# Airliner circles to dump fuel before crash landing do they still serve drinks?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airliner-circles-to-dump-fuel-before-crash-landing-do-they-still-serve-drinks/604816>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 2, 2011, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airliner-circles-to-dump-fuel-before-crash-landing-do-they-still-serve-drinks/604816 "2011-12-02T08:45:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airliner-circles-to-dump-fuel-before-crash-landing-do-they-still-serve-drinks/604816/61 "2011-12-07T18:33:57Z")

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No photos, but here are five more stiletto attacks, this year alone:

[Woman Accused Of Murder By Stiletto — Are High Heels Deadly Weapons?](http://www.thefrisky.com/2011-08-07/woman-accused-of-murder-by-stiletto-are-high-heels-deadly-weapons/)

And, as posted NSFW! at:  
[http://www.somethingdark.eu/issue-1/page-54/research.html](http://www.somethingdark.eu/issue-1/page-54/research.html)

National Geographic weighed into the argument in 2006 by citing a professor of physics at the University of Virginia as confirming that “the heel of a walking woman [or, surely, a man] weighing 100 pounds (45 kilograms) can exert a pressure up to 2,000 pounds per square inch (140 kilograms per square centimeter)”.3 And the distinguished British fashion historian Colin McDowell writes: “A woman of average height exerts two tons of weight per square inch on a stiletto heel”.4

It appears that the physicist cited is Glen Elert, _Physics under High Heels,_ The Physics Factbook, [no date given].

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**Author:** ![Dufus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c77e96/32.png) [@Dufus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dufus)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airliner-circles-to-dump-fuel-before-crash-landing-do-they-still-serve-drinks/604816/62 "2011-12-08T23:33:21Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> This is why you can drop a lit match in a bucket of gasoline & nothing exciting happens. The liquid and the vapors just above the liquid are too rich to ignite.

I hope no one tries this at home.

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**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airliner-circles-to-dump-fuel-before-crash-landing-do-they-still-serve-drinks/604816/63 "2011-12-08T23:39:47Z")

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What people never mention is that to get to the area just above the liquid gas where the mixture is too rich to ignite the match has to pass through a region where the mixture might be just right to support combustion.  
Playing with lit matches or cigs and gasoline is a very dumb idea.

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