Originally Posted by SLFinAZ
nothing more need be said.
Except to point out facile thinking by someone offering an opinion on a subject on which heshe appears to know little. So here goes. lomapaseo points in out in a couple of words. It'll take me a little longer.
Originally Posted by SLFinAZ
For a modern commercial aircraft to be deemed airworthy, it must be able to survive a blowout.
Incorrect. Let's take it step by step. For a commercial transport to be deemed airworthy, it has to be certified. The document that deems it airworthy is called an "airworthiness certificate".
To be certified, it must be successfully argued that the risk of any catastrophic event is extremely improbable. "Extremely improbable" means, basically, unlikely to occur within the expected total fleet lifetime.
Originally Posted by SLFinAZ
Before the accident, there had been 57 cases of Concordes’ tires bursting or deflating. Twelve of those incidents led to structural damage to a wing or fuel tank, and six of those led to penetrations of tanks. The bottom line is that, for the Concorde, there was a 10% chance a blowout could lead to a ruptured fuel tank.
Let us accept these figures for the sake of this argument. There is obviously a missing step from this to airworthy/not airworthy. (So much for the claim that "nothing more needs to be said"!)
The missing step is: assessing the risk that a ruptured fuel tank, in the form in which it had been known from those 6 incidents, could engender a catastrophic event.
Exactly what that risk could be taken to be, in advance of the crash, is a matter I have already addressed in my blog post. Suffice it to say here that, as far as anyone could tell beforehand, it fit in the category of "extremely improbable".
So I have trouble seeing here what SLFinAZ is trying to argue. (So much, again, for the claim that "nothing more needs to be said")
PBL