onetrack

How can a fuel hose just "come off"? Surely, you make 101% sure these connections are totally secure, when you're doing checks?

....started guffawing at Raelenes comical outburst. But he soon resumed his sombre approach, and he requested that the prime evidence be produced, for open court examination.

"I ain't dropping my strides for anyone! - certainly not in an open court!!" exclaimed bull. But the judge soon calmed him down, when he said, "We don't want you to drop your strides - certified photographic evidence is quite acceptable to the court, and as soon as we get that, we can......

Bruce, the article you linked to above is dated 2013, and I think a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, as regards Jabiru engines in the last 8 years.

Re Australia's fuel reserves, Facthunter is behind the times. When the oil price fell through the floor last year, the Govt stepped in and bought a huge amount of fuel for our national reserves.

The only problem is - they're storing it underground (in salt caverns) in the U.S. - because we don't have any major storage capacity here.

Seems like a bit of a wasted effort, ensuring we have major fossil fuel reserves and creating huge storage capacity for it, right now - when, everywhere else, the EV support network is what is being ramped up.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-22/government-to-buy-fuel-secure-national-stockpile/12173276

A sizeable % of small power tools are now Li-ion powered. And your EV has the potential to provide a useable electric power source when you're not driving.

....that was where the Bull story got really muddy - yet some fool of a lawyer leader kept telling them to push on. But the more that lawyer pushed, the muddier the Bull story got, until it......

What we need is some brilliant forward-thinking strategists to indulge in a think tank, and take a deep look into the crystal ball to see the future of "warfare".

The Americans only see warfare in one model - explode the hell out of it, or shoot the hell out of it. Neither will work in the future.

The future is filled with robotic soldiers, new weaponry straight out of star wars - and subtle underhand methods of subterfuge, all designed to cripple the nations military abilities and resistance.

A future enemy will disable all the sateliites, utilising space-based weaponry. They will disable communications networks by damaging power generation facilities.

They will damage production of critical metals and componentry manufacture - and not necessarily by bombing. We've already seen how the Israelis can start fires in Iranian military production facilities.

All you need is to produce a virus that sets fire to computer hard drives (and I've seen an Asian computer student who could do this - over 20 yrs ago).

The warmongerer will target the "soft tissue" of the underbelly of the nation they plan to cripple, by disrupting food supplies and delivery systems. They don't need bombs to do that.

People will be obliged to fall back on "old methods" of operation, survival and living, that they have never learned, because the old people who were familiar with them, have all passed on.

It will be a whole new ball game. And the start of it, will be sowing dissent and distrust via social media networks, to weaken the nation from within.

Quote

Problem is currently no one has to stop work for a couple of hours to do a battery swap now; Nissan Leaf Battery life is around 10 years, replacement set costs around $9500 every 10 years, and labour to do the swap is around $900.00 so a battery swap in the middle of the day is not on.

There's simply no need to take 2 hrs to do a battery swap. Proper designing would see a slide-in battery cradle and a swap done in less time than it takes to put 80 litres of diesel into your Landcruiser.

And the changeover cost for a Nissan Leaf battery might be $9500 from the Nissan dealer at present - but a little competition will soon see that drop to around $2000-3000.

I've currently got a Ford Ranger diesel in the Ford dealer getting fixed (it wouldn't start). The dealer advised the injectors would probably need replacing, and the high pressure pump for the common rail could also need replacement.

They quoted me $800 for each genuine Ford injector, and $3000 for a new genuine Ford HP pump. Yet, I can obtain genuine Bosch injectors for under $400 each, and a genuine Bosch HP pump for $975 - fitted.

And Bosch make the injectors and pumps for Ford. The rorting is from when the components arrive in a Ford-branded box.

Quote

Melbourne like Perth, Adelaide and a few other cities had electric buses from early in the 20th century, but they all dumped them by the early 1960s.

IMO, calling trolley buses "electric buses" is comparing apples to oranges. None of these were truly "battery-powered electric", they ran off overhead wires and mains power.

Perth is now trialling some Volvo electric buses on a CAT service (Central Area Transit - i.e. short-route, inner areas, bus service) - but I can't for the life of me, understand why Volvo are charging $1M a bus for the "latest technology" in electric buses.

And in fact, it's the same with all EV's at present. They're a total and complete rort, and until they can reduce their pricing to acceptable levels, the uptake will be tiny.

I'm sure there's a method in their madness, the manufacturers are all trying to extract every last drop of profit in IC technology, before they're forced to scrap all their IC manufacturing and repair infrastructure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Perth

https://www.perthnow.com.au/community-news/joondalup-times/electric-buses-to-roll-out-for-wa-first-trial-c-1132592

Electric power will eventually rule, but it will never rule as a stand-alone power source, I firmly believe there will need to be constant backup for the batteries. Whether that is a small on-board genset, a vastly-increased charging network, or a huge network of battery-swap stations, we will have to wait to see what will play out.

I'm of the opinion that a battery-swap network has the greatest potential to move electric motive power forward. It's just important that manufacturers standardise on battery sizes and interchangeability, and design quick-swap battery installations.

After all, no-one blinks an eyelid at todays gas-bottle swap network, which works just fine - but which setup was greeted with substantial opposition, when it was first mooted.

Electric motive power has many huge advantages - a vast reduction in the number of moving, wearing components - very little by way of substantial lubricant quantities and regular changes of those lubricants, simple conversion of energy to rotary movement, with no gearboxes, or components changing direction rapidly at dozens of times a second, vastly increased component life - and maintenance and parts reductions, by a substantial order of magnitude.

No need to get too picky about absolutely precise clearances, apart from the specified factory clearances.

After all, engines still run very satisfactorily with a few thou wear in every component, they just become a bit noisier, that's all. Good oil is important.

Around 70% of the parasitic frictional losses in IC engines is caused by the shearing of the oil molecules as the metal bits slide past each other.

Heat is definitely the killer of all engines, and of engine oil. Excessive heat alters clearances substantially, alters metal properties, and substantially degrades oil and its additives.

So keeping the engine heat within the specified range is the most important thing to concentrate on. It's better to have clearances a fraction loose, than to try and obtain perfect tight clearances.

New engines are "tight" and can be seized by excessively hard work, and high temperatures. New engines produce more heat from friction than "run-in" engines.

The last engine I had reconditioned (a few months ago - a forklift engine) the reconditioner wanted all the pistons to check for accuracy in dimensions, and to hone each cylinder specifically to each piston.

One of the problems with utilising "resellers" of Telecommunication services (i.e. - those "pop-up" companies that offer a "great phone/data deal", when they have no investment in any communication infrastructure, and have only been created to try and gain a slice of the luscious telecommunications pie), is that, in many cases, these resellers are not given "full access" to the full range of telecommunication facilities, that the infrastructure owners such as Telstra, Vodafone and Optus, own.

Telstra, Vodafone and Optus ensure that only those customers who they have a plan with directly, get all the facilities available from their infrastructure.

This can mean, if you have a plan with Aldi, Belong, CMobile, Lycomobile, Tangerine Telecom, or Woolworths, etc., you are likely to find restrictions on your service, that are hidden in the fine print - or not even mentioned at all.

Those restrictions can amount to lower data speeds and communicative ability restricted in times of tower congestion. These low-cost secondary providers also get dropped back to 3G, when Telstra customers are still on 4G in the same area.

In addition, you don't get the latest services such as 4GX or 5G with the secondary providers.

In commercial aviation terms, these secondary providers are in the economy-class boarding queue when it comes to telecommunications, while the customers who have plans directly with the primary providers, are in the business-class queue.

Boost is a subsidiary of Telstra and is the only secondary provider that I know of, that provides a full Telstra service. Unfortunately, Telstra service is not what it used to be, and in a number of regions or areas, the likes of Vodaphone and Optus have seen "opportunities", and installed infrastructure that beats Telstra hands-down, for that region.

It's becoming a whole new ball game from here on in, as Optus and Telstra have both hived off the ownership of their cell tower infrastructure into new companies, that are promptly being sold off to interested 3rd party investors.

This is going to make future cell tower installation and maintenance and upgrades a decidedly different scenario to what we have been used to, as those 3rd party investors will be mostly interested in maximising ROI in the tower networks, and a whole lot less interested in new installations, maintenance and upgrades.

What I find interesting is that current ROI in the network infrastructure to the Telcos is 65%. I don't know why the Telcos are getting out of infrastructure ownership with that kind of return, but I guess it's because they can see their costs associated with the network increasing in the future, and the telecommunication competition increasing.

https://www.afr.com/street-talk/readying-for-the-year-of-the-telco-tower-deal-20201112-p56e6s

....Cappy saw what had happened with his design, and became enraged. "Now you're well and truly up Schitt Creek, for stealing my Pizza Schitt Utralight build!!", he raged.

But Salty set out to calm Cappy down, and pointed out that he'd only gathered up all the pieces from all over the countryside - at his own expense - and he was only trying to help Cappy to get back on track, (avref) with his design work. He had no intention of stealing his design, because he knew that the Pizza Schitt name was permanently entwined with Cappys name and reputation.

Not long after Cappy had rebuilt his manufacturing operations, a big black limo rolled up to his works, and out stepped two olive-skinned gentlemen in sharp suits and dark sunglasses.

Cappy watched this performance with some concern. His concern heightened when one of the suited gents spoke, in a distinctive Southern Italian (Riverina variety) accent.

"Meester Capitano?," he said. "We have to have-a leetle talk together, about dis leetle Pizza Sheet aircraft-a, you's-a building. We gotta leetle job for you and your aircrafts. We gonna make-a you an offer you can't-a refuse, and eets in your interest to say yes to everything we want - or there could be some troubles with-a your business - like a big-a fire start in-a da meedle of da night, or somethin' bad, like-a dat!"

Cappy swallowed hard. This was not what he expected when it came to selling his aircraft design. The last thing he wanted was.......

Is there any reason you can't fit piston cooling jets to the Jab engine? Get-M Garage make piston cooling jet installation kits for the LS, BB and SB Chevy's, BB Mopar engines, and some Ford engines.

Watch the installation video on Youtoob and you'll see there's nothing really complex about their design and installation.

The only question might be, if there's enough "meat" in the bearing support region of the Jab block, to accommodate the squirters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cljwe1dkdc

OME, CBT keep a very low profile, and are no doubt concerned about intellectual theft and industrial espionage. I have no doubt dozens of universities, research and engineering depts, and individual inventors, are chasing the holy grail of a lightweight battery, with low costs and improved energy density.

The CBT battery and the Chalmers structural battery are quite different in the execution of the structural battery idea. The Chalmers battery has only 20% of the energy density of the standard Li-ion battery - a seriously backwards step, IMO.

The Chalmers battery is focussing on carbon fibre technology - the CBT uses only aluminium foil, and standard Li-ion battery technology.

The CBT battery is focussed on low manufacturing cost with standard tooling and materials - to ensure Capex costs are not high, as usually in the case of exotic battery designs.

In addition, the CBT battery design includes thermal management to ensure optimal output conditions, and a reduction in fire risk.

CBT utilise gas monitoring channels and coolant flow channels to ensure thermal conditions are always within the batteries best operating temperature range.

I believe the CBT battery will garner a huge amount of interest and support, with its exciting design, low manufacturing cost, and simplicity of construction - and I believe CBT will have a "marketable" battery, long before the Chalmers researchers do.

There's an old fella from W.A., with a long track record in innovative technologies - you might have heard of him - Ralph Sarich.

Besides being a pretty nice bloke (I knew him when he was a bulldozer salesmen, in 1965!), and a philanthropist of note - his brain obviously never stops thinking up new, and innovative, and forward-thinking ideas.

Now, Ralph never managed to get his Sarich Orbital Engine to a commercially viable stage, due to many inherent design problems that were deemed too difficult to overcome, way back in the 1970's.

But Ralph's Orbital Engine Company went on to produce a lot of interesting innovations, and design improvements in engine technology - and OEC are still in business today (but now known as Orbital Corporation Ltd).

Ralph managed to make a motza out of his OEC, and he was supposed to have retired from designing new engines and components, and gone into real-estate development. 

He did get into real estate in a big way (mostly commercial RE) - but his family company, Cape Bouvard Investments, also started up a technology company, named (of course) Cape Bouvard Technologies.

The exciting part here, is that CBT has re-imagined the Li-ion battery, and produced an interesting and exciting development, in what is essentially, a honeycomb Li-ion battery that is not only much lighter than the regular Li-ion batteries - but it can be utilised as a structural component of the equipment utilising battery power - thus lightening the equipment item, further again. Their current target is the EV industry, of course - but CBT indicate there's potential for the use of the design in aircraft.

https://structural-battery.com/

Quote

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) died for much the same reason 

No, CNG hasn't died - not here in on the left Coast, anyway. The Public Transit Authority in W.A. operates 1138 diesel-powered buses and 512 CNG buses, which are diesel buses converted to CNG.

The CNG buses are very acceptable to the PTA, but the life-cycle cost of the CNG buses is affected by big variations in the price of diesel.

When diesel prices are high, the CNG buses are in front. When the cost of diesel falls substantially (as it did in 2020), the CNG buses are at a disadvantage.

The CNG buses in the first decade of this century had a sizeable advantage in reduced emissions, but the "clean diesel" (low sulphur) improvement brought about by Govt regulation means the current diesel emissions, in combination with Euro 5 technology and exhaust treatments, is matching the low emissions levels of CNG in the buses.

W.A. has the advantage of a large supply of relatively cheap Natural Gas, and the only major additional cost is in compressing it.

The PTA has the advantage of only needing refuelling infrastructure at 2 places, in the Perth region, and Perth is on the route of the huge Dampier-Bunbury natural gas pipeline from the N.W. Shelf gas deposits of W.A.

......had decided that "Yabbies from Schitt Creek" was the greatest marketing name coup in recent years, and when Turbo suggested he could use Turbine Marketing Inc to promote his product, using the lines, "When you eat one of our Yabbies, you'll know it's Schitt straight away!!", which Turbo promised, would make sales go ballistic.

Meantimes, Cappy had found out about Schitt Creek, and decided he couldn't let his best mate Turbo get all the action - he wanted to get in on it, too.

As a result, Cappy decided he'd set up an ultralight (avref) manufacturing enterprise on that same creek, and employ a world-famous Italian aircraft designer and stylist to come up with a fabulous, sleek new ultralight design, with pure Italian thoroughbred lines - and he would call his aircraft company, "Pizza Schitt Ulralights", drawing on the well-known and well-loved Italian references (mostly from Fiat cars) to boost his sales. 

"I'm on a winner here!," he crowed to Turbo, as he set up his...........

There is a far greater likelihood of a battery breakthrough with regard to increased energy density, than there ever is of hydrogen power becoming an economic reality.

I know a group of Japanese car manufacturers (Toyota included) are intent on creating a range of hydrogen-powered vehicles - but I personally think they're trying to fly a lead balloon.

Hydrogen has way too many inherent problems with regards to handling, transport and storage. And at the end of the day, it still has poor energy density compared to petrol or diesel.

A hydrogen leak is more dangerous than any other gas leak, hydrogen has the highest flammability range, and the lowest required ignition energy of any fuel.

FV - You're going to have to bite the bullet and pay the $195 for the 18M roll of fade-out drafting paper. Note that this material is designed to accurately keep its dimensional stability over any substantial length.

IBob's advice is critical. Anything else you find, will suffer from serious dimensional stability problems, and that is the last thing you need for plan accuracy.

https://www.draftex.com.au/product/clearprint-fade-out-graph-paper-roll

.....Cappys innate and overwhelming fear of water (he spent his childhood in Pommyland). Cappy got a death grip on the handrails and nothing the sailors could do, could prise his grip loose.

They gave up and went back to their card games (because all sailors are excellent card players - there's nothing else to do on the water). Cappy, meantimes, had slunk off to the lower deck, looking to see if there was something he could.......

[Dear NES readers - we need to find some type of rapid medical relief for Cappys awful, chronic, repetitive state. He's obviously swallowed an LP record player, and the needle has got stuck....]

Here's the explanation behind the Martin 404 cylinder pop-out. The engine really did lose a cylinder, but it went right out into the atmosphere and was lost somewhere over Northern Arizona.

The Martin made an emergency landing and finished the trip on a replacement engine. They never bothered to fix the cowling as it was the aircrafts last trip to a museum.

Once at the museum, the people there decided to position a spare cylinder in the hole. The intake and exhaust on the rear of the cylinder are plugged, a real giveaway. Nev is right on the mark.

https://generalaviationnews.com/2018/04/24/picture-of-the-day-sometimes-you-just-need-a-little-more-engine-cooling/

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled/Martin-404/1223572/L

....Cappy failed to even see the sea, which left Dalton seeing red, and seething with anger at Cappys inability to see anything beyond his (large and bulbous) nose.

A thought occurred to Dalton. Perhaps if he burst into an appropriate song, Cappy would finally take the hint.

Accordingly, and to soothe his nerves, Dalton burst forth with the classic lines, from that great old Wartime song -

"We joined the Navy, to see the world!

And what did we see? - we saw the sea!

We saw the Pacific and the Atlantic,
But the Atlantic isn't romantic,
And the Pacific isn't what it's cracked up to be!

We joined the navy to do or die,
But we didn't do, and we didn't die!
We were much too busy,
Looking at the ocean and the sky.........."

....."totally deficient in every area, and he should not be allowed to be in charge of anything powered by an engine over 2HP. In fact, this man would be a danger to himself with a rubber sword, and I would recommend that he be placed......."

Ronald Reagan was a U.S. Army Captain during WW2, and he was working as a publicist for the U.S. Military, when a junior officer (David Conover) assigned to Reagan, took photos of Marilyn Monroe working on a Radioplane OQ-3 drone  engine.

So, it appears Reagan utilised Conovers photos of attractive young American girls working in the War factories of the U.S., to boost the morale of the troops. That's about as close as Reagan ever got to making a drone.

Conover was the individual who encouraged MM to take up photo-modelling and the rest is history. MM's figure was deemed more desirable as a "pin-up" in photos, rather than as a photo model - where a different body shape to MM's was required.

https://silodrome.com/radioplane-oq-3-engine/