>> ^thinker247:
First of all, there is no need to call people morons just because you think their incredulity is disparaging.
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But it's perfectly cool for jerks like Stukafox to continually call us who don't believe the "official story" idiots, morons, loons, dipshits, etc. Right? Personal attack are uncalled for, period. We believe what we believe. Get over it.

I agree this presentation was cheesy. It seemed Jesse was having a hard time keeping a straight face throughout the entire episode, which leads me to believe he's doing this for money,as the first poster stated, and doesn't really take stock in what he's presenting in his own show. The guy he interviewed at the beginning of the show had no credibility. I didn't believe a word he said.

Jesse standing outside that building with the "steel girder from the twin towers" inside it shouting "This is what they don't want me to see!!" <sigh> Sorry to tell ya Jesse, but if they didn't want you to see it, you wouldn't be standing there outside that door with a camera crew filming through the tiny slot of a window, that's a fact.

>> ^cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?


One person with extraordinary vision, coupled with technological know-how, engineering brilliance and the ability to get his hands dirty and plain-and-simple build what he imagines is a rare thing.

In the case of the Britten bike, this is a partial list of what made his bike special:

1) Partial girder-link front suspension with adjustable anti-dive properties.
-fork-type suspensions compress under braking and extend during acceleration, changing the geometry and handling characteristics of the machine quite drastically during the different driving modes. Britten's suspension design allowed him to control pretty much all variables of suspension geometry under changing load, making the bike behave however the rider wished.
- The rear suspension, while perhaps not as revolutionary, was a beautiful piece. It was essentially a carbon-fibre banana swing-arm with a linkage to the adjustable shock/spring assembly. If you look at the bike you'll see that there's no spring/shock assembly near the rear suspension, rather note the spring/shock assembly directly behind the front wheel- this is for the rear suspension! The front shock assembly is hidden in the front suspension linkage and cowling.

2) The engine itself was a stressed-member.
-While certainly not unheard of, Britten took the concept to an extreme, essentially eliminating the frame from the motorcycle. The front and rear suspensions essentially bolted directly to the engine, thus saving many kilos over contemporary designs. Take a look at any current MotoGP or Superbike- most use the engine as a partial stressed-member, but they all have frame members linking the engine, steering heads and seat-assemblies. Britten really only had a vestigial sub-frame for the rider's seat.

3) Well-controlled aerodynamics and fully-ducted cooling system
-Britten paid close attention to airflow over, around and through his bike. Look how cleanly the rider's body tucks into the bodywork. He paid close attention to details, notice how clean the entire assembly is- no exposed wiring, nothing dangling into the airflow, that incredibly sleek rear swing-arm and rear tire hugger. This keeps the airflow smooth and un-disturbed. Motorcycles aren't terribly aerodynamic machines in the first place, but a wise man once said God is in the details.
-The engine itself is a water cooled design, but where's the radiator? It's in a fully-sealed duct directly beneath the rider's seat. High-pressure air is inlet from the front of the bike, through the radiator and is exhausted into the low pressure area beneath the rider and above/ahead of the rear wheel. Greater cooling equals higher power potential.

4) The motor
- 999cc 60 degree V-Twin, belt-driven DOHC design, twin injectors per cylinder, sophisticated electronic ignition, hand-made carbon fibre velocity stacks, wet sump. The motor was designed to breathe hard, pumping out torque and horsepower (166 hp @ 11800 rpm- not sure about the torque figures), and run cool and reliably under racing conditions. Nothing here that any other manufacturer couldn't have figured out on their own, but Britten had the insight and the will to make the best motor in the world at the time. The 60 degree configuration was, I assume chosen for packaging reasons. Normally this configuration would have bad primary balance characteristics, but Britten engineered his to such tight tolerances that the engine ran smoothly right up to redline (12500 rpm) without using a balance shaft.
I'll also point out here that Britten wasn't above using someone else's part if it was better than he could make himself- the gearbox was from a Suzuki superbike, and the cylinder liners and voltage regulator (both of which failed at the Daytona race in '92- the latter costing Britten the win) were from Ducati.

5) Carbon Fibre
- While Carbon Fibre had been around for 2 decades or so at this point, nobody had used it so extensively. Britten used the material for bodywork, wheels, engine parts, suspension girders and the rear swing-arm. There is still no other bike, not even the current Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP bike, that uses so much of this exotic material. The stuff then, as it is now, was hugely expensive and challenging to engineer for different applications. Britten made everything himself, in his garage, figuring it out as he went. This kept the total weight of the bike to a hugely impressive 138 kg.

Keep in mind that he did all of the above in 1991 and 1992, with the help of several neighbors and one part-time machinist, in his backyard shed! He made the bodywork by hand, using a wire frame and hot melt glue, crafting the wind-cheating shape and cooling ducting purely by eye. He cast the aluminum engine parts himself, heat-treating them in his wife's pottery kiln, and cooling the heat-treated parts with water from his swimming pool!

Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki... any one of these manufactures could today reproduce and expand on what Britten accomplished almost single-handedly. None of them will- there's too much at stake for them. It's far safer to stick with the tried-and-true, making small evolutionary changes over the years. A true visionary achiever (to coin a term) like Britten comes along only every once in a great while.

I suppose that this is what was really lost when John Britten died... vision, engineering acuity, hands-on knowledge, and pure will. Touched with a little craziness.

In reply to this comment by cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?

>> ^cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?


One person with extraordinary vision, coupled with technological know-how, engineering brilliance and the ability to get his hands dirty and plain-and-simple build what he imagines is a rare thing.

In the case of the Britten bike, this is a partial list of what made his bike special:

1) Partial girder-link front suspension with adjustable anti-dive properties.
-fork-type suspensions compress under braking and extend during acceleration, changing the geometry and handling characteristics of the machine quite drastically during the different driving modes. Britten's suspension design allowed him to control pretty much all variables of suspension geometry under changing load, making the bike behave however the rider wished.
- The rear suspension, while perhaps not as revolutionary, was a beautiful piece. It was essentially a carbon-fibre banana swing-arm with a linkage to the adjustable shock/spring assembly. If you look at the bike you'll see that there's no spring/shock assembly near the rear suspension, rather note the spring/shock assembly directly behind the front wheel- this is for the rear suspension! The front shock assembly is hidden in the front suspension linkage and cowling.

2) The engine itself was a stressed-member.
-While certainly not unheard of, Britten took the concept to an extreme, essentially eliminating the frame from the motorcycle. The front and rear suspensions essentially bolted directly to the engine, thus saving many kilos over contemporary designs. Take a look at any current MotoGP or Superbike- most use the engine as a partial stressed-member, but they all have frame members linking the engine, steering heads and seat-assemblies. Britten really only had a vestigial sub-frame for the rider's seat.

3) Well-controlled aerodynamics and fully-ducted cooling system
-Britten paid close attention to airflow over, around and through his bike. Look how cleanly the rider's body tucks into the bodywork. He paid close attention to details, notice how clean the entire assembly is- no exposed wiring, nothing dangling into the airflow, that incredibly sleek rear swing-arm and rear tire hugger. This keeps the airflow smooth and un-disturbed. Motorcycles aren't terribly aerodynamic machines in the first place, but a wise man once said God is in the details.
-The engine itself is a water cooled design, but where's the radiator? It's in a fully-sealed duct directly beneath the rider's seat. High-pressure air is inlet from the front of the bike, through the radiator and is exhausted into the low pressure area beneath the rider and above/ahead of the rear wheel. Greater cooling equals higher power potential.

4) The motor
- 999cc 60 degree V-Twin, belt-driven DOHC design, twin injectors per cylinder, sophisticated electronic ignition, hand-made carbon fibre velocity stacks, wet sump. The motor was designed to breathe hard, pumping out torque and horsepower (166 hp @ 11800 rpm- not sure about the torque figures), and run cool and reliably under racing conditions. Nothing here that any other manufacturer couldn't have figured out on their own, but Britten had the insight and the will to make the best motor in the world at the time. The 60 degree configuration was, I assume chosen for packaging reasons. Normally this configuration would have bad primary balance characteristics, but Britten engineered his to such tight tolerances that the engine ran smoothly right up to redline (12500 rpm) without using a balance shaft.
I'll also point out here that Britten wasn't above using someone else's part if it was better than he could make himself- the gearbox was from a Suzuki superbike, and the cylinder liners and voltage regulator (both of which failed at the Daytona race in '92- the latter costing Britten the win) were from Ducati.

5) Carbon Fibre
- While Carbon Fibre had been around for 2 decades or so at this point, nobody had used it so extensively. Britten used the material for bodywork, wheels, engine parts, suspension girders and the rear swing-arm. There is still no other bike, not even the current Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP bike, that uses so much of this exotic material. The stuff then, as it is now, was hugely expensive and challenging to engineer for different applications. Britten made everything himself, in his garage, figuring it out as he went. This kept the total weight of the bike to a hugely impressive 138 kg.

Keep in mind that he did all of the above in 1991 and 1992, with the help of several neighbors and one part-time machinist, in his backyard shed! He made the bodywork by hand, using a wire frame and hot melt glue, crafting the wind-cheating shape and cooling ducting purely by eye. He cast the aluminum engine parts himself, heat-treating them in his wife's pottery kiln, and cooling the heat-treated parts with water from his swimming pool!

Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki... any one of these manufactures could today reproduce and expand on what Britten accomplished almost single-handedly. None of them will- there's too much at stake for them. It's far safer to stick with the tried-and-true, making small evolutionary changes over the years. A true visionary achiever (to coin a term) like Britten comes along only every once in a great while.

I suppose that this is what was really lost when John Britten died... vision, engineering acuity, hands-on knowledge, and pure will. Touched with a little craziness.

I am Bender. Please insert girder.

What does it mean when fire personnel say "There is a bomb in the building?"

>> ^SDGundamX:
>> ^NordlichReiter:
Before you attribute the plane to causeing the explosions think about how does a plane up there, cause explosions down there?

All I see in this vid are images taken after the towers have fallen. I see nothing in here showing secondary explosions actually taking down the towers. And that first supposed explosion shown sounds suspiciously like part of the tower landing on the street (they're doing demolition work near my house and that's exactly what it sounds like when they toss steel girders off the third floor down into the main yard--you can hear the boom for miles). One of the reporters even says it "sounds like" explosions but clearly is referring to the sound made by the collapsing pieces of the towers.
But even assuming that actual explosions were taking place, I don't think it's hard to find evidence that several gas lines were cut after the collapses. Also, fires were burning underground for months after the collapse of the towers. The whole attack site was a toxic disaster with a mix of hazardous chemicals piled on top of each other. I don't think it takes that much of a logical stretch to consider that when you mix toxic chemicals with fire you're going to get explosions.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
Before you attribute the plane to causeing the explosions think about how does a plane up there, cause explosions down there?


All I see in this vid are images taken after the towers have fallen. I see nothing in here showing secondary explosions actually taking down the towers. And that first supposed explosion shown sounds suspiciously like part of the tower landing on the street (they're doing demolition work near my house and that's exactly what it sounds like when they toss steel girders off the third floor down into the main yard--you can hear the boom for miles). One of the reporters even says it "sounds like" explosions but clearly is referring to the sound made by the collapsing pieces of the towers.

But even assuming that actual explosions were taking place, I don't think it's hard to find evidence that several gas lines were cut after the collapses. Also, fires were burning underground for months after the collapse of the towers. The whole attack site was a toxic disaster with a mix of hazardous chemicals piled on top of each other. I don't think it takes that much of a logical stretch to consider that when you mix toxic chemicals with fire you're going to get explosions.

I wouldn't be surprised if this were yet another example of public safety officials feeding the public misinformation because they feel that accurate advice would be too complicated to follow.
of course, the majority of space under many overpasses would be dangerous... but some overpasses will have great little nooks to hide in.
..and even a giant vacuum won't suck someone out unless there is a lot of airflow over them.
There is a Great slide show about this issue here:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/papers/overpass.html
obviously, the message behind the slide show is that overpasses are a bad place to be in a tornado.. Still, the point is made that construction of the overpass needs to be taken into account:
"Of particular note, the reader's attention should go to the construction of this particular overpass. Note the small crawl space where the underside of the bridge meets the embankment, and the presence of the large girder beam that might provide at least a handhold. The unique construction of this bridge is in stark contrast to the construction of most overpass bridges."
_If I've got a choice between a comfy overpass nook, and a ditch... I'm choosing the nook.
..now, I don't know what I'm going to do when the killer bees come.

The majority of the space under an overpass becomes a horrible wind tunnel of deadly debris in a tornado but, depending on the construction, there are usually areas at each end that create "pockets" with the road above, the embankment below and behind, and support girders on each side which would be relatively safe. (I believe this is illustrated in the video.)

I think the company's name is scalar composites or scaled composites, Burt Rutan is it? They're at the leading edge of combining epoxies and high tensile materials like kevlar and carbon fiber. The one girder like component a couple of guys were carefully moving (4:13) showed a honeycomb structure embedded in goo. That's one of the ways they make it so light. Neat stuff.

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/WTC%20Part%20IIC%20-%20WTC%207%20Collapse%20Final.pdf

For anyone who hasn't read this please do. If you think it was a controlled implosion, but haven't seen

a) pictures of the damage caused by the first tower collapsing
b) pictures of fires burning unchecked for hours on several floors
c) the layout of the fuel storage system in building 7
d) the design of the cantilever girders that made up the 'transfer system'

then you have missed all of the important facts on this ridiculous topic. Choggie...thinking too much is not a charge I mind accepting, and also not one I would level in your direction.

I always thought the video showed a man running back after rescuing a dog (with dog in arms)...was that a different bridge collapse or a clever ad (wasn't it pioneer radio ad?)? Also I remember reading that had the girders been constructed with holes to allow wind to pass, the bridge would have been stable.

Edit: found and submitted video that I was thinking to the sift, suprised it wasn't submitted before, my first submission too.

Actually it doesn't Enzoblue, Buildings are built to stand against high winds, minor quakes and forces of nature. Forces of nature do not include a 130 ton, 45' high, 125' wide plane filled with highly flammable fuel. The world trade centers are not massive solid structures. They are a framework of carefully balanced and threaded beams, girders and columns.

Saying a skyscraper is an indestructible testament to strength and durability is bogus. You take out one column and it affects the entire structure of the building. it puts weight on columns that are not supposed to share the load of the missing one. And judging from the impact, it took out more then one column.

So really it makes sense when you have a clue about physics, or weight loads, or structure.

Iunno...the whole mostly-cleancut looking girders kindof bugged me - I wish there were more scenes of them, too.

Just watched both of the videos you posted. I've seen much of them before, as well as the PBS documentary they came from, but I watched them again, thinking that something new was posted. On first watch(I'll be watching them many more times, of course), I notice that they, like many other documentaries, don't even touch on why the core fell(if indeed it was freestanding, and only connected to the outer girders with trusses as many documentaries say), or why the towers fell at free-fall speeds(i.e. - why they fell at the same speed it would take for a ball falling through air to travel to the ground).

I say "if indeed it(the core) was freestanding," as these have recently been released: North Tower Blueprints

In those blueprints, you can easily note the configuration and amount of the trusses, and that the core was not, in fact, freestanding, and only connected by trusses to the outer girders - it was, as those blueprints show, VERY much connected, by girders, welded similarly to the rest of the building, like they were to each other.

I want to see a video showing the mathematical explanation for why the towers fell so fast. As mentioned at the end of the 9 minute video, "The collapse of the North Tower looked similar to a controlled demolition" - if, indeed, the core and the outer girders were separate, then sure - I'd buy that it could collapse like that...but, just looking at the blueprints, you can see pretty well that the core and the outer girders were not just connected with trusses.

If you can send me a video showing the mathematical explanation for why the towers fell so fast, well, I'll take some more glances at my beliefs.

While I'm all for a healthy mistrust of any government. This 911 conspiracy stuff is just getting ridiculous. It seems to be more motivated by hate for Republicans in general (and Bush in particular) than it is any sort of reasoned analysis.

theo47 is correct that Republicans paint "liberals" with a broad brush, but then Democrats do exactly the same with Republicans as well. Both sides refer far to much to name calling and scare tactics.

As to joedirt's comments... a jet plane was flow into each of the buildings & it was caught on film by several cameras! Of course the buildings would have collapsed! A detailed analysis would takes several years (if not a decade or two). As for bad welds, or learning from mistakes...how would you suggest building such a structure to survive a direct hit from a jetliner (other than building it underground)? The structural analysis wasn't considered that important because...
1) Both building suffered severe damage to their structures.
2) The steel in the girders loses much of it's strength at temperatures well within the burn temperature of jet fuel.
Any engineer or architect would already know those facts.

As to the claims that thermite residue was found on the girders...
1) It's unnecessary to invoke demolition to explain the collapse
2) One person can claim anything especially if they have an ideological axe to grind
(get back to me when it's been verified by multiple independent sources).
3) A benefit of talking about thermite is that most people don't know what it is (answer: powdered Aluminium & Iron Oxide).

Let's see now...what was the jet made mostly out of? (answer: Aluminium)
What was the building girders made of? (answer: Steel, which happens to be mostly Iron). So, I'm not very surprised that someone can claim that he found Thermite traces, proving it is a very different matter.

As far as Barrett goes...trying to claim that all of those other terrorist actions were all orchestrated (and with out any major leaks) comes off as being rather implausible. Sort of like the Lunar Landing conspiracy crank claims about all of the launches & landings being faked without anyone being caught. Both sides just ended up resorting to name calling...hardley informative (but not unexpected).