Word: window
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Dates: during 1950-1950
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...aeromedical laboratory at Oklahoma City, CAA man John J. Swearingen built a pressure chamber like an airliner's cabin, with seats and a window of thin plastic. He made dummies with the weight, center of gravity and articulated joints of an average human being. He seated a dummy next to the window and pumped air into the chamber to simulate conditions in a pressurized airplane flying at 30,000 ft.* Then he focused his movie cameras and broke the window...
...Like Toothpaste. As the air rushed out of the cabin, the doomed dummy rose from its seat, shot toward the window and was forced through it like toothpaste extruded from a tube. When the pressure simulated an altitude of 40,000 ft., the dummy shot clear across the room, its legs and its arms detached...
After repeating the experiment many times, Swearingen decided that if a passenger is sitting less than 7½ inches from the window (i.e., in the window seat) he will be "captured" by the outrushing air. Farther away (i.e., in the aisle seat), a passenger would be safer...
...test this conclusion, Swearingen himself sat in the aisle seat. When the window blew out, the inner seat rose in the air, spun around and tried to ram itself through the window. Swearingen's body jerked slightly as the air clawed at it. He insisted that he was in no danger, but other CAA men testified that "he couldn't light a cigarette for five minutes afterward...
Saved by Curves. Present-day windows, says the CAA, are strong enough to carry present-day pressures, and at the comparatively low altitudes (18,000 to 20,000 ft.) now flown by airliners, a passenger is unlikely to be captured by a rush of air to a broken window. There has been one such accident, but it did not turn out too badly. An airline hostess was sucked to a window, but her hips were wide enough to stick in the frame and save her from being popped like a cork into the empty air.* The pressure difference (only...