The speed of the airplane at altitude has nothing to do with it. The
pressure differential between the cabin and the great outdoors is the only
factor...airspeed does not exert any pressure on the sides of the fuselage.

Bob Gardner

"Mark" wrote in message
om...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
Now, that was cool!

Mythbusters pressurized an old DC-9 and fired a bullet through the wall
to
see if it would cause an explosive decompression. It didn't. Then they
fired
a bullet through the window to see if the window would shatter and cause
an
explosive decompression. The bullet only made a small hole in the window
because the windows are made of shatter-proof plastic. No explosive
decompression.

Then Mythbusters put explosive all around the window to blow it out and
deliberately cause an explosive decompression. The crash test dummy,
"Buster," was damaged but was not sucked out the window. If he had been
a
real person he would have been injured but probably lived. His arm was
badly
damaged enough that a human arm might have been lost. So Mythbusters
patched
everything up and used a shaped charge to blow out the whole wall. The
explosive decompression ripped the entire top off the fuselage and much
of
the wall out, but the seats and the crash test dummy remained in the
airplane. I would guess that if the "Buster" had been a live human he
would
have been seriously injured and possibly killed.

Mythbusters then talked about how strong these airplanes really are and
closed with photos of the Hawaiian Airlines plane that suffered an
explosive
decompression similar to the one that the show created with a shaped
charge.
The only person killed was a flight attendant who was pulled from the
plane
by the airstream, but the passengers all survived.

I thought the show was fascinating. It really demonstrated the
engineering
that goes into an airliner. Besides, I like watching things blow up. It
must
appeal to my inner 12 year old.

I also watched the show and one factor they did not take into account
was the speed of an airliner at altitude. Also, what would happen to
the forces on the damnaged airframe during the descent/emergancy
landing? As in most tests, this was a controlled experiment. I'm sure
if they placed the shaped charge closer to the wing root, more
damnaged would occure.

Still a good show, I especially like the part where they used a 22
bullet for a fuse replacement.