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Old 20th Nov 2014, 21:01
  #1453 (permalink)  
wiggy
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
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Frankly I can't think of any compelling reason why the engine nacelles should either stay intact and/or with the engine core all the way to the ground. Where the individual parts land is then simply down to their differing ballistic numbers/ ballistic coefficients..

Ballistic coefficient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Once an airborne structure travelling at speed comes apart (for whatever reason) the lighter stuff (panels, fairings) are probably not going to have the forward travel of the more massive/dense components such as engine cores. You'll find the same happens with most aircraft break ups at altitude, an extreme example would be the distribution on the ground of the debris of the Columbia Space Shuttle, where light weight components shed at the moment of the main structural break up were found hundreds of miles away from more dense components such as the main engines.

Last edited by wiggy; 21st Nov 2014 at 08:10. Reason: removing duplication
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