As usual, the conspiracists try the argument, "There's no evidence for X," when their own statements are little more than handwaving attempts to dismiss or explain away the vast amount of evidence for X.

Notice the "divide and conquer" tactic turbonium uses. He isolates each piece of evidence, casts doubt on it, and points out that single piece of evidence does not prove that flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Taking all the evidence together, then, he says the government has failed to prove the claim.

Turbonium expects a "smoking gun" proof. He wants that one piece of killer evidence that he cannot cast doubt on, and that by itself, conclusively proves the matter.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Literally.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Turbonium expects a "smoking gun" proof. He wants that one piece of killer evidence that he cannot cast doubt on, and that by itself, conclusively proves the matter.

Which, of course, conveniently doesn't exist.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Yes and no. No, there seems to be no evidence that Turbonium cannot cast doubt on; it's a rather interesting skill set. However, there is plenty of evidence that should be irrefutable to a reasonable person, one whose mind is not already made up that it was . . . well, whatever Turbonium thinks it was. I have such a hard time keeping track.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

However, there is plenty of evidence that should be irrefutable to a reasonable person,

That's true because reasonable people consider the "plenty of evidence" as a set and not as isolated items of evidence that have no relation to each other. We were discussing on apollohoax.net what distinguishes a scientific theory from a conspiracy theory. I felt that conspiracists don't actually have theories...

one whose mind is not already made up that it was . . . well, whatever Turbonium thinks it was. I have such a hard time keeping track.

...and this is exactly what I had in mind. I don't think Turbonium has any real belief about what really happened on 9/11. We do see endless objections to the official account from him, but we haven't seen him make the effort to link all his objections into any sort of coherent explanation of what might have happened--making Turbonium a conspiracy theorist without a theory.

I don't think Turbonium has any real belief about what really happened on 9/11. We do see endless objections to the official account from him, but we haven't seen him make the effort to link all his objections into any sort of coherent explanation of what might have happened--making Turbonium a conspiracy theorist without a theory.

This is also true of his JFK claims and his moon-hoax claims.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

there seems to be no evidence that Turbonium cannot cast doubt on

This is the core of the matter. Using Turbonium's system there is nothing that is actually provavble.

Let's take the Black Boxes for instance.

Under Turbonuim's way of thought, that since the FAA only says they have them, that doesn't mean they really do. This means instantly that unless you see something yourself, there is no proof it occured. The Veitnam War, Hillary conquering Everest, The D-Day landings, The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, the crusades to Jerusalem, Julius Ceaser's failed invasion of Britain. None of these things are provable, because they are things that we have only been told about, we didn't see them first hand. Quite simply nothing will ever be enough. Even if the FAA took him and showed him the very boxes themselves, it wouldn't change things, it still wouldn't be evidence because he'd just claim that there is no proof of them being the ones taken from the Pentagon. This means he'd have had to be there when they were found, but that wouldn't be proof either because he couldn't be sure they weren't planted there, and so on and so forth. The simple thing is he all ready has what he wants to believe, and no amount of evidence against that, including the man responsible for sending the attackers claiming responsiblity for it (after all we can't prove that it was really him) will ever disaude that believe because he simply doesn't want to stop believing it in the same way a smoker who doesn't want to quit won't.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

You're quite the pro, aren't you? For crying out loud, turbonium. You have yet to answer numerous questions that I've brought up pages ago, one of which was accompanied by photos showing nothing resembling a "round hole. Your excuse was that you didn't yet have time to address those questions. You've had a month, and it's quite clear that you haven't put the slightest amount of thought into it...

Pentagon releases AA77 video

On top of that we now have pictures of human remains, which you wanted to see, turbonium. What now?

Even if the FAA took him and showed him the very boxes themselves, it wouldn't change things, it still wouldn't be evidence because he'd just claim that there is no proof of them being the ones taken from the Pentagon.

Turbonium is right about this--in one narrow respect. The less evidence you have, the more scenarios you can explain that evidence with. (Kind of like a Google search: the less search terms you enter, the more hits you get.) Let's say the black boxes produced by the FAA were, somehow, the only evidence that survived 9/11. Many scenarios, including the possibility they were planted, could explain their existence. A single item of evidence is often ambiguous like this. A conspiracy theorist considers each item of evidence in isolation precisely to take advantage of the resulting ambiguity.

In real investigations, of course, we don't work to increase ambiguity. We Google reality, so to speak, with as many search terms as possible to try to narrow down the scenarios to the one that occurred (or, find the line that best fits, etc.).

Also, regardless of what evidence you have on hand, it is evidence of something that really happened. If the black boxes are fakes, and if the aircraft debris at the Pentagon is planted evidence, then some sequence of actions resulted in those two items of evidence, even that sequence was sinister and conspiratorial in nature. A real investigator works to link the items of evidence together; a conspiracy theorist does not.

The simple thing is he all ready has what he wants to believe, and no amount of evidence against that...

If there really was a unifying or driving belief behind all the various objections he (or any other conspiracist) raises, either we should be able to identify it, or he should be able to state it in specific terms and defend it. I don't think there is anything there. There might be some vague suspicions that something fishy is going on that is being kept from him, but I am not sure something that non-specific qualifies as a belief.

...it in the same way a smoker who doesn't want to quit won't.

This might be a better illustration of conspiracists. All they do is raise one objection after another to official accounts. We read more into it than either exists or is intended. It is not about belief; it is probably not about anything at all.

The point is that the claimed Flt. 77 black boxes have not been proven as genuine. Everything else is pure speculation.

What sort of "proof" of their authenticity would you accept?

It doesn't make sense to only accept genuine evidence? The original claims don't make sense.

They don't make sense to you because you've postulated a US Government conspiracy, so you naturally reject all evidence that tends to support any other theories. This has been your demonstrated pattern.

They require genuine evidence to support them and so far they are completely unfounded.

No. You merely proclaim that they are completely unfounded, while making bogus claims of anomalies in the "official" stories, attempting to handwave away all the very genuine evidence by insinuating that it could somehow have been faked, and demanding unreasonable or impossible standards of proof.

There have been numerous black box recordings released to the public in the past.

And the transcript of United 93's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) has been released. As previously discussed, it is illegal for the US Government to release actual cockpit voice recorder tapes. Tapes are occasionally released by the airlines, either directly or indirectly, for various reasons (sometimes as the result of a lawsuit settlement). See here. The FBI states that American 77's CVR was too badly damaged to recover any information; how do you propose to test that assertion? Even if they were to hand you the damaged recorder, you could just claim that the Men in Black had crushed it with a pile driver.

Here's one site with some examples...

Which are mostly transcripts, with some air traffic control tapes thrown in. Of the 70 accidents/incidents detailed on the linked page, only five have CVR audio files available. Note that one of the links labeled "CVR" is actually a recording of a live radio broadcast from a crashing news helicopter. The site I linked above has four additional CVR recordings. Of the fatal accidents/incidents involving major US airlines that occurred between 1970 and 2000, CVR tapes from far fewer than half have so far been released to the public. This is even excluding accidents/incidents in which the CVR was not recovered, or was unreadable.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

We're also waiting for you to get back to the JFK thread, turbonium, which you stated three weeks ago that you were going to do. I'm particularly eager to see the study you claim shows that emergency physicians seldom confuse entry and exit wounds, and your response to Dr. Finck's testimony about why he couldn't probe Kennedy's back wound.

Also, I believe there are some folks over on apollohoax who are waiting to see some evidence for your claims about deadly radiation in outer space....

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

You're quite the pro, aren't you? For crying out loud, turbonium. You have yet to answer numerous questions that I've brought up pages ago, one of which was accompanied by photos showing nothing resembling a "round hole. Your excuse was that you didn't yet have time to address those questions. You've had a month, and it's quite clear that you haven't put the slightest amount of thought into it...

I'm not avoiding any questions. As I said, one only needs to post a reminder such as this for anything I may have missed, and I will address the issues raised.

So, let's first consider the Pentagon hole. You posted 4 images along with the following comments...

Conspiracy theorists claim that the Pentagon suffered very little damage, and only a small hole. Even cursory examination of available evidence shows this claim to laughably inane. How would anything other than an airliner duplicate the damage seen in the pictures above?

Photo #1 - a close-up with the usual poor definition results. I see a small hole to the right of the arrow pointing to "Column line 8", about the height of the first floor. The width can't be determined from the photo, and there appear to be some structural elements remaining (column posts?) along the width.

Photo #2 - shows facade damage mostly at the first floor. No hole is really visible - most of that area is completely obscured by the smoke. Foam sprayed earlier covers mostly undamaged visible areas of the building facade.

Photo #3 - simliar to photo #2.

Photo # 4 - similar to above, but with a larger field of view.

So - what exactly is the size of the hole? I still see only a small hole. Photo #1 is the only image you've provided with what can be clearly identified as a hole, and it is only the height of the first floor, with an undetermined width. Not only that, but there is a damaged car just to the left of the hole. Wouldn't this car have been obliterated by the left wing of the 757? And where is the 63 foot wide hole that the left wing would have punched into the wall? And if it didn't punch through the wall, then why is there no debris of the wing outside the Pentagon, such as where the car is?

http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Se...-8006R-002.jpg

I found this pic after 3 seconds of googlinig (literally). Am I the only one who sees ground floor damage to the right of the center, and ground floor damage to the left of the center? (the central collapsed part is where the round part of the hole was, plus a part to the right of it). On the right there appears to be more extensive damage, and on the left the stone facade parts in between the windows is missing. It wouldn't be too hard to explain that damage on the left as caused by an aircraft wing slamming into it I would think. It's at the correct height, correct length and it has a (now strutted) hole made closer to the center, where the engine is. The damage to the right is obscured due to the collapse, but the given picture 3 shows what that loked like before the collapse.

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

http://pentagon.afis.osd.mil/facts-area.cfm

A quick perusal of the above shows there are 5 floors plus a mezzanine level and the height of the building is 77'. What conclusion would you draw from this?

Edit to add mezzanine level

__________________
Hanlon's Razor - "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Asimov's addition - "Or ignorance."

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage

And what's that to the left, next to the group of guys in white suits... a big pile of debris?

Damn! You're quite a piece of work, you realize that? Picture #3, directly behind the cable spools. If that doesn't constitute a hole, and an non-round at that, I don't know what does.

I'm amazed you could miss such a thing. It's obvious you're ignoring whatever you can. You're either trolling or... something I can't post to this forum. As such, your lunacy has earned you the not-so-prestigous honor of becoming the first person... ever... to make it onto my Ignore List on any message board. You're just not worth it anymore.

I'm not avoiding any questions. As I said, one only needs to post a reminder such as this for anything I may have missed, and I will address the issues raised.

Question to the moderators. Are blatant, obvious, and repeated misstatements of one's posting history a violation of forum rules?

Photo #1 - a close-up with the usual poor definition results. I see a small hole to the right of the arrow pointing to "Column line 8", about the height of the first floor. The width can't be determined from the photo, and there appear to be some structural elements remaining (column posts?) along the width.

Whatever is hanging down is clearly not supporting the wall. Possibly these are the remnants of the reinforcing steel cable in which the support columns were wrapped. And the hole clearly extends at least to the two hanging second-floor windows.

Here is a comparison made by Mike Wilson between the photograph and his SolidWorks model of the crash.

Photo #2 - shows facade damage mostly at the first floor. No hole is really visible - most of that area is completely obscured by the smoke. Foam sprayed earlier covers mostly undamaged visible areas of the building facade.

It's obvious that the wall underneath the three second-floor windows visible in the middle of the picture is missing--note the foam-whitened debris visible through the hole. Two support columns are missing (again with possibly the steel cable remaining), and the third is clearly not providing any support. Note the obvious sagging of the roof.

So - what exactly is the size of the hole? I still see only a small hole.

See the model linked above for the exact size of the hole. The fact that little fire is visible through the hole in the other pictures does not mean the hole isn't there--it's obvious from the square shape of two sides of the foam-covered area and the few visible flames that there's a hole in the center of Photo #2 that extends downward from the two missing windows on the second floor. The lack of foam, the leaning and missing and support columns, and the foam-covered debris visible through the hole indicate that it further extends the width of three windows to the right.

Photo #1 is the only image you've provided with what can be clearly identified as a hole, and it is only the height of the first floor, with an undetermined width.

No. See above. Also, why would you expect the hole made by the wing to be higher than one floor--particularly when you find it suspicious that the width of the hole is less than the wingspan of a 757?

Not only that, but there is a damaged car just to the left of the hole. Wouldn't this car have been obliterated by the left wing of the 757?

The wing missed the car. Please download and watch Mike Wilson's Close-up Pentagon Animation, which clearly demonstrates this. Please also download and watch, from the same link, Wilson's Pentagon Light Pole Animation, and please explain what could have caused the light pole damage (which you've previously been requested to do), if it was not a 757-size airliner.

Please note that, as I've mentioned previously, I've downloaded Wilson's models and checked a lot of his measurements--they're highly accurate.

And where is the 63 foot wide hole that the left wing would have punched into the wall?

The wing would not necessarily have made a 63-foot hole in the wall. From Boeing's technical information on the 757-200:

Wingspan: 124 ft 10 in
Body width: 12 ft 4 in

Subtracting the body width from the wingspan and dividing by two gives 53 ft 3 in. Due to the 25-degree wing sweep, the leading edge length is about 63 feet, but this is not relevant for the left wing, as we will see. Because the plane struck the Pentagon at approximately a 45-degree angle from the wall's normal line, the effective sweep of the left wing would have increased to about 70 degrees, so the effective wingspan would have been even shorter. The effective width of the left wing would have been about 53ft*(cos(45 deg)), or about 37 feet. The effective sweep of the right wing with respect to the wall would have been about 20 degrees forward, close enough within uncertainty to 25 degrees that we can simply assume the right wing to have had a slightly longer effective wing width (also, the wing's geometry would have increased its effective width in this case, but not significantly) as it would have had the aircraft struck perfectly normally to the wall. So we would expect an effective wing width of about 55 feet for the right wing.

Even so, as I've pointed out before, the September 11 attacks were not cartoons where objects leave holes in walls that perfectly match their silhouettes. The outer parts of the wings are much lighter than the inner parts (especially if the surge tanks are empty), therefore they lacked the kinetic energy to penetrate the walls. Some parts of the wings that didn't penetrate might have gone in through the main hole due to their still being attached to the rest of the wing, or their having had their trajectories altered before becoming detached.

And if it didn't punch through the wall, then why is there no debris of the wing outside the Pentagon, such as where the car is?

Such parts of the wings that didn't go into the hole likely shattered from the force of the collision, rebounded from the wall due to their large amount of residual kinetic energy and the largely elastic nature of the collision between concrete and aluminum, and were scattered over a wide area. Why do you simply assume that large, clearly identifiable pieces of the wing would have simply dropped to the ground close to the wall? I believe you've stated in the past that you have a physics degree--if so, you ought to know this.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

I'm amazed you could miss such a thing. It's obvious you're ignoring whatever you can. You're either trolling or... something I can't post to this forum. As such, your lunacy has earned you the not-so-prestigous honor of becoming the first person... ever... to make it onto my Ignore List on any message board. You're just not worth it anymore.

I have to say I'm really tempted to follow your lead. My only concern is that someone may come along and read some of turbonium's garbage and mistake it for a real argument, if no one rebuts it.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Here is a comparison made by Mike Wilson between the photograph and his SolidWorks model of the crash....
See the model linked above for the exact size of the hole.

If the red area of the model is supposed to indicate the hole, it is greatly exaggerated in size. The model has a hole the width of at least 9 windows along the first floor. The comparison photo does not show this, nor have I seen any other photo that does.

Also, why would you expect the hole made by the wing to be higher than one floor--particularly when you find it suspicious that the width of the hole is less than the wingspan of a 757?

I don't expect the hole made by the wing(s) to be higher, but they should certainly create either a wider hole along the wall, or else there should be debris from the wings outside the building. The photos show neither.

Below, I've cropped and enlarged a section of "Photo #3" posted earlier. I'd like to know what happened to the right wing and engine....

http://i3.tinypic.com/15gcg95.jpg

Please also download and watch, from the same link, Wilson's Pentagon Light Pole Animation, and please explain what could have caused the light pole damage (which you've previously been requested to do), if it was not a 757-size airliner.

I'll address the light poles in another post.

Please note that, as I've mentioned previously, I've downloaded Wilson's models and checked a lot of his measurements--they're highly accurate.

It's not the measurements of the aircraft relative to the building I have a problem with. It's the interpretation of how the plane "sinks in" to the building, creating a hole and other damage that is not representative of the actual hole and damage as shown in the photos.

Even so, as I've pointed out before, the September 11 attacks were not cartoons where objects leave holes in walls that perfectly match their silhouettes.

The planes certainly left "cartoon"-type cutouts in the twin towers. But that's not the critical point. It's the total lack of any holes from the two engines. If the thin skinned fuselage nose punched the "main" hole, what did the much more robust engines do?

The outer parts of the wings are much lighter than the inner parts (especially if the surge tanks are empty), therefore they lacked the kinetic energy to penetrate the walls.

Your "911 Pentagon Animation 1" link states 7. Much of the plane enters building and 8. Very little outside debris and damage. And the animation itself shows the plane slicing into the building, virtually "swallowed up" in one piece, wings and all. Are you actually saying you don't support your own link, that shows the entire plane punching through the wall?

Some parts of the wings that didn't penetrate might have gone in through the main hole due to their still being attached to the rest of the wing, or their having had their trajectories altered before becoming detached.

Such parts of the wings that didn't go into the hole likely shattered from the force of the collision, rebounded from the wall due to their large amount of residual kinetic energy and the largely elastic nature of the collision between concrete and aluminum, and were scattered over a wide area. Why do you simply assume that large, clearly identifiable pieces of the wing would have simply dropped to the ground close to the wall? I believe you've stated in the past that you have a physics degree--if so, you ought to know this.

First, consider this from the Boeing site...

The surface area of a pair of 757 wings is 1,951 square feet (181 square meters), about the same as the floor space of a three-bedroom house in the U.S.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/757.../pf_facts.html

Second, consider the two engines, each one weighing ~ 20 tons. There is a span of ~ 50 feet from the outer edge of the right wing engine to the outer edge of the left wing engine. If any part of the aircraft should be considered the most capable of creating holes in the Pentagon wall, it should be those engines. But the hole is commonly considered to have been created by the thin-skinned fuselage nose punching through the reinforced wall. The engines didn't create any hole, from what the photos show.

So after the wings, comprising nearly 2000 sq. ft. of surface area, "rebounded" off the wall, they then shattered into fragments so small as to be virtually undetectable by on-site recovery personnel? And two engines, weighing 20 tons each, affixed to the wings at a distance apart that spans 50 feet, created no 50 foot wide hole, while the eggshell fuselage punched through not one, not two, but three complete rings of the Pentagon?

At that speeds, it's not the nose that counts. It's the whole fuselage that gets compressed onto and through the wall. Especially when it penetrates a window, the wall gets torn open at the corners due to massive tension build-ups. Behind the nose there's the radars, computers, BULKHEAD, computers, cabin, CWB, cabin, BULKHEAD, apu, tail...etcetc. Ram this onto a wall in no time. Amazed it punched a hole? Your car hits another car at 100 MPH. You're both left in wreckages. Hoax! both cars had a thin skinned plastic bumper. Doesn't make sense eh? Neither does your statement.

The picture I linked to did show a hole about where the left engine was (strutted with pallettes).

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

At that speeds, it's not the nose that counts. It's the whole fuselage that gets compressed onto and through the wall. Especially when it penetrates a window, the wall gets torn open at the corners due to massive tension build-ups. Behind the nose there's the radars, computers, BULKHEAD, computers, cabin, CWB, cabin, BULKHEAD, apu, tail...etcetc. Ram this onto a wall in no time. Amazed it punched a hole? Your car hits another car at 100 MPH. You're both left in wreckages. Hoax! both cars had a thin skinned plastic bumper. Doesn't make sense eh? Neither does your statement.

The picture I linked to did show a hole about where the left engine was (strutted with pallettes).

To support your statement so that it does make any sense, I assume there are photos of the compressed fuselage on the ground when it finally stopped, after punching out one last hole through the third ring of the building? I'll be waiting to see them.......

As for an engine hole in your photo? Sorry, but I cannot see one whatsoever.

Turbonium, where is your even most basic sense of reality?

You really think the fuselage would compress like an accordeon into one piece? It crashes into the wall, breaks open the wall, and flies through in millions of tiny pieces, each of them being projectiles (mass prticles with lots and lots of kinetic energy), as are the pieces of the wall that already broke loose. So no flat dish that once was a fuselage is to be found. It is not a cartoon.

And if you can't see the hole that has been supported by pallettes on the right of the ground floor wing damage, and on the left of the collapsed part where the "round" hole used to be (that used to be more or less on the left side of the collapsed part), I really can't help you any further.

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Of course you can't. Anyway, what do you think would be left of the plane after smashing through all those walls? How did all that debris get on the lawn before the news crews showed up, indeed where's your pictures of the lawn without any debris? Surely you don't claim that all those parts were planted before anybody could get out a camera. Where's your proof of...anything? You never ever state what you think happened.

About those light poles, uh, did the CIA or some other spook outfit show up and knock them all down? What do you think happened?

__________________
You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

Furthermore http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Se...-8006R-002.jpg The most likely candidate for a hole caused by an engine is just to the left of that short ladder up against the wall, which is cribbed or blocked off by boards. The one for the right engine is most likely under the pile of debris.

__________________
You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

The most likely candidate for a hole caused by an engine is just to the left of that short ladder up against the wall, which is cribbed or blocked off by boards. The one for the right engine is most likely under the pile of debris.

Then please explain why the building shows virtually no impact damage to the left of this supposed engine hole. A 757 crashes into a building at 500+ mph, the left engine punctures the wall, creating a hole, while the wing it is attached to leaves not even the slightest scratch on the wall. Even if it obliterated itself on impact, the wing should have left at least some markings on the building to indicate that it actually did hit the wall, and therein provide support for the claim that AA Flt.77 actually did hit the Pentagon....

If the red area of the model is supposed to indicate the hole, it is greatly exaggerated in size. The model has a hole the width of at least 9 windows along the first floor. The comparison photo does not show this, nor have I seen any other photo that does.

Of course you can't see it from just one photo--all the photos must be considered together. Here is an analysis from a conspiracist web site that shows the size of the hole. This fits with the ASCE report and the Purdue University simulation. The only problem with it that I can see is that the plane should be rotated 45 degrees in the last picture.

On that note, as I reviewed this site, I realized that I had made a conceptual error in my effective wing length analysis (that's what I get for not drawing a picture ). I failed to take into account the fact that striking the wall at an angle would increase the length of the wall that was struck by the plane. The way I did it would have been correct had the plane been skidding sideways at a 45 degree angle along an approach line that was perfectly normal to the wall. So the effective wingspan would have actually been about 126(cos(45 deg)) ft, or 177 ft. However...the 45 deg angle of incidence would also have increased the effective wall thickness by about 40%, making it more likely that the lighter parts of the wings would not penetrate.

I don't expect the hole made by the wing(s) to be higher, but they should certainly create either a wider hole along the wall, or else there should be debris from the wings outside the building. The photos show neither.

As has been stated many times, some parts of each wing could have gone in through the hole due to their still being attached to the rest of their respective wings, or else having had their trajectories altered. Also, as I previously stated, the debris was scattered over a wide area in front of the Pentagon--one piece even landed in the sunroof of a witness's car on the highway. Finally, there could easily be some metal confetti near the wall that is obscured by foam and smoke.

Below, I've cropped and enlarged a section of "Photo #3" posted earlier. I'd like to know what happened to the right wing and engine....

http://i3.tinypic.com/15gcg95.jpg

The engine and the thicker parts of the wing passed into the building, taking out the support columns which can clearly seen to be missing or damaged. The thinner outer parts of the wing either went in through the hole or were shredded and bounced off, as discussed.

It's not the measurements of the aircraft relative to the building I have a problem with. It's the interpretation of how the plane "sinks in" to the building, creating a hole and other damage that is not representative of the actual hole and damage as shown in the photos.

The hole and damage are representative, as shown above. Again this is confirmed by the ASCE and Purdue studies.

The planes certainly left "cartoon"-type cutouts in the twin towers.

No, they did not, though the holes were somewhat airplane-shaped.

But that's not the critical point.

It's a completely irrelevant point, as the Pentagon's construction is totally different.

It's the total lack of any holes from the two engines. If the thin skinned fuselage nose punched the "main" hole, what did the much more robust engines do?

There is no "total lack of holes," as shown in the first link above.

Your "911 Pentagon Animation 1" link states 7. Much of the plane enters building and 8. Very little outside debris and damage. And the animation itself shows the plane slicing into the building, virtually "swallowed up" in one piece, wings and all. Are you actually saying you don't support your own link, that shows the entire plane punching through the wall?

I linked the animation to answer your question about whether the left wing should have hit the parked cars, and to show that the area of major damage to the wall roughly corresponds to the area that would have been struck by American 77. I never claimed that it perfectly modeled all the dynamics of the collision with the wall. Solidworks cannot model the actual damage to the aircraft or the Pentagon, as it's merely a design and analysis program. There is no provision (currently) for deforming or breaking objects during an animation, though the program does have some rudimentary FEA capabilities. That's why we have the "swallowed up" effect. You are merely attempting to interpret the animation too literally in a particularly weak effort to score a couple of rhetorical points.

First, consider this from the Boeing site...

The surface area of a pair of 757 wings is 1,951 square feet (181 square meters), about the same as the floor space of a three-bedroom house in the U.S.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/757.../pf_facts.html

Second, consider the two engines, each one weighing ~ 20 tons. There is a span of ~ 50 feet from the outer edge of the right wing engine to the outer edge of the left wing engine. If any part of the aircraft should be considered the most capable of creating holes in the Pentagon wall, it should be those engines. But the hole is commonly considered to have been created by the thin-skinned fuselage nose punching through the reinforced wall. The engines didn't create any hole, from what the photos show.

The engines did create holes, as shown.

So after the wings, comprising nearly 2000 sq. ft. of surface area, "rebounded" off the wall, they then shattered into fragments so small as to be virtually undetectable by on-site recovery personnel? And two engines, weighing 20 tons each, affixed to the wings at a distance apart that spans 50 feet, created no 50 foot wide hole, while the eggshell fuselage punched through not one, not two, but three complete rings of the Pentagon?

The majority of each wing went into the building. Further, the hole is over 50 feet wide. If you can't see that from the photos presented, it can only be due to willful blindness on your part.

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Hmm... Where are the "engine holes" in this image, turbonium? You know... that doesn't like a plane impact to me. More like the outline of your stereotypical saucer-shaped UFO.

How do we know it was actually a plane that created that hole? All the evidence in that single picture points to the craft that hit that tower being a saucer-shaped UFO.

That's what you're doing, turbonium. You're focusing on one single element, when many others are necessary to properly analyze the situation. You'll deny it, but it's the damn truth. Otherwise...

It's time for you to reconcile the damaged generator, downed lightposts, and lawn debris with your belief that no plane hit the Pentagon. You've failed to do so, and you know it.

I don't know what happened to the wings because I don't know exactly how it hit. Maybe they exploded into small chunks, maybe they folded up and were pulled into the main hole by the spar attach points or any piece of the fuselage. It is a mystery, even to me. However, I don't take the leap that the government must have blown it up just because I have a couple of unanswered questions.

I'll ask you this though: What do you see on the second and third rings? I see scorch marks where the two engines continued through the first ring and opened holes into the other rings for fuel and fire to ignite the inner rings. What do you see, shadows?

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I haven't seen the videos yet.


American govt. did 9/11 terror attack, with Mossad help, in order to blame arabs,
and to have free hands to attack Iraq, which was enemy of Israel, not of USA.

What's your evidence.

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