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Oswald_Bastable_and_Others_-_Nesbit.djvu/141
High Germany
https://youtu.be/2QybAQVv6jE
Posted in anti-war, aviation, books, film, war, war and peace	| Tagged antiwar, aviation, bipanes, Errol Flynn, movies, The Dawn Patrol, war, World War I
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Lyrical Aviator
Posted on October 25, 2019 by manuelgarciajr
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the United States National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.
Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa and South America. At the outbreak of war, he joined the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air), flying reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised from the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to help persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany. Following a 27-month hiatus in North America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, he joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa, although he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared and is believed to have died while on a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean on 31 July 1944.
Prior to the war, Saint-Exupéry had achieved fame in France as an aviator. His literary works – among them The Little Prince, translated into 300 languages and dialects – posthumously boosted his stature to national hero status in France. He earned further widespread recognition with international translations of his other works. His 1939 philosophical memoir Terre des hommes (titled Wind, Sand and Stars in English) became the name of an international humanitarian group; it was also used to create the central theme of the most successful world's fair of the 20th century, Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec. Saint-Exupéry's birthplace, Lyon, has also named its main airport after him.
The above three paragraphs (out of many more) are from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry
The Little Prince, published in 1943, is estimated to be the 3rd best-selling book ever, with 140 million copies sold.
List of best-selling books
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books
Today's blog post was motivated by my reading of Wind, Sand and Stars, a book described as follows:
Wind, Sand and Stars (French title: Terre des hommes, literally "Land of Men") is a memoir by the French aristocrat aviator-writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and a winner of several literary awards. It deals with themes such as friendship, death, heroism, and solidarity among colleagues, and illustrates the author's opinions of what makes life worth living. It was first published in France in February 1939, and was then translated by Lewis Galantière and published in English by Reynal and Hitchcock in the United States later the same year.
in the wikipedia article about it:
Wind, Sand and Stars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind,_Sand_and_Stars
It is an excellent book. My copy is a 222 page book published by Time-Life Books in 1965, with a preface by "The Editors of Time," an introduction by Pierre Clostermann (a leading Free French fighter-plane pilot of World War II, who was also a member of the French National Assembly), and the 10 chapters of Saint-Exupéry's English language version of his book Terres des hommes. Those chapters are titled: The Craft, The Men, The Tool, The Elements, The Plane and the Planet, Oasis, Men of the Desert, Prisoner of the Sand, Barcelona and Madrid (1936), Conclusion.
Chapter 2, The Men, is about the pioneering long-distance air-mail flights (over the Sahara Desert, the Atlantic Ocean and Andes Mountains), exploits, crashes and survival epics of two French aviators active in the 1920s and 1930s, Mermoz, and Guillaumet. Besides being entirely captivated by the romance and adventure of early mechanized flight, they were also entirely committed to expanding the reach of aviation to advance the development of human civilization.
Chapters 6, 7 and 8, Oasis, Men of the Desert, Prisoner of the Sand, involve numerous recollections of Saint-Exupéry's three years flying over the Sahara, of being stationed at remote desert outposts, and in Prisoner of the Sand (the central story of the book) of crashing in the Libyan Desert and nearly dying of thirst during a four day ordeal of hallucinatory trekking, along with his mechanic Prévot.
Chapter 9, Barcelona and Madrid (1936), is a fascinating eye-witness account of Saint-Exupéry's time in Republican Spain during the first year of its Civil War, getting close to the fighting, and trying to understand the willingness of simple people to voluntarily risk (and sacrifice) their lives in very sketchy, under-equipped and under-manned operations for the defense of the Republic.
An excellent photo-essay about the Prisoner of the Sand airplane crash, and struggle of human survival, is given at:
29 December 1935: Wind, Sand and Stars
[Saint-Exupéry's desert crash in the Simoun airplane]
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/30-december-1935-wind-sand-stars/
The author of the above blog, This Day In Aviation (which is excellent for its topic), Bryan Swopes, has also posted a nice summary (with numerous photos) of Saint-Exupéry's life;
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900–31 July 1944)
[nice summary, with photos]
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/29-june-1900/
Saint-Exupéry's 1935 Prisoner of the Sand experience was the inspiration for his story 8 years later, The Little Prince. Saint-Exupéry's writing has more of a lyrical-philosophical nature than of a thriller adventure story of the kind adolescent boys (including me) and B-movie producers love. But those more thoughtful musings on the human condition, and on the interactions of strangers from vastly different cultures in the much wider and less-connected world of the 1930s, arose out of Saint-Exupéry's immersion in the professional life of a remote-country and endurance-flight aviator, and have been the compelling draw to his many aviator-readers worldwide for over 80 years. And one needn't be an aviator to also fall under the spell of their elegance.
Despite his age and less than ideal health during World War II, Saint-Exupéry managed to gain an assignment with the Free French Air Force as a pilot, flying a F-5B-1-LO unarmed photo-reconnaissance variant of the Lockheed P-38J Lightning twin-engine fighter. On 31 July 1944 he took off from his base on the island of Corsica for a mission in the Rhône Valley. He was never seen again. "In 1998 a fisherman found his silver identity bracelet on the sea floor south of Marseilles. Parts of the aircraft were recovered in 2003." Bryan Swopes summarizes that day in his brief photo-essay:
[Saint-Exupéry's loss in his P-38]
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/31-july-1944/
As a mechanical device, the P-38 Lightning was a beautiful thing from the perspective of form-following-function, that function being aerial performance. But, sadly, the purpose for that function was to be a tool of war, a killing machine; and from today's greater appreciation of green energy and the understanding of global warming, the P-38 and all its war-plane kin, past and present, are terribly wasteful carbon polluters relative to the few people they carry and the destructive uses they are put to. Aside from these regrettable realities, I think the P-38 has beautiful lines from every perspective, and I can imagine the exhilarating experience of flying one.
Was Saint-Exupéry shot down on 31 July 1944, or did he experience a fatal mechanical failure? Hard to say, conclusive evidence either way is lacking. Records of Luftwaffe (the air force branch of the German Wehrmacht military forces) operations for southern France at that time are lacking due to their wartime destruction, and the debris patch of Saint-Exupéry's P-38 is long and wide, and the pieces mostly all quite small, implying a high speed impact on the water. The highly fragmented nature of the debris, along with its corroded state after over 60 years on the sea floor, has made it impossible to detect any bullet holes that one would suppose to exist if a Luffewaffe fighter-plane had shot down Saint-Exupéry's P-38.
Saint-Exupéry expressed his ethos this way, on pages 126-127, in Prisoner of the Sand, in my edition of Wind, Sand and Stars:
My world was the world of flight. Already I could feel the oncoming night within which I should be enclosed as in the precincts of a temple — enclosed in the temple of night for the accomplishment of secret rites and absorption in inviolable contemplation.
Already this profane world was beginning to fade out: soon it would vanish altogether. This landscape was still laved in golden sunlight, but already something was evaporating out of it. I know nothing, nothing in the world, equal to the wonder of nightfall in the air.
Those who have been enthralled by the witchery of flying will know what I mean — and I do not speak of men who, among other sports, enjoy taking a turn in a plane. I speak of those who fly professionally and have sacrificed much to their craft. Mermoz said once, "It's worth it, it's worth the final smash-up."
An artist's impression of Saint-Exupéry's last flight.
Posted in art, aviation, books, culture, war	| Tagged 1930s aviation, aircraft, airplane, airplanes, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aviation, books, F-5B-1-LO, France, Guillaumet, Lightning, literature, Mermoz, P-38, Prévot, Prisoner of the Sand, Sahara, Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, Wind Sand and Stars, World War II
Remembering R. P. Kroon
Posted on October 8, 2019 by manuelgarciajr
Rein Kroon and another Westinghouse engineer testing strain on celluloid model of mount for Hale Telescope. (Hagley)
Reinout Pieter Kroon (4 August 1907 – 4 August 1992) was my professor for turbomachinery during my Mechanical Engineering undergraduate years (1968-1972) at the Towne School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania (which is in Philadelphia). He was a kind, intelligent, witty and perceptive man, with great insights into what engineers — as public-minded, socially conscious citizens — could and should be. This web-page is my appreciative memorial for him.
"Reinout P. Kroon (1907 – 1992) was a Dutch mechanical engineer who immigrated to the United States in 1931 after earning his M.S. degree from the Federal Technical Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. Joining Westinghouse Corporation that year, he soon became a development engineer in the Steam Division.
"In late 1935, Westinghouse sent Kroon to Pasadena to work on the details of the mounting of the 200-inch telescope. During his six-month assignment, Kroon solved three major design issues. First, he designed the hydrostatic pressure system with which the telescope turns in right ascension on a thin film of oil. Second, he designed the horseshoe and ball bearings for the north and south ends of the yoke. Finally, he designed the spoked declination bearings that allow the telescope to travel north and south.
"Later, Kroon became head of engineering research at Westinghouse where he managed a team that in 1945 developed the first commercially viable American jet engine. In 1960, he joined the engineering faculty at the University of Pennsylvania where he rose to the position of chairman of the graduate division of mechanical engineering." (http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/about/personalities.html)
Reinout Kroon was the Team Leader at Westinghouse in the making of the first American jet engine. The story of that effort during the World War II years is described by Kroon in his lecture-pamphlet "What's Past Is Prologue" (shown below), and the unsuccessful effort to commercialize the initial technical triumph of making that turbojet, during the years 1950-1960, is given in detail by Paul D. Lagasse in his 1997 Master's thesis in American History (http://enginehistory.org/GasTurbines/EarlyGT/Westinghouse/WestinghouseAGT.pdf).
Professor Kroon was a tall, elegant and personable man; he was a fabulous instructor and an inspiring example of an engineer's engineer. From him I learned more about fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, specifically about turbomachinery, and — most elegantly — dimensional analysis; he was very adept mathematically. A field trip to the Westinghouse plant where huge turbines (for steam turbine electric generators) were built, was memorable. The stamping machines for fashioning the turbine blades were awesome, and loud!
Reinout had one brother, Berend Jan Gerhard (Bert) Kroon; and he was married to Dora Kroon (born Kaestli, on 25 May 1910, in Bern, Switzerland) with whom he had children, one son being Berend Walter Kroon. Reinout Kroon lived in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Professor Kroon died tragically in 1992, on his 85th birthday, as a result of injuries sustained some days earlier in an automobile accident.
What's Past Is Prologue
Kroon, Dimensional Analysis
PDF files of the two pamphlets displayed below are available from the web-links above.
Posted in American history, aviation, Einstein, higher education, history, personal reflection, physics career, science, students	| Tagged aviation, dimensional analysis, engineering, fluid mechanics, Hale telescope, jet engine, Kroon, math, mechanical, Mount Palomar, personal reflection, physics, R. P. Kroon, steam, thermodynamics, Towne School, turbines, turbo, turbojet, turbomachinery, University of Pennsylvania, Westinghouse
My Mind's Ramble in Science
Posted on August 5, 2017 by manuelgarciajr
Ferrari P4 (2004)
(Above: 13, 17, 24, 28)
1972 US GP: Ferrari F1 engine (3 liter, flat 12 cylinder).
(Above: 14, 18, 19, 22, 28)
1972 US GP: Ferrari F1: Car 7 = Jacky Ickx (5th), Car 8 = Clay Regazzoni (8th), Car 9 = Mario Andretti (6th).
(Above: 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 28)
P-51 Mustang (EMG photo, 1992)
(Above: 01, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 28)
Spitefire Mk. XVIe (1987)
Supersonic Jacob's Ladder – Static
(Above: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
Supersonic Jacob's Ladder – Flow
(Above: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 40, 42)
Imagine a 1 nanosecond snapshot of a nuclear explosion.
(Above: 26, 28, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
Sunflare Blue Sky Clouds
Longwood Gardens Greenhouse
My Mind's Ramble in Science (1952-2007):
01. Airplanes
02. Tinker Toys
03. Godzilla
04. Rodan
05. Invaders From Mars
06. The Day The Earth Stood Still
07. Forbidden Planet
08. Tom Swift, Jr.
09. Nuclear Power
10. Submarines
11. Bicycles
12. Skateboards
13. Race Cars
14. Piston Engines
15. WW2 Aircraft
16. Supercharged Piston Engines
17. Race Car design
18. Piston Engine design
19. Engineering
20. Mathematics
21. Computer programing
22. Thermodynamics
23. Fluid Mechanics
24. Aerodynamics
25. Supersonic Flow
26. Fusion Energy
27. Solar Energy
28. Photography
29. Gas Physics
30. Plasma Physics
31. Ionized Flow
32. Molecular Physics
33. Gas Lasers
34. Nuclear Explosion Radiation
35. Electrical Physics
36. Nuclear Explosion Electric Generators
37. Magnetohydrodynamics
38. Solar Physics
39. Cosmic Plasma
41. Atmospheric Physics
42. De-NOx chemical physics
43. Global Warming chemical physics
44. Solar thermal-to-electric generators
45. Publicly Owned National Solar Electric System
Posted in aviation, cars, climate change, energy, global warming, nuclear weapons, personal reflection, photography, physics of nature, science, solar energy	| Tagged black & white, climate change, color, electrical physics, energy, gas physics, global warming, nuclear physics, personal reflection, photography, physics, science, science career
Poverty Draft
Posted on July 17, 2017 by manuelgarciajr
B-25 (WWII medium bomber) in 1987.
I don't think that poor young men and women should have to risk their lives to increase the fortunes of rich old men and women. The G.I. Bill of a bygone era was a just and kind gesture of gratitude by the USAmerican nation to its surviving veteran warriors. Today, that gesture has been prostituted into an unjust and dishonest baiting of the hopes-for-their-futures of our youth, to drag them down into a militarized indentured servitude – a term of slavery – with the possibility of gaining funding for a modest education if they survive to request it. A better nation would fund the education of all its youth lavishly, and fund its war industries and their speculators poorly if at all. Today, it isn't that educational and medical costs are "high," it is that moral standards are low.
Tony Judt was on it (the failure of neo-liberal "globalization") in 1997.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1997-09-01/social-question-redivivus
Today's belated admission of what has been obvious for 38 years (at least):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/14/globalisation-the-rise-and-fall-of-an-idea-that-swept-the-world
MG,Jr. was on it (the failure of neo-liberal "globalization") in 2003:
http://swans.com/library/art19/mgarci66.html
Posted in aviation, debt relief, education, higher education, photography, social contract, social criticism, students, Tony Judt, war and peace	| Tagged Judt, photography, social contract, students
Airliner Fuel Tank Explosions
In 1996, the central fuel tank in a Boeing 747, flying as TWA Flight 800 from New York City to Paris, exploded a few minutes after takeoff, and the airplane broke apart and fell into the sea close to the southern shore of Long Island, with all lives lost. The cause of the disaster was eventually attributed to a spark in the central fuel tank, issuing from electrical wiring for the fuel metering gauge, whose insulation had cracked over time.
At the time, I wondered if the explosion could have been a natural phenomenon, basically could lightning have been generated inside the fuel tank while the airliner was climbing from sea level to 8000 feet (2400 m)? I spent a great deal of time during the next ten years working on a physics model that might answer that question. By 2006, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had arrived at its conclusions about TWA 800, and new rules for the installation of aviation fuel tank flammability reduction ("inerting") systems were being issued for US carriers.
Also in 2006, Airbus Industries was introducing the A380, its massive double-decker passenger transport. This airplane was built to European safety standards, which did not call for active fuel tank flammability reduction systems. The NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tried to influence their European counterparts to follow the American lead on the issue of fuel tank safety, but the Europeans resisted. The Europeans believed the design of the A380's fuel tanks was sufficiently different from those of the much older Boeing 747s and 737s, so that the A380 would not experience the same catastrophe. It was also obvious that adding fuel tank flammability reduction systems decreased an airplane's fuel efficiency (by increasing weight) and profitability (by increasing the purchase price and decreasing the maximum payload).
However, if natural "lightning in a tank" was physically possible and the A380's fuel tanks were sufficiently large for this phenomenon to take place in them, then even the elimination of interior wiring for fuel gauges would not eliminate the hazard of a spontaneous fuel tank explosion in the A380.
I was never able to quantify the physics sufficiently to specify if and when "lightning in a tank" would occur, and I never found publicly available information of the designs and sizes of A380 fuel tanks, so the questions posed remain open. To be clear and avoid being alarmist, let me say that both the quantitative implications from my physics theorizing and the evident fuel tank safety record of the airline industry since 1996 both show that natural "lightning in a tank" is extremely unlikely, and it may well be impossible.
The best way to know for sure would be to do an experiment duplicating the climb to altitude by TWA 800. Subject an instrumented duplicate of the TWA 800 central fuel tank with the same fuel-air-water fill, and at the same initially heated state, to a simulated climb that matches the dynamic conditions of TWA 800: the nonuniform heating and cooling of the outer walls, the atmospheric pressure changes, and the same degree of mechanical agitation. Measurements of the amount of spray electrification inside the tank would then show how strong of an electrical effect can be generated by an exterior combination of thermodynamic and mechanical energy flows into the tank walls (and vent pipe).
I wrote a report for a general audience in 2006 describing the overall picture of what I had learned about airliner fuel tank explosions, and the corresponding safety regulations at that time. It was turned down for Internet publication because of fears that it might be too alarming without provable basis. I don't think the article was unreasonable, you can judge for yourself.
The information in the article, about commercial passenger aviation fuel tank safety regulations and practices, was accurate as of the beginning of 2007. I have not followed developments in the regulatory arena since then.
The good news is that economical flammability reduction systems were developed (even by 2006, as described in the article), and their deployment, both as upgrades to older airliners and original equipment in new ones, is a major safety enhancement for the commercial passenger aviation industry.
Posted in aviation, physics of nature	| Tagged aviation, aviation safety, fuel tank explosions, fuel tank inerting, spray electrification