onetrack

Undersize components such as wiring diameter, would likely be the major cause of heat production in chargers. I have simple test policy, related to my skin. Whatever the item is, if I can't hold my hand on it comfortably for 20-30 seconds when it's operating at full load, then it's definitely at risk of burnout - and fire potential. I also have a policy of never leaving ANY charger unattended. After having lost a house to an electrical fire that wasn't even my fault (it was a voltage surge from the supplier), I'm rather paranoiac about fire starting from electrical sources.

There must be some champagne flowing in the boardroom of Lockheed Martin right about now, with this successful major F-35 contract. The fighters are being built for both USAAF and International customers. I can't help but feel though, that these fighters will be the last fighters containing pilots, ever designed and built. Drone technology is advancing so rapidly, these F-35's are in danger of becoming wasted defence expenditure. https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/lockheed-martin-secures-contract-for-296-f-35-fighters/164719.article

.....start an earnest discussion with Turbo as to how he handled cross-country, long distance recreational flying (long overdue avref) after he had been accidentally shot in the perineum by Cappy when up the Khyber (literally, making that episode, an up-the-Khyber double). The interesting part was, Turbo received two lots of large medals, for being Up the Khyber twice - one medal for serving in the Khyber mission, the second one for the major perineal injury (the medal recommendation actually read that "Turbo took one up the a*** for his Troops"). The senior officers on the Awards Panel were moved to tears when they read this outline of the reasons for the recommendation. And they weren't emotional tears, either, as the senior officers personally imagined Turbo's pain and discomfort). However, I digress from the initial paragraph of this story. The bite-affected flyers were astonished to find that Turbo had started up "Turbine Inc Comfort Seating" when he realised that aircraft designers and manufacturers pay very little attention to seat comfort - both in commercial aircraft, and in recreational/kit aircraft. To this end, Turbo had stolen a seat design expert from Recaro, plus a senior proctologist from a leading University (who specialised in perineal repair from serious bites on the a***). The Proctologist realised there was a major market in designing vastly-improved comfortable seating for those who had been bitten on the a***, after reading many media reports - and as as a result, he joined Turbine Inc Comfort Seating with some alacrity, seeing the huge potential for his skills to be used, and accordingly he........

I wonder what it was like, to pick up the sound of a loud buzzing insect, that flew into those devices? It'd probably blow your eardrums out?!

Unfortunately, the aircraft caught fire upon crashing, and the pilot is deceased. 😞 It is understood the aircraft was a gyrocopter. What is going on, with the level of air crashes lately?

https://skybrary.aero/articles/beta-range

Nev, I'm not pointing any fingers or trying to lay blame, I just feel for those blokes who worked on the aircraft just recently, they must be feeling greatly concerned. This pilot reportedly had over 20,000 hrs in his logbook, doing much the same type of (skydiving) work for years. The Pilatus has a very good safety record, and it appears there was little the pilot of this aircraft could do, to save himself and the aircraft.

......bull's Blue Heeler, snarling and fully intent on taking a chunk out of any legs visible. The BH made straight for a blue-clad leg, but unfortunately, that leg belonged to................

There must be some disquiet and great concern amongst the maintenance crew in NZ that overhauled the Pilatus, just recently. The photos I've seen, appear to indicate an in-flight breakup.

..........the scam FB Marketplace ads, and the invasive spamming and hacking of "unfriendly" websites such as WreckFlyin (now renamed, of course, to throw the Commies off the scent). It was whilst he was scanning the 'net for subversive sites that needed to be brought under the control of the CCP, that Xi Jinping discovered his name was being mentioned many times on this decidedly subversive site - and he was astounded to also find, that several unknown persons (who obviously posed a major power threat to his permanent position as Leader of the CCP), had been trying to ingratiate themselves at length, by casually mentioning non-existent friendships with him. Accordingly, Xi arranged to have a new Chinese sports model EV with the largest battery ever fitted to a Chinese EV, to be delivered to the major subversive individual (one so-named "Turbopranner"), secretly, and with a gift card attached, saying it was a friendship gift from Xi to his best friend. Of course, the car was to be Fire Engine Red, as it was no co-incidence that the National Colour of China was Red, the same as Turbo's choice in hot car colours. What stunned Turbo when the car arrived, was the specs, clearly listed in Chinglish, and which read............ (and here, dear NES readers, we have the spy photos of Turbo's little "gift" from his "friend" Xi, after the gift wrapping was removed. The hidden cameras and spyware are cleverly disguised amongst the decals and the spoilers.....)

The aircraft was manufactured in 1980, and spent nearly all its life in NZ, where it did many years of skydiving work. The first 17 mths of its life, it served as a Pilatus Aircraft Co demonstrator. It was sold to Australia in March 2025, and only re-registered as VH-XAA on 15th Aug 2025. The bottom photo in the link below, was taken by the deceased pilot on 20th August 2025. It had apparently just had a major 14 year overhaul. https://www.pc-6.com/history/809.htm

The media is reporting the crash of a Skydiving aircraft shortly after dropping off a group of skydivers, near Moruya. The sole person on board was the pilot, and he has been identified as Paul "Poo" Smith,aged 54. The aircraft belonged to the company Skyone, and ABC News is reporting it as a Pilatus Porter. The aircraft rego is VH-XAA. The photo of the Cessna VH-8AX, in the 7NEWS report, is NOT the aircraft involved in this Moruya crash. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/south-coast-plane-crash-pilot-identified-as-skydiving-legend-paul-poo-smith-20250927-p5mycu.html https://7news.com.au/news/breaking/man-dead-after-skydiving-plane-crash-on-nsw-south-coast-c-20160358 https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/547115

One of the reasons I would never purchase a vehicle that requires a website subscription to operate it, or even to access "further features". Yet, many manufacturers say this is what they are aiming for in the future. Not only an additional cost burden, but the wireless link is the weak point. Already, many cars are being stolen as thieves clone remote car keys simply by standing next to people who have their remote in their pocket. They operate in pairs to fool the car into thinking the owner (via his remote key) is nearby, and then use a portable device to generate a spoofed radio signal to unlock it. They can place tracking tags on the car, and then find out where it's being homed or parked, and then come back and drive it away. One reason the experts say you should always carry your remote in a RFID-blocking case. https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/subscription-overload-the-car-features-you-may-have-to-pay-for-monthly/ https://www.wired.com/2017/04/just-pair-11-radio-gadgets-can-steal-car/

A distinct failure of ATC, I would opine. Isn't ATC there primarily to ensure the safety of the travelling public on commercial flights?

........engine sounds like a Victa lawnmower running on methanol! This nasty Wheels criticism of French cars almost led to a major political rumpus, with the French winemakers declaring they would refuse to sell French wines to Australia, as it was obviously run by French-hating British descendants. Rene Claude de Maupassant, the designer of the 2CV, became enraged at the Wheels review of the 2CV, declaring the poor brakes were necessary, as the 2CV was designed to GO! - not STOP! And the seats were designed to resemble tractor seats, because the main aim of the 2CV was that French farmers could plough their fields with it, in between winning major races. Rene pointed out that 2 cylinders was all anyone needed to go anywhere, and to also win races - sneering, in the finest French style, at the Americans propensity for 8 cyl engines, and as for crash-worthiness? - why would anyone want to crash, unless it was to "crash through" and .................

It's a Shorts Sturgeon S.B.3, a submarine hunter aircraft. The "Elephant Man" nose contained the sub-hunting radar, and room for two radar operators. Sadly, the Shorts Sturgeon started off a quite a nice-looking Naval torpedo bomber and then a Naval recce/attack aircraft. But Shorts were big losers in the aircraft design race because it was very late in WW2, the military requested designs and proposals changed monthly, and Shorts struggled to win any contracts. They won an order for 30 of the original nice-looking Sturgeons, then the order was cancelled as the War ended. “I am not an animal…”; The Short S.B.3 - Forgotten Aircraft - Military Matters MILITARYMATTERS.ONLINE An...unusual looking...design, the S.B.3 was what can happen when you keep messing with a design to try to meet changing requirements.

Yes, a lot of forums use that process, but as most moderators are unpaid volunteers, it can sometimes take 2 or 3 days to get approved to post. Then they limit your postings of images until you've made several postings, which is a reasonable attempt to identify genuine posters. One of the common traits of spammers is their use of nonsense usernames, as they run out of ideas for usernames, and can't think up common-sounding names. However, the FB Marketplace spammers like to use innocuous-sounding common Anglo names, and that can be a giveaway.

WD-40 is great for keeping rubber items soft and supple. The manufacturers recommend using it on weatherstrips to stop them from going hard.

I've seen a bloke in a Tiger Moth (many many years ago), in the S.W. of W.A., take off from the apron directly in front of the hangars! He was airborne before he reached the runway!

They always seem to start spamming as I go to bed about 10:00PM WST. That's midnight EST, so I get the job of trying to delete them! But I can only report them, I'm not a moderator, and as result, Red750's mailbox filled up with my dozens and dozens of spam reports, as he was up and trying to delete them, too! As fast as I reported them, there'd be several more added. Plus, it takes a while to go through the spam reporting process. There must be some way to slow them down, such as limiting the number of posts in, say, a 10 minute period, to perhaps just 5 or 6 posts? I wondered if someone had set up a bot to keep posting the crap. Some people must have pathetic lives, if that's all they can do is spam websites.

Blame pmccarthy - he was the one who showed power pylons, and a transmission line from the air! 🙂

Yeah, they usually run the high tension powerlines at 132Kv, but unsurprisingly (when you think about it), the amperage is very low, they only have something like 5A fuses for the HT lines. I wasn't aware the HT lines heated up all that much, this is the first time I've heard it mentioned. One would expect cables carrying high amperage would heat up, but not low amperage cables.

Plenty of new suburbs have underground power and in the older suburbs in my neck of the woods, the councils are generally aiming to underground power in the long term. The residents have to pay for it, though. The councils offer loans to help the residents deal with the cost. It increases the value of the housing where power lines are underground. At least with underground power you don't have powerlines coming down when some clown hits a power pole. And the removal of power poles reduces the amount of crashes.

A weak solution of phosphoric acid works good on cleaning up aluminium alloy. Mag wheel cleaners usually contain a mild solution of phosphoric acid.

I find it amazing that not a single piece of wreckage has washed up anywhere and been found. Maybe something did wash up on an isolated and remote beach, and hasn't been found. One would expect that the sizeable number of boaties who traverse Bass Strait would have sighted something. On that basis, it would appear the aircraft went down relatively slowly and horizontally, and did not break up substantially on impact with the ocean. One would expect that a high speed dive at a steep angle of descent into the ocean, would create quite a debris field. I trust that one day, someone finds something, that gets to the bottom of this puzzling mystery.