onetrack

Ian - Both the Guiberson and Packard diesel radials were successful to a certain degree - but engine weight is always against any diesel engine, purely due to the extra thickness of materials to counter the much higher compression ratio, and the higher combustion pressures.

The Packard diesel died shortly after its introduction, not only because of the death of the Packard engineer who designed it (Woolson), but also because the engine still really needed a lot of design refinement.

The Guiberson diesel was more advanced in its design and engineering than the Packard diesel, but it too died, because gasoline radials improved their design and output considerably faster than the diesel radials in the early 1930's, largely due to improvements in octane ratings.

The Great Depression also sorted out a lot of unnecessary flights of fancy in design, the limited amount of monies available during the Depression ensured that "fat" was trimmed from every planned new design and every new design idea.

With todays technology, it is possible that a new diesel engine could be built to compete with petrol aviation engines - but no-one has done it yet, and the problem is simply the market is too small to support the level of development dollars required. The only moderately successful diesel aviation engine in current use, is based on an automotive engine.

Honda produce an all-alloy, low-friction design, 1.6L 4 cyl diesel (i-DTEC engine) that is lighter than any other of their diesel engines, and which has good output (118HP) for its size, thanks to turbocharging and intercooling. This engine could possibly be re-jigged to produce a viable engine for an ultralight aircraft.

Most diesels lend themselves to biodiesel fuel use, the problem is getting enough biodiesel that meets diesel fuel standards and which fuel can be handled by todays high-tech diesel fuel systems. Common rail diesels pressurise the fuel to extremely high pressures, this produces a lot of heat that must be dispensed with, via fuel cooling. Heating biodiesel by extreme pressurisation could lead to undesirable fuel system deposits.

Biodiesels can also tend to create deposits in fuel systems if the biodiesel has not been processed properly, and cold conditions can lead to fuel flow problems with pure biodiesel. Diesel blended with biodiesel seems to be an effective way of reducing diesel useage, whilst improving the overall combustion burn and reducing emissions.

The Packard diesel radial - https://www.dieselworldmag.com/diesel-engines/first-in-flight/

Using biodiesel in your engine - https://extension.psu.edu/using-biodiesel-fuel-in-your-engine

Below is a link to the Japanese Govts roadmap summary, as regards their aim to build a hydrogen economy. Be assured the Japanese effort to build a hydrogen economy is not a fractured effort - it is fully co-ordinated at the highest Govt level, and funded with multiple billions of yen, to ensure that their roadmap targets are largely met.

The Japanese are targeting 2025 as the date for a major increase in hydrogen use, and 2030 as the date for establishing international hydrogen supply chains.

However, the Japanese appear to be concentrating on hydrogen fuel cell technology as the primary method of hydrogen use, rather than directly using hydrogen in IC engines, which appears to be more of a trend in the U.K. and the U.S.

https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2017/pdf/1226_003a.pdf

....declined to see a dentist, and continued on his merry way with his gap-tooth appearance giving him real street cred, anytime he got surrounded by hard-core beer drinkers, and he'd ordered a gin and tonic whilst right in amongst them.

Of course, it wasn't just the missing teeth that gave Cappy real street cred - it was the tattoos, as well. Especially the dragon one, which snaked across his chest and down to his.........

I often wondered if exhaust heat could be used for de-icing - but lo and behold, the Americans thought of, and considered that, as well - in 1940.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20090014183

Both the U.S. and Japan have very active and large Energy Efficiency Depts working flat out on getting hydrogen storage systems to be effective, acceptable cost, and compatible with fossil fuels.

Both countries have targets within the next few years that they seriously intend to meet. The real bugbear with hydrogen is trying to densify the gas to meet the same energy density levels as fossil fuels, without incurring major weight gain or high costs.

Cryogenic hydrogen is the way to densify hydrogen, but I cannot see any satisfactory solution, as regards making a small and low cost cryogenic unit that can be fitted to vehicles - so gas compression appears to be the way to go. A carbon fibre matrix appears to be the direction the tank design is heading.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage

Ian, here's the link to the scientific report that came to the conclusion that air pollution in Northern Italy (specifically the Po Valley, which is highly industrialised) led to a far greater mortality rate for COVID-19 patients, than many other regions in Italy.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935120313566

I have a serious level of concern whereby an international panel, formed by a defacto Govt (the U.N.) that is essentially responsible to no-one (because it's a global organisation), bases its entire existence on one factor, and one factor alone - global warming.

This panel must continue to justify its existence to its masters (the U.N. bureaucracy) by constantly keeping to an agreed story - that the world is heating up to the point whereby in the very near future, mankind will cease to exist, such will be the drastic climatic changes.

There are several problems here. The IPCC is basically examining climate records for the last 30 or 40 years, with an occasional mention of date back to the 1700's, as regards climate variations.

Yet the known and calculated history of mankinds existence on this planet is in the range of several hundred thousand years, to 40,000 or 50,000 years - and the climate to sustain human life has existed at least that long.

There are tantalising signs left in ancient things such as rocks and petrified wood, that there have been a very wide range of climate variations in that period - from mega-droughts through to wide variations in rainfall and temperature - and sea levels.

Yet the IPCC is insisting that the actions of mankind over the last, say just 50 or 60 years is ensuring that our known climate variations will alter by a relatively small amount in the next 30 years, and therefore all of mankind will perish.

I often wonder what will happen if a sudden and extended downward trend in global temperatures would result in the disbandment of the IPCC - or if this would merely be called "an aberration", and the IPCC would continue to exist and not be dismantled as having no further use.

Because these globally-funded "panels" and "committees" and organisations, who really have no responsibility to anyone to justify their existence, must continue their storyline to ensure that everyone is kept in a well-paid job studying numbers and records. There is no agreement in place anywhere to determine when or under what conditions, the panel or committee or organisation must be dismantled, as it has no further relevant work to do.

Then there's the ugly little fact that the "rising sea level" mantra is spoken of in hushed tones, as if it is the ruling feature of the planet. The problem is, "sea level" is just one measurement.

In accordance with all proper measurements, land height, relative to baseline measurements, must also be included in "sea level" measurements, as landforms rise and fall, considerably more than sea levels have done, in the last 20,000-30,000 years.

The crust of the Earth is essentially a moving mat, being pushed around by enormous pressures and forces that scientists still try to grasp.

Sea-floor spreading was unknown and not proven until 1962, and much has yet to be properly understood about the planet we live on, and the pressures it comes under, on a daily basis.

It is only just in recent years that wave heights have been accurately measured, and an understanding developed as to how wave heights affect our climate.

The factors behind El Nino and La Nina climate drivers are still yet to be fully understood - yet the IPCC constantly claims they have all the knowledge and accurate figures at their fingertips to be able to make climatic forecasts 50 years ahead.

Meantimes, we in the real world, know that figures and measurements are rubbery things that can be adjusted to match the storyline - particularly when the inputs to those figures and measurements are so numerous, that even with quantum computing, one would still be struggling to produce accurate climatic variation answers.

But one thing I do know, is that we need to take steps to clean up our act when it comes to pouring contaminants and pollutants into our atmosphere that makes our air quality suffer.

This is one simple very obvious feature of our style of civilisations, that must be addressed rapidly, to ensure our continued existence and quality of life.

Even now, the scientists and medical researchers have discovered that air pollution, mostly caused by industry and transportation sources, has been an important factor in the major and excessive level of COVID-19 deaths in Northern Italy.

So any steps we can take right now, to improve air quality, will have immediate benefit to the planet - and this is not something we need to aim for in 50 years time, unlike some calculated temperature rise, by some group of EU-based bureaucrats.

A genius in his own mind, perhaps. The thing that gets me is his absolute preciseness of the aircrafts location, based on some exceptionally weak signals. Weak signals can be from a multitude of sources.

If he's confidently predicting he can find the aircraft at that pretty precise location - and it's in an area previously searched by the Fugro crews - then surely there must be logs of the seabed and other records from the Fugro search information, which can be gone back over, to see if they really did miss that pile of wreckage.

The news outlets this morning are full of the latest story about a British expert who has used new cutting-edge technology to find the precisely exact location of MH370.

I guess the searchers would really have liked him to be around, when they were searching during the massive, high-tech, $200M ATSB search.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/british-expert-pinpoints-precise-resting-spot-of-missing-flight-mh370-c-4767473

This is the link to the experts highly detailed report. It is quite possible the aircraft slipped into a ravine, and was missed by the search ships.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kvu3kpu7kpjvjin/GDTAAA WSPRnet MH370 Analysis Preliminary Findings.pdf?dl=0

At about 6:00PM last night, I watched the contrails of two very high-flying large jets (one about 5 mins behind the other) overflying my workshop in Perth - one heading directly South, and the other one, directly S/SW.

There's only Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in those directions, and you just almost never see flights heading that direction and at that height over Perth. However, I have seen them a couple of times before, in the last year or so. 

I'm guessing they're long-distance U.S. military flights for some reason. I haven't looked up FR to see if they appeared on there.

Quote

..... lucky guess by the police where to dig up out of all that vast mountainous area to search

There's nothing "lucky" about what the police are doing. They have a vast array of information sources available to them (multiple cameras, satellite photos, phone tracking, vehicle tracking, eavesdropping utilising high-tech equipment, surveillance - and good old "public information") - and they're throwing a lot of police resources into the discovery of evidence.

They're doing very good work, and when it's all finished, I would not be surprised to see commendations come out of their policing work. By far the best piece of policing was examining the burnt tent, and concluding that the fire was no accident.

Many a major crime investigation has been stuffed up with poor initial policing, and even poorer follow-up, when individual concerns have been raised. 

This sad reminder of how even an experienced pilot can make a poor decision, and essentially ignore the basics of engine failure, is probably a good time to re-read the coroners report, and to revisit and practise your immediate and automatic response to any engine power reduction.

The crucial factor in Ross' crash appears to be the fact that a partial engine failure, is often not treated as a full EFATO, and the experienced pilot still thinks that he has enough power to carry out a turnback.

I can recall at least one other fairly recent crash where an identical series of events happened - partial engine failure making the pilot think he can still carry out a successful turnback.

https://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/578010/nif-millard-r-20180723.pdf

There are two things that will govern the direction that energy sources for transportation comes from, in the next decade or two - and that is R&D, and any outstanding technological breakthroughs, such as in battery storage/efficiency.

With the amount of money and effort going into R&D for potential future fuels and battery development, I would not be in the least bit surprised to see a major breakthrough in some area in the very near future - and I suspect that breakthrough will be in battery storage ability and efficiency. Virtually every major university in the developed world has a team working on these problems, and usually in conjunction with major industry players. 

One of the problems in recent years is that improvements in these areas have only been incremental, and it really needs a major breakthrough that produces a sizeable increase in efficiency, to produce a more definite direction of where we're going with future energy sources and energy storage. 

One thing is for sure - with the decline in use of fossil fuels, the alternatives will be a very fractured variety, and individual industries will more than likely decide on an industry-specific energy/storage type, that will more than likely not be suitable for anyone outside that industry.

Ian - There is a company in the U.K. reworking the EE20 Subaru diesel for aircraft engine use. Their version does produce 240HP for takeoff (140 maximum sustained HP), but it also appears to weigh over 170kgs, all-up.

http://www.cktaeroengines.com/

Subaru had problems with the earlier EE20 engines breaking crankshafts - but they carried out engineering modifications to the crankshaft around 2010-2011 that appear to have eliminated the crankshaft breakage problem.

The-CKT-240-TSD-Diesel.pdf

I bought a Subaru diesel engine at a farm clearing sale, where the seller told me he'd planned to install it in an aircraft. I questioned him about whether the engine was an excessive weight for an aircraft, and all he said was, "No, not if you have the right aircraft!". But he never told me what that particular "right" aircraft was, I was too busy picking up and loading the items I'd bought. 

The engine has reputedly only done 11,000kms, but I can't see myself selling it to anyone with an aircraft. The engine is only a basic engine, it came with no ECU, no intercooler and no muffler - but it did come with starter, alternator and turbocharger.

I have no idea why he sold it, or why he sold the farm, and nearly everything he owned - but he virtually got rid of it all, and moved off to some other location. Maybe he won Lotto, and moved to some exclusive airpark, and bought a Learjet.

I haven't actually weighed it, or found a factory weight for it, but it's a pretty heavy donk, I'd have to guess it's at least 130kgs.

Diesels need some serious metal thicknesses to resist the much higher combustion pressures and longer burn time for the fuel, which places a lot more pressure on the likes of conrods and crankshafts - the reason why diesels have much higher torque  output than petrol engine equivalents. I understand that high torque output and strong power pulses can lead to problems with aircraft propulsion, specifically the propellor, and any reduction drive arrangement.

The need for a six-fold mining increase is not an accurate projection, because it fails to take into account, the recycling of used batteries. Battery recycling will become a very sizeable operation in the future, in every country in the world.

Lead acid batteries are now recycled at a rate better than 60%, with huge savings in reduced landfill costs and reduced pollution. All batteries are recyclable, the common household batteries are being recycled at an increasing rate and very shortly lithium battery recycling will be rapidly increasing. We have to do better than just constantly digging up new resource metals, using them for a relatively short period, then throwing those valuable metals into landfill.

The changes will come a lot faster than 50 years or more. Already, numerous Govts have decreed that fossil fuels will not be supported in transport systems within less than a decade. The next stage is, fossil fuel users will be having to wear "pollution taxes", making owning, older fossil-fuel-powered items, a real cost burden. This will happen, "to reflect the true overall cost of fossil fuel burning".

Just the same as the Japanese vehicle inspection/registration costs ("shaken" in Japanese) go up enormously after 6 years, forcing owners to upgrade to new, lower-emission vehicles, so will similar taxing regimes start to be applied to fossil-fuelled vehicles within a few short years.

.....dealing with the female warriors of the Greens Party Female Collective! I mean to say, there nothing more vicious and violent than a hairy-legged Greens peace protester!"

Meantimes, OT had organised top actresses and actors, and a huge number of extras for the forthcoming movie. He also organised a large number of RA-Aus ultralight owners to feature in the film, as it was to be seriously aviation-related, and more importantly, recreational-aviation-related.

As with all good movies, it would feature horror sections (combat with Greens warriors), bravado (starring Cappy), devious businessmen (Turbo), backwoods truckers (bull), casual shooting from aircraft (CT9000), a hero (OT), and all these actors would feature above the Hollywood "names" that would be included, simply as a nod to the American motion-picture industry.

Then there was the finance angle to be arranged. Movies such as this took hundreds of millions to produce and OT wasn't about to let the movie fall over, thanks to a lack of financing. He called up......

The Japanese manufacturers are pushing hydrogen fuel as a viable source of power. They are also pushing battery power, so they're obviously having a 50c each way bet.

There are quite a number of global manufacturers who see hydrogen gas being fed into a slightly modified IC engine as the immediate answer. The construction industry is looking at this seriously.

Lord Anthony Bamford (he of the JCB digger fame) is not convinced that batteries are the answer for construction equipment and is going down the road of simply modifying his IC (diesel) engines to run on straight hydrogen.

He says the supply chain arrangement for hydrogen can be put in place without difficulty, and "green" hydrogen from solar power provides great promise.

He's organised a deal with Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest for a supply of green hydrogen from Twiggys new hydrogen-generation plants, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of that deal. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59107805

.....left nostril - which regularly made for angry goannas. And when you've got a number of angry goannas, it's time to look out! However, the Stumpy Tail Lizard Farm, being another subsidiary of Turbine Industries Inc, rarely let the odd angry goanna bother them.

"Odd Angry Goanna?", said OT, "That's sounds like a winner of a name for a new movie featuring the Outback, two or three crusty old pilots, some wildlife, wild animals of the interior, possibly a few camels thrown in for good measure, and several ultralights that the pilots are fighting for ownership over!"

"I couldn't throw a camel, even if I could catch one!", exclaimed Cappy. "Are you considering using myself, bull and Cappy as the stars of this new movie?", said Turbo eagerly. "I'll have to see if..........

Our family raised a wedgetail eagle from a chick, back in the late '70's. We had a 5 acre block on the outskirts of a country town in the W.A. wheatbelt, back then.

We used to do a lot of farmland clearing in that era, and finding nests in downed trees was common. We took home this big wedgetail chick we found in a nest in a felled tree, and raised him to adulthood.

Couldn't do it today, too many wildlife laws, we'd be hung drawn and quartered for not having a wildlife permit, taking a protected species, and a dozen other laws, I probably don't even know about.

He was about the size of a domestic chook when we found him, and we fed him on meat scraps. He got called "Samson" (he of the great strength). 

I must say I've never encountered an animal so utterly fearless, and which never ever displayed any kind of emotion. Cats will purr, dogs will wag their tails - eagles just stare at you, probably measuring you up for food potential.

You'd feed him a chop bone, and it would be "gulp", down the hatch, and he'd gaze around without any display of thanks or anything. But he was truly regal - and the cats and dogs shat themselves whenever they spotted him, and they slunk away.

He was nothing but down when we picked him up, and within a few weeks he started getting feathers - and getting bigger. So we let have the run of the yard outside the house, and he'd taxi up and down the yard trying his newly feathered wings out. His wingspan, even as a newly-feathered big chick, was truly impressive.

He never tried to leave the house or yard area, and as he grew, he learnt to fly a few dozen yards - then he'd fly across the road and perch on the big (500mm) raised water main pipeline that ran the water into town.

He'd just perch there for hours and watch the odd passing car with his regal stare. Then he'd start taking forays into the areas around town, going away for an hour or two at a time, then returning to perch on the pipeline.

Then came the day he simply flew away, and never returned. I trust he found a mate and lived a long life. The authorities did a study into wedgetail behaviour after complaints by farmers that they were taking lambs.

They were not a protected species back then, and farmers would shoot them mercilessly.

But the study found that 90% of the bones in wedgetail nests were rabbit and small marsupial bones, and the authorities concluded the ones spotted "taking lambs" were merely stripping the flesh from newly dead lambs, and it was quite rare for wedgetails to swoop on, and pick up healthy lambs. However, there's a photo on the 'net of a wedgetail carrying off a fox, which is no mean feat, and something I have never seen one do. The foxes are usually too cunning, and excellent at hiding.

Their talons are fearful things, razor sharp, and the strength of their grip of their talons is amazing.

....show everyone at the meeting, the numerous "hacks" you could do with used chopsticks. He showed them as suitable for use as paint stirrers, how they were good for toothpicks (they get big gaps in their teeth in Tasmania), how you could use them as knitting needles (whereby bull promptly knitted up a pair of thick socks for protection against the cold at 4000 feet), how they can be used to unclog glue and sealant tubes, how they could utilised as picture frames, how they can be used as a kitchen whisk, and how they could be used to rescue toast that was stuck in the toaster.

In fact, it turned out that there were so many uses for used chopsticks, they started to dominate eBay sales, and eBay had to..............

....took a fighting stance and flexed his biceps - and the Tyro tyre automatically assumed an inflated position. "So, who says I can't fly sh*t??, demanded Cappy menacingly.

"Do you know who I am?", said aggressive XXXX. "No, who exactly are you?, said Cappy in response. And just like Norm in the Newcastle Song, the aggressive XXXX replied. "You find out, mate!", and he promptly swung.......

....being a closet gay, and this was reflected in his choice of drinks. Many a time, Cappy was asked to leave bars in the wharf area when he ordered a gin and tonic, whilst everyone else in the bar was drinking XXXX or VB. "I can't understand this rampant bullying over my drink choices?", he complained. "It's not like I've.........

Wouldn't a set of wheels left down and left to spin at takeoff speed, after takeoff, take a considerable length of time to slow to low RPM's? - and wouldn't that set of spinning wheels, which are usually unbalanced due to flat spots from landing, provide a level of gyroscopic imbalance to the aircraft?