Santa's going to need some help this year....

[KermieD]

https://photos.imageevent.com/nycov/christmasstuff/90949066exkMre_ph.jpg

 

[Rocketmaniac]

LOL, looks like Santa didn't file a "flight plan" and got into heavy traffic!!!!!!!

 

[KermieD]

Musta forgotten to read the NOTAM for the day, huh?

 

[rstaff3]

LOL, how many kids are going to need therapy now?

 

[dr wogz]

Isn't there, wasn't there also a scare that the missile defence system thingy was also about to shoot Santa out of the sky, as he was an 'unidentified object from the north, heading our way'?

I know NORAD tracks him every year as he makes his rounds.... it's on the news.. Usually announced by the weather man...

Does the new Missile defence thingy have safe-gaurds in place for such a person? Could the 'supposed' enimies of teh state use this as a ploy, to bypass said security system?

 

[rbeckey]

The Russians used chartered commercial flights with filed flight plans to spearhead the Afghanistan invasion in the 80s. I believe in this case, however, that the unique flight profile of the sled and its eight propulsion units will allow NORAD to confirm the inbound target as a friendly.

 

[11bravo]

Well, according to Hap Arnold on Red Green yesterday, back when he was a B-52 pilot we almost went to war when NORAD mistook Santa as an incoming ICBM.
And that guy knows what he's talking about.

Greg

 

[GL-P]

He needs back surgery now.

I think my dad can fill in!

 

[wwattles]

Originally posted by rbeckey
I believe in this case, however, that the unique flight profile of the sled and its eight propulsion units will allow NORAD to confirm the inbound target as a friendly.

Not to mention the unique radar return. Besides, it goes back to the old question back at the beginning of the Stealth Age: "How do you track a plane with the radar signature of a small bird? Just look for the only small bird flying at 500 mph!"

I think a sleigh being pulled by 9 reindeer blasting around at a few thousand miles per minute should be pretty obvious...

Now about those APCP units on the sleigh runners for when the reindeer get tired... The Government's gonna have some problems with that!

WW

 

[dr wogz]

Didn't someone somewhere work out his 'average speed', and it came to something like MACH 6?! The stresses involved on that sleigh!!

 

[MetMan]

Originally posted by Dr Wogz
Didn't someone somewhere work out his 'average speed', and it came to something like MACH 6?! The stresses involved on that sleigh!!

Would that be the physics of Santa? Usually makes the rounds this time of year:

Santa Physics


No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has seen.

There are 2 billion children (under 18) in the world. But since Santa doesn't appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish children, that reduces the work load to 15% of the total - 378 million or so. At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with thanks to time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, istribute the remaining gifts under the tree, eat the snacks, get back up the chimney, get back in the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million homes are distributed evenly (which we know to be false but for the sake of these calculations we will accept) we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75 ½ million miles, not counting bathroom stops. This means that Santa's sleigh is traveling at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe moves at a poky 27.4 MPS; the average reindeer runs at 15 MPH.

The sleighs payload adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons not counting Santa, who is inexorably described as overweight. On land, confessional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point one) could pull TEN TIMES the usual amount, we can not do the job with 8 or even 9, we need 214,000 reindeer. This increases the weight, not even counting the sleigh, to 353,430 tons. Again for comparison this is 4 times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth 2.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer in the same manner as a spacecraft re-entering the earths atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.2 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the next pair of reindeer, and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousands of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times the force of gravity. A 300 pound Santa would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

Conclusion: There was a Santa, but he's dead now.

 

[Mike]

So Santa's sleigh and reindeer burnt up....then he was hit plane? Talk about a bad day!