onetrack

.....expect it. In addition, since I produced that new oil additive made from Bobtail Goannas tails fats, the engines are producing twice the power, run smoother, have doubled their TBO - and they're also running much cooler. To add to those impressive results, we're getting a 22% increase in fuel economy!

"I cannot believe the difference this additive of yours makes to engine performance!", exclaimed Turbo. "In addition, I found the additive was great for dry parched, sun-hardened skin, and it also eases the pain of thistle burr pricks to a very tolerable level! How did you ever discover this stuff?", he said.

"Well, I was fossicking around in my workshop and I accidentally used some expired Goanna liniment in one of my grease guns", explained OT. ""It was only after I got these amazing results for lubricity and pain relief (because you always get grease all over your hands when you're greasing things), that I examined what I'd put in the grease gun, and then realised I'd used this well-matured Goanna Liniment - which obviously developed some amazing properties after 45 years maturing in the tin, and I.........

.....how anyone could get an instrument panel like that to fit into an Aerolite - as he had only one instrument in the Jacka - an altimeter - which only worked intermittently.

"I can see you problem right there, without any further investigation!," said bull. "The C of G is so far out carrying that instrument panel, it's got me beat how you actually get off the ground!"

"Well, I did have to fit some rockets for JATO", admitted Turbo with a grin. "But the rockets I used weren't exactly aviation-grade - in fact they were out-of-date fireworks rockets from the Chinese $2 shop run by Fook Wing On. I thought they might provide a satisfactory level of performance, but the last lot were.......

The Chinese have released a video of the ongoing recovery that is over 6 hrs long, and it's quite astounding the effort the Chinese are putting in, with transparency obviously being high on their list.

You have to admire these people, when they get into it, they're like ants eating an elephant.

The working conditions are beyond atrocious, they resemble some of the worst conditions of the Vietnam War, with the added requirement of having to excavate and carefully examine every handful of mud.

Their organisation and thoroughness is commendable, even to the extent of organising the firefighters to cut down all the bamboo surrounding the crater so that every possible shred of the wreckage is recovered.

.....controlled aerobatics, when it fact the trail of wrecked aircraft across the country, shows you have yet to figure out the what the numbers mean on the......

....since Turbo reckons that everyone worships the ground he walks on (apart from that Jedi Rat, of course), he has now started up the Turbine Church of Unholy Alliances, so he can have bigger offerings trays than all the other churches, and he can concentrate of sermons about flying risks - which are less boring than sermons about going to Hell - and of course, anyone with any level of aviation interest will be able to enter......

The best wire stripper, IMO, is the Japanese-made Vessel model 3000B. Vessel produced this design in the early 1970's, and it has never changed in design or construction since that time.

I bought a Vessel 3000B wire stripper around about 1974, and it served me faithfully for 47 years - until one handle broke last year.

I had trouble sourcing a new genuine Vessel tool - and because the design patent expired long ago, there are now dozens of copies of the Vessel wire stripper.

I ended up sourcing a replacement in the form of a Chinese copy from Hong Kong, which does appear to be satisfactory quality. I think I paid about $15 for it, but unfortunately I can't find my sales invoice for it at present.

But you can still find the original Japanese-made tool, if you're prepared to search intensively. The original genuine unit will cost you around about $50.

The prices for the Vessel 3000B wire stripper and its copies, will range from about $14 to $465, depending on how much the seller decides to rip you off.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VESSEL-AUTOMATIC-WIRE-STRIPPER-1-0-1-6-2-0-2-6-3-2mm-3000B-MADE-IN-JAPAN/184015768038

https://automotivesuperstore.com.au/aeroflow-af98-2105

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2052922664.html

This L.A.-based seller has a comprehensive outline of all the wire strippers available, and even provides the patent documents for the reputedly original American wire stripper from 1915! They focus on European and German tools.

https://hausoftools.com/blogs/news/all-about-wire-strippers

There's a good, lightly used DMC crimper currently up for auction on eBay. It's at USD$21.50 at present, but with 5 days to go, no doubt the final sale price will go up. They seem to sell on eBay, in new or near-new condition, for about USD$300.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255451643628

Be aware that the Stienair USD$38 crimper is an "import". That means possibly from China, or it could be from Taiwan. Chinese tools still lag behind American quality, but Taiwanese tools are generally quite acceptable quality.

.....undertake further training with a good flight school - and I will give you the signs that will direct you to the Turbine Flight School of Advanced Training. No sooner had God spoken to Tomo, than he spotted a hole in the clouds - and through that hole he could see a hangar with TURBINE FLIGHT SCHOOL in big letters on the roof.

Taking this as a sign from God that he should land, Tomo managed to put the Comanche down - first on one wheel, then the other wheel, then back to the first wheel - until all the wheels were safely on the tarmac, and Tomo could exhale.

As soon as he taxied up to the hangar, Turbo was bounding out of the office, yelling to him, "turn.............

I don't believe that TikTok video is genuine. The forces generated by the B737's dives and pull-up would have pinned passengers to seats or thrown them to the ceiling.

It's highly unlikely any passenger would have taken a video of the dive that would have survived the impact, and still be able to be viewed immediately after the crash.

In every crash involving major impacts, electronic devices are shredded and PCB's need to be found, and components examined, to see if data can be drawn from them. That involves a lot of work.

There are plenty of attention-seeking people with much time on their hands, that can create very good fake videos. They turn up by the dozen immediately after a major air crash event.

.....being the American Catholic Radio Station of Rochester, NY - also referred to, as Station of the Cross - which Tomo listens to regularly, because as a devout Catholic and a terrible pilot, he believes in crossing himself every time he does another manoeuvre in the Comanche. 

He crosses himself regularly, because he has no idea what will happen next, and he's happy to leave the end result to God, who in his......

(Tomo's dashboard Jesus that he keeps on top of the instrument panel of the Comanche to ward off crashes....)

The V-twin, 4-stroke, carburetted CH750 Kohler industrial engine is rated at 27HP at a governed 3600RPM, but it will pull 5500RPM, and run all day at 5000RPM. At 5000RPM, it would produce well over 30HP.

It's an all-alloy engine with a huge amount of finning, and it would provide a cheap source of engine power for an ultralight.

It weighs 48kgs in stock standard industrial form, but when you take off all the ducting (unnecessary for aircraft use) and replace the cast iron flywheel with an alloy one, the weight comes down to well under 40 kgs.

The bloke in the video below has set one up as an aircraft engine - but he's used a chain drive reduction, which I consider is about as backward an idea as you could get.

He was driven by cost, but a good quality belt drive for a bit more money is a far better arrangement, quieter, far less prone to wear and trouble, and lighter, too.

His modified intake manifolding for the jettable Mikuni is pretty amateurish, I reckon he's probably lost a couple of HP with that crude setup, it wouldn't take much to improve on his workmanship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7oRT2cxPdo

An axe for cable cutting shows a complete lack of knowledge of cables. Imagine what a miss during an axe swing, would do to an airframe!

Almost since steel cables were invented, you could acquire a simple cable cutter that is nothing more than a little guillotine, and they can be operated with a small hammer.

Hydraulic hand-operated cable cutters have been around since the 1950's - and today, you can even buy battery-drill operated cable cutters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iERcpgO3e7U

....attention at the American Drag Queens Awards Night (it must have been an American night, to call Turbo the "center"), and Turbo took out top prize on the night, which was a trip in a colorful ex-U.S. school bus, which had a schedule (pronounced "sked-yool") that involved multiple ......

The aircraft went into a ravine almost vertically, into what appears to be relatively soft soil, and it is totally shredded.

Now it's started to rain in the area, and the crater is filling with water, and the searchers have been warned to be careful of landslides around the crater. What a mess, it will take weeks to find the FDR and CVR.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1505824466433060864

Flightradar preliminary information shows an almost vertical descent profile followed by an arrest at relatively low altitude, then a rapid vertical descent again.

I cannot see many alternatives to a determined control event to keep the aircraft in a vertical dive, with one pilot then fighting to regain control, but the originator of the dive overwhelming the recovery effort.

The simple fact that the aircraft recovered and gained altitude again is ominous - it shows control surfaces were working and controllable.

ATC tried to contact the crew repeatedly during the dive, and received no response - seeming to indicate a purposeful effort to avoid communication.

Choice has a useful webpage with advice on shipping options from the U.S. to Australia.

I've had best success using a sellers "free U.S. shipping" option, to have items sent to a parcel-forwarding agency, which then sends it on to me.

The 1.2M length is a critical dimension, usually anything over 1.2M can't be handled by the likes of postal agencies, and it has to be couriered.

If you can find someone with an account with the global shippers, such as DHL, Fedex, etc, you will get a better deal through an account holder than you will presenting as a one-off client.

https://www.choice.com.au/shopping/online-shopping/buying-online/articles/shopmate-and-us-freight-forwarding-services

The Budd "Shotwelding" technique for the stainless steel was quite interesting. It was a modification of spot welding, which had been in use long before WW2 started.

SS loses its strength substantially, if heated to a range between 1100° and 1600°F - but it keeps its strength, if that temperature is only transient.

So Budd devised this "Shotwelding" system whereby the temperature of the spot weld was taken instantaneously through its 1100° to 1600°F range, directly to the 2700°F fusing temperature, which joined the two sections, without affecting their strength.

One keen aeronautical engineer predicted in 1941, that SS would end up being the primary construction material for aircraft in the future! But I don't think he took into account that SS would become more expensive, and aluminium would become much cheaper, and that new aluminium alloys would develop far greater capabilities at lower cost than SS ever could.

1941 "Time" welding article - http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,772840-3,00.html

....which made Turbo turn very pale, and which also caused him to break out in a cold sweat - as if he was wasn't already cold enough. As the Bluehead got redder and redder, Turbo's choices seemed to be....

Both the search engine and browser you use will affect your search results. The particular browser or search engine you use will only return "favoured" sites, and ignore useful sites.

Even Google is bad for this, their search algorithms are tuned only to the sites they support and which sites support Google. 

You have to use multiple search terms, swap the search wording around, and go through at least 5 or 6 pages of results to find what you're looking for.

It's a shame no RB-1 Conestoga's appear to have survived. Being made entirely out of spot-welded stainless steel, corrosion would have been non-existent, and I'd imagine the structural lifespan would have been huge.

The rapid change from controlled flight in cruise at 29,000 ft to a nearly vertical descent indicates catastrophic airframe damage to me.

The crash signs are similar to the near-new 737, GOL Flight 1907, that had the mid-air with the Embraer Legacy 600 over the Amazonian jungle in Sept 2006.

If it wasn't a mid-air with a drone or something similar, I'd have to opine major structural failure caused by poor maintenance procedures - possibly exacerbated by COVID-19 staffing problems.

I've neither heard nor read anything about crew radio transmissions during the rapid descent. You'd think someone on board would've at least got out one Mayday.

It was a 6 yr old 737-800 - as a general rule, one of the safest aircraft and certainly one of the most popular in commercial use. I think the investigators will most likely find the crash cause is related to piloting or programming error, unsatisfactory maintenance, or perhaps even a terrorism event (a fairly low possibility, given the control that China imposes on "dissidents").

Peter, you didn't get any of the spluttering, coughing, backfiring, and sheets of flame and smoke, on startup? I wonder how many people are still alive who flew these?

My brothers first boss, in 1958 - Owen Edgar ("Ted") Garland, of Perth, W.A. - learnt to fly Avro Ansons in Canada during WW2.

Ted lived a fascinating and full life, and only died in December 2019, just a couple of weeks short of his 99th birthday.

As with so many WW2 veterans, he never flew again after the War ended.

https://pickeringbrookheritagegroup.com/local47.html

....given them a quick rub and pinned them back on again!" Meantimes, Turbo has apologised for the pronunciation slip up - "pins" instead of "pens", as he recently spent some time in Noo Zulland, und the uccent you divelup, after sux weeks there, is hard ta shake, bro, und thus mins........

....'Vette, where he accidentally demolished a front fence post as he returned home from a night of carousing at the........

Many earthmover rims have fine grooves installed at 90° to the bead seat taper, in the taper. This prevents tyres spinning on the rims, which can be a major problem with earthmovers huge torque inputs by the powertrain, to the drive tyres.

You can do this to the bead seats of a rim, in a lathe, with a straight grooving (knurling) tool.

https://www.lprtoolmakers.com.au/knurling-tool-3-4-shank-cuts-straight/