FRIDAY 13TH

[M Holmes]

Michael Blackman writes:

> How was the stuff ;-)
>
> Friday the 13th is only unlucky if you think it is.  Any day could be
> unlucky if enough focus was directed on it.  Even more so when alot of
> people are all feeling that way.
>
> Unlucky is lighting your farts with a match to amuse the other travellers on
> the Hindenburg or something similar.

It's an error to believe that the Hindenburg was primarily downed by
burning hydrogen. The flame was orange, not blue. It's likely that it
was downed by a spark from a buildup of static discharge earthing on the
pylon or ground through a tether. This lit the paint lining on the
balloon, which rather unfortunately was made out of stuff we now use as
rocket fuel. That does burn with an orange flame.

Of course the hydrogen got going a little later, but it looks like it
wasn't the primary problem.

Seems to me that the engineering message to take home is not to paint
aircraft with rocket fuel.

Of course now we fill them with helium instead of hydrogen too.

FoFP