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Comment by tomrod | Hacker News Reader

I would love to see these come to fruition.

Aren't these flying bombs, though? How to prevent combustion like a Hindenburg, but now from a hijacker?

Unless you mix oxygen in, hydrogen will just burn, not explode. 2/3 of the Hindenburg crew and passengers made it out alive, despite the visual impressiveness of the fire.

Unlike jet fuel, it won't burn very long. Crashing one into the WTC on 9/11 would likely have done substantially less damage.

> Crashing one into the WTC on 9/11 would likely have done substantially less damage.

That's actually an interesting thought. Had the burn not been as constant, would the towers have survived? And then even if they survived, how in the world would it have been repaired?

The WTCs collapsed because of a myriad of reasons, I doubt very much that if an equivalent hydrogen powered jet had crashed into them the outcome would have been different. iirc the general consensus is that many (most?) skyscrapers would continue to stand after being hit by a plane in the same manner as the WTC towers, and specifically the all-steel no concrete construction combined with some other problematic factors in the design was the reason for the total collapse.

North Tower, probably. Hit upper levels. South Tower, mid-level, not a chance. It’s crazy it survived the impact. If the wing spar had gotten the corner it would have gone immediately (the video shows it tearing through the structural facade on the east side, but missing both corners).

The exterior provided 50% of the structural support.

Between safety factors and the fact that the structures were build before widespread cad and simulation software I would expect 50% or even less to be fine. What really got them was the floor collapse.

You know the famous pictures of the Hindenburg with all those visible flames? Well hydrogen burns with an invisible flame. The Hindenburg disaster was mainly due to other flammable materials.

To be fair a kerosene plane is also a flying bomb.

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