onetrack

I can recall some of the stories told by Harold Shelton, the test pilot of the Australian-built Beaufort bombers and Beaufighters, during WW2, about the terrible mistakes made by the workers in the Beaufort factory when constructing the aircraft.

Very few aircraft of such size and complexity had previously been built in Australia, and during WW2, the workers were under enormous pressure to produce as many Beauforts and Beaufighters as possible.

However, due to the lack of aircraft-building skills, and the lack of disciplined procedures during the construction of the Beauforts, there were some terrible mistakes made during construction.

Some of these mistakes were things such as leaving a hammer inside the wing, fitting flight controls incorrectly, loose fasteners, and a myriad of other mistakes caused by rushing and a lack of supervision.

http://www.beaufortrestoration.com.au/beaufort-test-pilots.html

You employ a professional test pilot, who has the skills to find the faults and problems. Are there any specific areas you're concerned with?

Have you assembled components and assemblies without having your workmanship checked at every stage?

That is a vital procedure in the construction and assembly, that must be formally put in place, before any construction is carried out.

When a person works alone and unsupervised, it is fertile ground for assembly errors, and failure to complete assembly properly.

Thus you need to have your work checked regularly by an independent and official overseer, or instructor.

Ya know, I don't think I'd want to travel with all those dumb people, who keep running out of gas, at their ages!!

I certainly wouldn't want to fly with Mac, either! - who doesn't check the gas in his airplane, and who does no preflight checks, as well!!  

Don't you just love the "big strong man", and "weak, vacillating, little women" attitudes of the 1950's? You got to hand it to the women who fought their way to the top, in a male-dominated world, in that era.

... stop the Jab from taking off, if he won the chook raffle - because bull was still arranging for himself to hold the winning ticket for the chook.

However, he was short on cash to swing the raffle result, so he had to tap the Cappy, to see if had some spare cash in a brown paper bag.

But when he tapped Cappy on the shoulder, Cappy jumped a metre high in fright, thinking it was a member of the Fraud Squad that was tapping his shoulder.

"Fxxx!!!!", exclaimed Cappy, "I wish you wouldn't do that!! I'm already a nervous wreck, expecting CASA to nail me for stealing an aircraft - and even further back than that, there's all those brown paper bags of cash I've handed out over the years, to make problems go away!" "But Cappy", said bull, "I only want ....

Heath - The largest majority of pipe threads are tapered threads. If the pipe thread is parallel thread, it will have a sealing ring of some type - an o-ring, a copper or fibre washer, or a bonded washer.

https://www.adaptall.com/info-tutorials/sealing-methods.php

Generally, the important thing is ensuring you identify the thread correctly. Australian and British equipment uses mostly BSP pipe threads, but American-origin equipment utilises NPT threads. 

The awkward part is, a couple of the NPT threads are quite close to a couple of the BSP threads - but they are still not a good match, and screwing a BSP threaded fitting into a housing that has an NPT thread - and vice-versa - is a recipe for leaks and thread damage.

https://www.valvesonline.com.au/references/threads/

... she suddenly realised the juice running down her leg was oiler than it should be - because she thought at first, it was beer. "Rape!!", she cried - leading to a massive crowd reaction caused by the misunderstanding of what she'd actually meant. The innocent young farmer was grabbed and pummelled around before he could even get a word in, trying to explain that it was canola from his sandwich spread, that had caused the drip. 

Meantimes, Hy had arrived on the scene of the crash, and proceeded to abuse the hapless Cappy, who was literally stuck between ....

...said to himself, "there's more Bull here, than in a days talk in Parliament. I think we need more heifers". With that, he loped off to find that golden paddock of willing young heifers. Then he remembered the old bulls advice, when they spotted the last paddock full of heifers. "Don't run, and just do a few, Son - Just walk, and do them all!" - so at that, he slowed to a steady walk.

Meantimes, the Rat had snuck up to the pilots seat on the starboard side of the idling Parnall Pixie, while Hy Hosland was checking the security of the elevator hinges on the port side. With his car-stealing skills honed to a fine art, the Rat was about to transfer them to aircraft-stealing skills. He leapt up and threw himself into the pilots seat, and shoved the throttle forward.

The Bristol Cherub responded instantly, roaring into propeller-whirling action, and the Pixie leapt forward, leaving Hy Hosland standing there, mouth agape, as he suddenly realised that the last 13 years of his life was being stolen!! He ran after the departing aircraft, but he wasn't fast enough to catch it.

All he could hear above the roar of the Cherub was a maniacal laugh, coming from the Rat, as he yelled out, "So long, suckers!! I've ....

Sometime around 1986, I flew Aeroflot up to the Kamchatka peninsula

 

Ahhh, but now you're talking Rooshian Wimmen! The wimmen who can hold up tractors and trucks without a jack!

Garfly, the film has already been posted, 10 days ago.

https://www.recreationalflying.com/forums/topic/67587-i-told-the-wife-im-playing-golf/

Why it suddenly allowed 200ml to leak out, then re-sealed itself is the mystery.

 

And that type of weird behaviour is exactly why I think the hose is quite likely to be the culprit. Rubber hoses can leak, and then reseal themselves, as the rubber moves around.

Old K, I'm confused, too. I see no major redesign of the new Mazda rotary that stands out as overcoming any of the rotary's inherent design problems.

What Mazda is doing, is shrinking the engine to the "size of a shoebox", and reverting to a naturally-aspirated, single-rotor design.

The aim is to try and maximise passenger space, while providing adequate power output from the smallest possible engine size.

I see no potential in the new Mazda rotary design for adaptation to aircraft applications.

https://www.motor1.com/news/266766/mazda-rotary-range-extender-patent/

.... and got between the two, causing confusion to reign supreme. Menatimes, Hi Ho, Captain and Turgid were gathering their collective wits and discussing a plan of action on how to get out of the paddock while the bull was distracted. "I'm flying the Parnall out of here, quick smart!" said Hy, as he swung the prop on the 32HP Bristol Cherub (long overdue avref) - "but I can only take one passenger! Which one of you is volunteering!?" "Take me!! Take me!!" squeaked the Rat, as he pushed Turgid to one side, with real fear showing in his eyes. The problem was trying to discern if the fear was related to the bull coming back, or of getting into the passengers seat of the Parnall, with Hy Ho at the controls. After all, Hy was commonly known as "Ooops Hy", due to his regular clumsiness, which left a trail of breakages in his wake. This was purely a facet of his Viking heritage, because the Vikings were largely pretty careless at taking care of delicate things. Meantimes, Turgid was shoving back. No puny Rat-faced reprobate from Kapooka was going to stop him from leaving the paddock, and an angry bull behind, as quickly as he could. The Rat ended up face-down in the mud....

You also should carry some form of igniting leaves etc.

 

Just don't do what one pilot did when he crash-landed in the semi-desert country NE of Kalgoorlie. He lit up the spinifex to attract attention, and burnt his aircraft to a crisp in the process!

My comments ...

The rotary problems are well known, and high fuel consumption is their Achilles heel. I'm afraid the Chinese are carrying out design and testing that everyone else has already done, 30 years ago.

As with Ralph Sarich's Orbital engine, the basic design cannot get around the basic problems - sealing, fuel efficiency, emissions, oil consumption.

Having said all that, it appears that Mazda is now planning on re-introducing the rotary engine in coming models, as a range-extender for hybrids.

The reason for re-introducing them is reported as being their quietness. I see little sense in the reasoning, and I see little sense in re-introducing rotary engines by Mazda.

However, there is talk of the range-extender engines running on LPG, which could be a solution to the emissions problems of the rotary.

Unless Mazda has developed some entirely new and revolutionary engine design technology, that produces major improvements to the rotary engine, then all I see is Mazda grasping at IC engine straws, while they try to hold off the EV revolution. Mazda state their forward planning still sees the majority of their vehicle range, still being powered by IC engines in 2030.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/mazda-previews-imminent-rotary-engine-revival

Also a great way to get a fire. Power steering and transmission oil coolers are notorious for it.

In my experience, turbocharger oil lines are the greatest source of engine fires. Seen some very large and very expensive machines burnt to a crisp, due to turbocharger oil lines spraying oil onto hot exhaust manifolds.

Yes, I've seen oil filter casings split - but generally, once they split, they continue to leak.

My advice to Old K is to replace the filter, and the rubber hose.

Hoses are made up of inner and outer layers of material, and if a split develops in an inner layer, the oil will often travel down between the layers, until it finds a weak exit point.

Inner layers of hose can also fold back on themselves and cause a blockage. I've had that with a brake vacuum hose on a vehicle (the hose between the manifold and the brake booster).

The inner layer of the hose peeled off and bunched up, blocking the vacuum off to the booster. I ran out of brake power assistance at a most inopportune moment, and it came as a bit of a shock.

In general, women are lighter than men, because they have a smaller skeletal frame, and their bodies comprise less muscle and sinews, and more fat cells, which are lighter than muscle cells (for a given volume).

Also, men generally have denser, and therefore heavier, bone structures. This explains why many women suffer from osteoporosis in later life, while men rarely suffer from the disease.

Mens bone thickness in the skull is much more than women, mens jawbones are bigger and heavier than womens. 

Of course, there are always differences between individuals, but as a general rule, if a women is the same height as a man, she will still weigh less.

Old K, the Ryco Z 386 has a rubber on steel bypass valve fitted internally. You certainly have a very curious leak problem. However, intermittent and serious leaks need to be chased down and found, for fear of it happening again when in flight.

The greatest problem I have found with oil leaks, is trying to find the precise source, because of the way the oil from the leak spreads, and follows grooves and depressions, making it appear to come from some other location, than the actual leak site.

I'm inclined to think your rubber oil cooler hose is the suspect. I have reservations about any rubber hose that carries engine oil under pressure, they are the first component to fail, and I've seen more than one engine destroyed because a rubber hose carrying engine oil under pressure, failed.

The major UFO reports were and are, definitely not reports of drones. By far the greatest number of UFO reports, reported that the UFO's made off at a speed that was impossible to match with any known type of aircraft or rocket.

And this W.A. farm employee had one land so close to his Landrover, in 1967, he couldn't get the Landrover door open.

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2012/09/cold-case-investigation-yerecoin-wa-15.html

I know too many level-headed people who have witnessed huge UFO's, and said nothing to authorities about them.

Some of them were witnessed in broad daylight, and the witnesses actually walked up to the UFO, before it took off at warp speed.

I have personally witnessed a house-sized brilliant green fluoro light that appeared in the middle of a natural bush reserve, full of large Salmon Gum trees, in the wheatbelt of W.A., when I was travelling in my ute along an adjoining road to the bush reserve, at 100kmh.

That light ascended vertically into the sky at a speed that was nothing short of incredible, and it vanished out of sight to a pinpoint, within 3-4 seconds.

This happened around 10:00PM on a Sunday night in the mid-1970's, and my brother and his wife were following me in another vehicle, and saw exactly the same thing.

None of us reported the weird light, as there's little point in doing so. But it was definitely not any technology that we know of - not then, and not now.

.... a DH.60 Moth flew into view, and the Captain was totally distracted from his job of kicking the bull in the balls. "Oooh!! Look!! A Moth!! How fantastic!! I wonder if I could wave him down and bum a ride!?

Naturally, by this stage, the bull had started on his head-down tossing run, and fortunately, the Captain never knew what hit him as he followed the flight path of the Moth. "Wham!!" And the Captain went straight over the fence, landing head-first in the roadside ditch.

Now, anyone else would have been seriously injured - but not the Captain, No Sir! He'd endured a lot worse than that - mostly by getting thrown out of seedy bars in red-light districts, so he'd had plenty of experience in landing head-first, after getting tossed a considerable distance.

He sat up and yelled some mild abuse in the direction of the bull, in his mildly-concussed state, thinking it was bouncers that had thrown him. But the Bull had departed the scene, and was last seen chasing Turgid instead, who was making tracks at a speed that would put Kipchoge to shame. Next minute, Hy Hosland landed in the bulls paddock in his replica 1923 Parnall Pixie, which he'd scratch-built from 3 fuzzy photos and a set of sketches, reputedly originals, that he'd procured at a Sothebys auction. As he set down with a series of bumps and bounces ...

.... had produced his ancient family Viking war shield and spear, handed down 12 generations, and used in every Viking war, right through to the battle of Moorabbin. Not many people know about the Viking descendants in Australia who launched an attack on Moorabbin in 1969, trying to carry out pillage, plunder and rape. However, the laid-back residents of Moorabbin merely reacted by handing over the keys to their beer fridges and Kingswoods and declined to fight, because basically they were largely dope-smoking peaceniks who were on the side of the Commies during the Vietnam War. Their women were a pushover, as they threw themselves on the Viking descendants, eager for some new conquests, as they'd already screwed most of the willing male Melbourne population at least four times over. As a result, the Viking attack on Moorabbin turned into a farce as they went home full of beer and dope, with all their energies drained by the female population of the area, who had competitions between themselves as to how many Viking descendants they could bed each week. Meantimes, the Rat had discovered an ideal area to relocate to, to see out the coming ARMageddon when all the gun owners barricaded themselves into their fortified seatainers against the combined might of Border Force, CASA (avref), Police, Transit Patrollers, and anyone else with Official Authority, all designed to take away their hard-won freedoms - and their firearms. The ideal spot to relocate to, the Rat found, was Moe. No-one ever noticed anything odd happening in Moe, because one half of Moe was doped out of their collective minds, while the other half was spending all their time arranging new shipments of drugs, and laundering the money from drug dealing, via the most devious methods possible. The Rat was delighted to find a place like this, he could build a bigger and better underground bunker against the coming ARMageddon, and no-one would notice a thing. However, there was ...

Don't stand too high on the back of a high cattle truck - treat HT powerlines with the great respect they deserve. HT current can jump huge distances, and you need to keep at least 4 metres away from powerlines up to 33kV and 6 metres away from 66kV and above.

Know of at least one bloke who got fried by resting his hand on a semi-trailer tipper body, as he guided the truck driver lifting the tip body under 132kV HT powerlines.

Thought he could get within a metre and half of the HT powerline safely, but when the tip body got to 2M away from the HT powerline, the current arced to the tipper body, and the bloke resting his hand on the body provided the route to Earth. He survived, but not without serious burns.

... he'll start on about Gun Control in Australia, and how he should be able to fondle an M61 cannon anytime he likes - in fact, he believes the End of the World is actually related to Total Gun Control, and as such he's joined up with leading American Preppers, and has stocked his 20 foot seatainer that's buried under 2 metres of dirt and concrete in his backyard, with an array of firearms and dehydrated food, enough to see him through the predicted 5 year Nuclear Night, which happens after they come for all his guns. He's been seen peering through the curtains on moonlit nights, with the house fully darkened, to ensure they aren't spying on him. The only thing he's not sure about is whether they'll come for his ASIC card too (avref noted), and whether he should fight for that, as much as he'd fight for his firearms. Naturally, mentioning the word "paranoia" to him only brings about an ....

....rapid manner? Of course, there was a hidden agenda to the Captains subtle efforts to pin Turgid as a leading MP. It was to ensure that the attention of the readers of NES was diverted from the Captains regular failed attempts to become a politician himself. His aim of course, once he got into power, was to shut down Moorabbin airport, and ensure that Turgid couldn't fly from his home base, and had to revert to driving his rustbucket F86 Volvo fitted with the International 9900 Eagle badges, to get to distant regions. The reason the F86 was fitted with International 9900 Eagle badges was all to do with trying to impress the general unwashed public, that he really wasn't driving a Volvo, and he was actually flying with the Eagles. As the Captain was wont to say ...

... bumbling electoral organiser, just learning the ropes on how to lose elections when you can't possibly lose, as Labor are excellent at doing. But talking of losers, there's nothing more embarrassing than finding that you've lost your specific gender, and you're now in no-man's land, metaphorically speaking. This is what has happened to the Rat, and now that he's come to the conclusion after seeing his dreadful image in the mirror, that wearing high heels and fishnet stockings, could possible only identify him as a serving MP doing entertainment on the side, he rapidly cast them off, and went looking for more suitable clothing to go with his wattle-and-bark humpy residence that he normally lives in (when he's not hanging around airport perimeters, trying to get regular sniffs of Avgas and burnt tyre rubber from hard landings) (long overdue avref). But when he went looking for kangaroo-skin coats and lap-laps, he found no-one stocked them anymore, since they emptied the Native Reservations and installed the former inhabitants into places such as Moorabbin and Kapooka. The big problem with this divisive relocation, however, was that it led to most of the aircraft in Moorabbin and Kapooka ending up on blocks, as all their wheels disappeared overnight. Furthermore, it was found that all the aircraft alternators had disappeared, too, and it was suspected that these were stolen simply for their copper content. The Rat has gained the title, "Person of Interest", on the NSW Police computer, as a result of the major investigation launched, as to who's been knocking off all the aircraft wheels and alternators. But when the Rat was being interviewed for an exclusive 7:30 Report on the Stolen Generations, his first bold statement to the interviewer was, "I don't know nothing about no stolen generators!!" This led to ....

... truckie. However, someone found out that Turgid had actually been an International truck driver - and we all know from the Naked Vicar Show, that International truck drivers wear high heels and fishnet stockings. But the Rat, as a result of his "little operation", started to become jealous of Turgids heels and fishnet stockings (even more so than Alexander Downer), and he plotted a way to steal them from Turgid. He planned to wait until Turgid had left them somewhere - probably a clothesline was best - and then he could whip them off the line faster than a wartime DC-3 doing a glider snatch (avref). However, there was a snag ....