onetrack

Unfortunately, there is adequate proof available that Turbo's flying under bridge spans with a Staggerwing resulted in substantial damage to said bridge - and the authorities are still chasing him for damages and the cost of repairs.

The Staggerwing, of course, being a Beech, escaped from the bridge miscalculation episode with little more than a few paint scratches.

Turbo managed to convince the media, that the bridge damage was caused a ship, but everyone knows there was no shipping in the vicinity, the day the bridge was substantially damaged.

But Turbo's memory accuracy of his flying exploits has obviously been affected by consuming too much of El Capitaines homebrew.

El Capitaines memory is less affected, because he has developed an immunity to his home brew - but his wobbly gait whenever he moves, and regularly falling off his stool when he says he has to visit the toilet, are good pointers to the damage his homebrew is inflicting.

And here, dear NES readers, we have the proof of Turbo's under-bridge flying efforts, revealed in all their raw truth.......

I'm hanging out to hear a lot more about this Bert bloke. Sounds like he deserves an AO at least.

.....the Moderators,, who decided that Hi-Ho had obviously drunk TWO glasses of El Capitaines homebrew, before he wrote that last post.

In fact, the Moderators decided it was a miracle (Jesus ref) that he'd managed to write anything even remotely understandable, after ingesting the amount he did.

But Turbo's wild antics with the Staggerwing (avref) brought him some unwanted attention. Not only from a CASA operative, but from Constable Doubtfire, whose chooks had gone off laying, after Turbo flew over her henhouse in the Staggerwing at an altitude of 50 feet, as he tried to regain altitude without hitting powerlines, after flying under the bridge.

Constable Doubtfire was seething. She loved her chooks, and enjoyed scrambled eggs on toast every morning, whilst looking out at the bridge. Now, there were no eggs, and a bunch of frazzled hens.

And she knew who had flown that aircraft, thanks to Turbo's advertising efforts associated with the bridge flyunder. She got onto the Commissioner, and before long, there was.........

...... staggering around, which he did on a regular basis, after visiting El Capitaine, and sampling his generously-offered moonshine, made from rotten fruit scavenged from the Kapooka rubbish tip.

"I must say that stuff has a bit of a kick in it!, he exclaimed, after he'd downed only half a glass of it. "It makes backyard Russian Vodka taste absolutely insipid!"

"I'm quite proud of my homebrew efforts, actually", said El Capitaine. "I don't know anyone that hasn't been floored with half a glass of it, yet! I did manage to kill half a hectare of grass when I had a small spill - but hey, everything you do is a big learning curve, isn't it?"

"Talking about learning curve", said Turbo with a worried look. "I've just heard that the NTE hand sanitiser factory has had a mishap. There was a small explosion, I've been informed. I think it was related to some product supplied by Cappy, that.....

The general rule for oil is that it must be kept "fresh" by oil retailers, to ensure that there can be no user-reported problems, or warranty claims against the refiner, due to poor oil performance.

5 years is the reported shelf life of motor oil - but that also depends on how it's stored. High temperatures and exposure to humidity and strong light, all assist in oil additive degradation - which is essentially, oil performance degradation.

Condensation can gather in containers - chemicals added to oil are basically unstable and reactive, and do degrade over time - and some additives are larger particles, that can sink to the bottom of the container.

I'd say retailers have probably set a shorter shelf life period, to ensure they sell only the freshest oils. There's an informative article below.

https://www.autoblog.com/2015/11/18/what-is-the-shelf-life-of-motor-oil/

Bert sounds like Frank.

A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just as it's going by. As he gets into the taxi, and the cabbie says, "Impeccable timing. You're just like Frank."

Passenger: "Who?"

Cabbie: "Frank Feldman. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time."

Passenger: "There are always a few clouds over everybody."

Cabbie: "Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand-Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone, and danced like a Broadway star, and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy."

Passenger: "Sounds like he was really something special."

Cabbie: "There's more. He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Frank Feldman could do everything right.”

Passenger: "Wow, what a guy!"

Cabbie: "He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake, and he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished, too. He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman."

Passenger: "How did you meet him?"

Cabbie: "I never actually met Frank. He died, and I married his wife."

Lead acid is soon to be obsolete.

Bruce, don't bank on that. The Lead-Acid Battery Manufacturers have formed a consortium or association to ramp up a fightback against Lithium batteries.

There's a range of new L-A batteries that offer superior performance to the standard L-A batteries.

https://batterycouncil.org/

BiPolar L-A batteries - Advanced Battery Concepts – Better Batteries, Better World (see "technology")

Carbon Foam cell L-A batteries - Firefly International Energy

Firefly batteries have been in full production for a couple of years now, and are popular with marine and RV users. However, Firefly are struggling to keep up production to meet demand, and they're only available in Nth America.

Both of the above new designs offer lighter weight (as compared to traditional L-A batteries), longer life, improved charging ability, and cheap manufacturing, making for a much cheaper battery than lithium.

The above batteries are also easily and fully recyclable, utilising current L-A recycling systems.

However, the bottom line is, Lithium still wins hands-down when it comes to sheer weight-saving overall.

.....the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock, where all the religious fighting originally began. It was while he was there, he accidentally ran into Benny Netanyahu.

"G'day Benny!", said Turbo, "Hows the bribery and corruption trial going?" (because Turbs liked being on a first-name basis with leading Jewish figures, and he always used his Jewish contacts in Melbourne to ensure he didn't get outright rejections).

"Trial!!", said Benny. "More like a circus! I thought I'd paid enough to the judiciary to have this sorted, but there's always one big-noter who wants to run with a high-profile case!"

"Anyway, enough about me, how's the young fella, and what's this I hear about New Turbine Enterprises setting up a branch in Palestine?? What are you trying to do? Split the country??"

"Oh, no, I wouldn't start anything like that!", said Turbs, acting surprised (while muttering under his breath, "you've already beaten me to it"). "You see, we got this offer from Mahmoud Abbas to.......

The speeds they are running the alternator at in the tests are very low, in comparison to actual alternator speeds in engine operation.

Most alternators run between 5 and 6 times engine speed. So, with an engine idling at, say 500 RPM, the alternator is already doing 2,500 to 3,000 RPM.

Alternators need to run at around 2,000 (alternator) RPM to start producing charge, they produce maximum charge rate at around 6,000 RPM, and they can often run to 30,000 or 35,000 RPM.

The tests above were done at 1,500 and 3,000 alternator RPM. I'm surprised the alternator even produced charge current at 1,500 RPM. At 3,000 RPM, the alternator speed is only a little above engine idle.

The tests would have been more indicative of real conditions if the alternator was tested at 6,000 to 10,000 RPM - at which speeds the fan is producing a vast amount more cooling air, than it is at 1500 RPM.

One of my heroes is Ron Fitch, born in 1910. He was the West Australian Govt Railways first tertiary-qualified engineer. He started as a cadet with the WAGR in 1927 and gained a Masters in Civil Engineering in 1949.

He left the WAGR in May 1949 to become Chief Civil Engineer of the Commonwealth Railways, which comprised the Trans-Australian Railway, the Central Australia Railway, and the North Australia Railway.

He became Commissioner of the South Australian Railways in 1966, and retired in 1973 after 46 years of railways service. He then went on to write several books about Australian Railways, and became a noted railways author and historian.

Then, obviously bored, he studied and gained a PhD - at the age of 92! Aged 100, he was lecturing on aged care! He finally died at age 105 in July 2015. But he didn't have to service a young wife, so maybe there's some pointers there.

Marshallarts - The AN-225 arrived in Perth with a 117 tonne natural gas turbine genset for a mining company in the North of W.A.

117 tonnes is not a large load for the heavy equipment transporters in W.A. In the 1990's I owned a 100 tonne capacity Drake low-loader, and I owned two excavators that weighed 103 tonnes each.

It's not unusual to have mining equipment weighing several hundred tonnes today. The excavators in many W.A. mines can weigh up to 800 tonnes. Of course, they need to be transported in smaller sections.

The biggest hassle with moving heavy equipment is finding a route that avoid bridges. Many bridges are weight-restricted, even ones built in recent years.

Even if a bridge does have major capacity, say 200 or 300 tonnes, it's then a major exercise to cross it with a heavy load.

All traffic has to be stopped so the load can cross it alone (reducing total bridge loading), and the load travel speed is reduced to around 10kmh to avoid overstressing the bridge structure.

If you approach a bridge at speed with an extreme load, it puts major longitudinal pressure on the bridge pylons, initiating a "toppling" effect. The pylons are designed to cope with high vertical loads, but not high longitudinal loads.

FD - What you heard as regards the "Snowy 2 turbine" arrival, was completely unfounded speculation or gossip. The Snowy 2 scheme has only just received development approval in May 2020, from the NSW Govt.

There's 27 kms of tunnel to be excavated before the construction of the new underground power station can start. There's initial work that needs to be carried out this year by way of site exploration and pre-planning activities.

The tunnel excavation will take at least 3 years (through mostly hard rock), and then the power station (which is 800 metres underground) needs to be built.

Once the power station is built, the turbines are brought in for installation and commissioning. They have to be trucked in the last couple of hundred kms, because there's no airport anywhere near the Snowy capable of taking an Antonov.

The projections are, the Snowy 2 project will be complete somewhere around 2024. The turbines will quite likely not arrive before early 2023.

What the Antonov AN-124 did bring in, in mid-April 2020, was a major component for a wind turbine.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/hiding-in-plane-sight-border-forces-antonov-that-wasnt-there/news-story/0e1fc270b7da25ff614f5a440805243d

The blokes correct name is Chip W. Erwin, and he is definitely not a man to deal with, due to his past history of dodgy dealings. Here's a (PDF download) link below, to some of the stories.

http://forums.matronics.com/download.php?id=11023&sid=6e557e9c0dc9bf0eb49ae8b4347439e2

Well done, Marshallarts! I'm surprised Hesperian Press didn't take on the publishing of your book, they specialise in W.A. history and small print runs, and they have produced a lot of publications that fill in history gaps in W.A.

I particularly like the historical publications of the small towns in W.A., whereby the stories are related of the founding of towns, plus the early tribulations and personal stories of the area, I find them quite entertaining.

An associate has been writing the history of H. J. Wigmore, and Wigmores Tractors, the first and the exclusive dealer for Caterpillar in W.A., from around 1925.

He's been writing these two books since not long after he retired, and he's now 80, and still not finished!

SWMBO and I have the perfect balance for keeping "stuff". She throws every single thing out, as she deems it past its use-by date - which can be as little as 3 mths!

But I grab the good items from what she throws out, before it actually goes to the tip!

I reckon if you've had something for about 30 years, and forgot about it, it's time to move it on!

But if you look in most peoples open garages as you drive past, you'll often see a garage crammed to the ceiling with "stuff", and the cars parked outside! I think that's when it's time to have proper assessment of what you actually need to keep.

The worst bloke I ever came across was an old farmer who was a dedicated and obsessive hoarder. He could not throw anything away, and he would go to the local tip virtually every day, and bring home a trailer load of "useful stuff".

I walked into his house, and he had old newspapers piled to the ceiling in every passageway, lining the walls on each side. You could only just walk between the piled-up newspapers.

Every room was piled high with every imaginable item you could think of - old saucepans, old kettles, old TV's, old electrical devices of every type, old household items galore.

Not so long afterwards, his house caught fire! - and the firies couldn't put the fire out! It was fed by the mountains of "stuff" he'd collected! The house burned to ground level,and all his precious "stuff" went with it!

It was all pretty sad, really. I think a lot of these people must have suffered greatly for want of even basic items during the Great Depression, and that "Depression-era", "waste-nothing" mentality is burnt into their memory and actions.

I often get accused of having too much junk, but I will be quite happy one day to have a big auction and sell it all off, I'm not that attached to any of it, that I can't part with it.

But I hate to see good, solidly-built old products get scrapped, simply because "new technology" has replaced it.

I bought a massive Landis cylindrical grinder at auction about 2009. It was a 1940 model, and was probably purchased by the Federal Govt during the War to manufacture ordnance or military items.

It had a 36" x 3" grinding wheel, and the machine weighed nearly 8 tonnes. It was a beautiful machine, it could still grind to 0.0001" accuracy. Landis were the "Rolls-Royce" of cylindrical grinders for maybe 80 years or more.

It had belonged to a bloke who had a good little engineering business making replacement moils (chisel bits) for rockbreakers.

But he dropped dead at 51 and none of the family knew anything about the business, and didn't want any of the equipment in the factory. So they called in the auctioneers to sell everything where it lay.

When the auctioneer got to the Landis grinder, he couldn't get a bid on it. Cylindrical grinders have been replaced by the newest lathe cutting tips such as Cubic Boron Nitride (CBN), which will go straight through hard chrome.

The auctioneer tried to get $2500 for an opening bid. Nobody was even interested in the machine. He came down and down - to $500 - and still no-one bid. He asked for offers, and I offered him $300.

He tried to get an advance on $300 and no-one was even remotely interested - not even the scrap dealers! So I got it for $300. We borrowed a 7 tonne forklift from next door to load it, as nobody had a crane or Hiab that could lift it.

The forklifts tyres all went nearly flat as he got it off the floor, and he loaded it onto an 8 tonne Hino, which grunted with the weight. We got it around to my mates workshop and used another borrowed 7 tonne forklift to get it off.

My mate and I spent a week on it, fixing a few leaks and getting the automatic hydraulically-operated traverse to work properly. It ran like a dream, and we advertised it for sale.

It took 12 mths to sell it, but we finally sold it to a bloke who loved old machine tools, for $2000. He was gloriously happy with it, because he had some pin grinding jobs to do, and it suited him just fine.

I consider it was a worthy "save", because so many of these fabulous old machines have gone to China to be turned into cheap Chinese tools, and I consider that a real waste.

I indulge in repair and restoration work of almost anything that is mechanical. I have a collection of projects awaiting restoration (like so many other people!).

I have 3 vintage Chevs ('31 and '32) awaiting restoration. I also have a 10 tonne, 4WD Chamberlain front end loader awaiting restoration. A fairly rare machine.

My current main project is restoration of a 3 tonne Toyota diesel forklift, that belongs to a mate. I have 6 forklifts of my own, 5 of which are in need of restoration. I've already rebuilt 2 of the engines for these 5 forklifts.

I've got a '79 diesel LWB Landrover station wagon 90% restored. A Mazda 2200 diesel van awaiting an engine swap (I have the engine ready to go in, the original was blown up when the timing belt snapped).

Next urgent project is restoration of a Rockmaster twin-ram posthole digger. Just about finished restoration of the frame and hydraulic cylinders this week, the gearbox is next for attention.

I rebuilt an '89 Isuzu 5 tonne traytop truck from a salvage wreck in June 2015. It took me 2 solid months of mechanical, body and paint work to bring it back to good roadworthy condition. I only use it for transport of my "goodies".

I buy and sell new components and parts for machinery as a sideline. I sell on eBay and Gumtree, but it's not a huge part of my life or income today. I enjoy buying at auction, and acquire a lot of workshop items cheaply that way.

I do machinery inspections for people that want to buy machines, mostly contracting equipment, such as earthmovers, welders, gensets, machine tools - you name it, I can tell you how it operates, and what's wrong with it.

I used to buy and sell used machine tools in conjunction with a fitter and turner mate, for about 15 years - but he moved down South about 4 years ago, so I don't bother with that area now.

I enjoy playing with and learning about electronic devices. I build my own desktop computers from components, and have done since 2003. I can fix most of what goes wrong with computers.

I'm interested in military history, the history of industrial equipment manufacturing in both America and Australia. I collect historical sales literature, books, and photos relating to industrial and earthmoving equipment, and its manufacture.

I particularly enjoy studying the history of WW2 Lend Lease, and following the stories of the manufacture and disposal of the massive amounts of equipment manufactured in WW2 by America.

I have a rented 18M x 9M workshop and small yard only 4kms from my home in the city, and that's my main "play area".

I have just purchased a 2000 sq m industrial yard in a small town about 130 kms away from the city, for cheap storage for my hoard of "collectables".

I'm currently in the process of developing the yard by way of levelling it, fencing it, and building a large shed for covered storage. It'll keep me occupied for a few years yet, until I become too feeble to do physical work.

I still do serious amounts of physical work nearly every day, even though I'm 71. Most of the stuff I deal with is heavy, that's why I like forklifts! I hope I'm good for another 15 years, although who knows what will come out of left field?

A mate has only just retired from his engineering, fabrication and machining business, and he's 86. But he's very fit, he'd pass for 65 any day. I reckon he'll probably make 100.

The greatest problem I see every day is the "familiarity breeds contempt" attitude and the gradual relaxation of strict personal discipline.

And let's face it, being in control of a machine of any type involves discipline in operation and in following strict procedures and protocols and rules and regulations.

When you start to become lax about all those, is when you start to become a danger to yourself and others.

In driving, Stop signs are a classic. Watch the average Stop sign and see how many drivers actually come to a full stop and carefully look both ways? Unless they sight a copper, I'll wager it's about 10% of drivers.

From initially stopping at Stop signs and looking both ways, the driving skills then relax to just rolling through the Stop sign and taking a casual look in both directions.

Then after 40 years of driving, it becomes, drive through the Stop sign at 15kmh and taking a cursory look in both directions.

Then you see people driving straight through Stop signs without even looking, because they're really familiar with that Stop sign and they were distracted from their driving by something else taking priority in their mind.

The number of drivers wiped out by trains on uncontrolled level crossings in country areas is substantial - because they've "never seen a train on that line"!

I'm amazed this bloke got as far as he did into his lifespan, with the unbelievable arrogance levels he displayed - along with the flying skills that were substandard.

He was just another Bud Holland, intent on testing his aircraft to far beyond its capabilities, and not even possessing adequate flying knowledge, or utilising good airmanship. What was that saying about old pilots and bold pilots?

Guilty as charged, yer 'onour. I can recall nearly rear-ending another car as a young bloke, thanks to a very shapely lass on the footpath!

Then there's the accuracy in lane-following ability, when driving, as well. Testers of aged drivers say they look for the ability to follow lane markings precisely.

There is a marked tendency to "wobble" between lane markings when drivers abilities are declining with age.

Then of course, there's the young girls who are all over the road, because they can't concentrate on their driving, due to the fact they're checking their hair in the mirror, their facial makeup, their phone.........

There is one lubricant that is outstanding for dry lubrication in unsealed joints - and that is Molybdenum Disulphide.

A can of Moly Disulphide spray lubricant is superb for lubricating those components where the amount of movement is relatively small, and plain grease is undesirable.

Moly Disulphide continues to lubricate when totally dried out, and it has been proven to be the best lubricant for unsealed areas that generate friction, for many decades.

https://www.swiftsupplies.com.au/weicon-anti-friction-mos2-lubricating-spray-400ml

https://www.rocol.com/products/dry-molybdenum-sulphide-aerosol-spray

I personally believe all single-purpose forums have a limited lifespan. Life is all about balance - you can't breathe, live, and talk about aircraft, every waking minute of the day, without being seen as a little obsessive.

It's the same for tractor forums, welding forums, old machinery forums, gardening forums, collector forums, lawnmower forums, baby forums - they're all based around one particular obsession.

Obsessiveness is a common human trait, but it makes people become quite boring, when all they can talk about, is one particular obsession they have.

I come here to learn a few diverse things, have a chat about a few diverse things, chat to other quite intelligent people, whose knowledge and intelligence I find interesting.

Aircraft are just one of my interests, but I don't have adequate finances to indulge in aircraft ownership, and any potential flying ability of mine, is probably no longer possible due to health issues.

But I do like diverse discussions on many subjects, without obsession. I do like variety in a forum. I have been on numerous other single-purpose forums that just died, because they were too narrowly-focused.

There are many demands on our time, our money and our interests. Then people also start to realise that they're spending too much time online, and its time to catch up on the necessary jobs that have to be done.

Then there's those people who read a lot on forums, and rarely contribute. I think they feel they have little to contribute, or perhaps they're just slow on the keyboard.

I think you will find there is a need for the forum owner and the contributors to keep the forum interesting and varied, to cater for all tastes, and to keep up a fairly constant level of users.

The wails about the "suffering" from "being away from their families" due to virus control regulations, pale into insignificance when you study up on the amount of time many military and naval people have spent away from their families.

At least the people stuck in regions distant from their families can access modern video communications to see and hear them, even if they can't touch them. That's not something the blokes in WW2 got to do - particularly if they were POW's.

Time to toughen up methinks, the world doesn't end because you're stuck in an isolated place, away from family for an extended period. Funnily enough, a lot of people start fighting with family members, once they get put together for a time.

Where has anyone come out and said "This is what has to happen for WA to open our borders"

W.A.'s Premier Mark McGowan is very clear on the process whereby W.A. will re-open its borders. It will be when he and W.A. Health officials are convinced that the Eastern States have their virus cases under total control.

W.A. is the success story of the nation, because the virus came into W.A. via overseas travellers on ships and aircraft, and we managed to nail down those cases before community transmission was widespread.

McGowan has unparalleled support for his approach to virus control - and his approach has been the no-nonsense, firm approach, that quite likely comes from his military background and training, as a Naval lawyer.

https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-the-premier-and-cabinet/covid-19-coronavirus-wa-roadmap

If the Spitfire was built like all other British products - you could guarantee that every component would be totally inaccessible, and require 6 other components to be removed, to get at the one you needed to work on!!