onetrack

My dear old Auntie, despite living in Australia for something like 40 years, never lost her Scottish accent, as did my own mother - even after 60 years here.

Auntie ran a shop in Townsville for 30+ years - and yet, she goes into another shop there, and asks for a "2 pund of tatties, and pirn of threed"!

(2 pounds of potatoes, and a reel of cotton thread, to the uninitiated!)

I'd like to know how many of you can read and understand, "Da Tree Peery Grice"!

SCOTS - Da Tree Peerie Grice

This incident has obviously not yet been fully covered. I have yet to read about the Capt and FO, "wrestling with the controls", yet to read about the "passengers screaming in fear", as the aircraft "plunged off its designated flight path" to "avoid the looming major disaster".

Congratulations to Bill Leak, the resident cartoonist at the Australian newspaper, for this succinct effort - the barb made even more pointed today, by the speech given by Kizr Khan ...

Bex - Trump is a master of divisiveness, an expert in fomenting hatred and disunity. He's erratic, both in his outrageous statements, and in his decisions.

I can well imagine him running around Congress, screaming out, "You're FIRED!!!" - because in his mind, he's still running a reality TV show, and he has total power to hire and fire.

The man is a narcissistic, self-centred, Gangmeister. You know the type (I've got a SIL like it) - they start in the schoolyard, forming a gang to exclude you, because their gang is "in control of the yard".

They practice the "them and us" stuff to perfection, and send kids to Coventry for no more reason than some arbitrary decision by the Gangmeister.

They really are the very worst type of people to hand any major powers to, they will misuse and abuse those powers, to promote themselves over others, and to create disunity and hatred at every level.

I personally believe Trump suffers from severe bipolar disorder that has never been diagnosed or treated.

Some of the BD symptoms are described in the paragraph below ...

"People with Bipolar Disorder can become high, over-excited and reckless, or imagine that they are more important or influential than they are in real life."

It's a scary thought that someone with a mental illness is easily capable of becoming President of the most powerful Nuclear-armed nation on Earth, simply because of that countrys severely flawed electoral system, which is easily manipulated by the extremely wealthy.

As regards, your "policy issue" question, I don't believe that fits with this aim of this thread, but warrants a new thread if you want an extended discussion about manufacturing.

I can recall the local firebombing operators dropping a Dromader onto a suburban house in Perth, W.A. It landed on the carport, and there was only a surprisingly moderate amount of damage, and the pilot escaped injury. I guess he must have still had a little forward speed and lift for that to happen.

Stan has a problem. Every time he farts, instead of the typical BRRRRRAAARRRP! noise - it goes "Honda!"

This didn't really bother him too much, until a friend warned that there might be something wrong with him.

He visits doctor after doctor trying to find an explanation, but has no luck. All the doctors are completely baffled.

Eventually he finds his way to the Far East, and visits a wizened, knowledgeable, ancient Japanese doctor.

He explains the problem, and the old doctor nods knowingly.

"You have abscess!" says the doctor.

"An abscess?" says Stan.

"Yes. Everyone should know, "Abscess make the fart go Honda!"

"Mothballing" is a process that is wide open to various forms of storage - some of which are just plain detrimental to mechanised items.

Done correctly, mothballing requires steps to prevent corrosion from becoming a problem whilst in storage.

The U.S. military regularly mothballs a lot of equipment, and specific procedures for mothballing have to be carried out, when an item is being mothballed.

Personally, I have seen brand new reconditioned engines seize solid with cylinder bore corrosion, merely by being stored in a workshop storage area for 2 years, whilst awaiting installation - without proper steps being taken to prevent that corrosion.

Condensation exists in every environment where regular, substantial temperature changes take place. This is the reason for temperature-controlled environments, to prevent storage damage.

Oil drains off oil-coated surfaces within a couple of months, where an item of mechanised is not moved. This immediately leads to corrosion commencing on the formerly oil-coated-but-now-poorly protected, surfaces. Even in a hot and dry inland environment, this is still a problem.

If you store a mechanised item - ideally, it needs to be started and moved every 3 mths at least - or substantial protective measures need to be taken if it is going to be immobilised for periods of time that exceed, say, 6 mths.

Just my .02c worth - not specifically criticising the OP.

I got to admit, Clinton is a particularly poor offering on the part of the DemonRats. She is the ultimate operator in her lust for power.

Bex, the simple problem is, POTUS has the ability to press the Big Red Button without reference to anyone else.

He's "Commander-In-Chief" of all the U.S. Armed Forces, and it would take a brave man to refuse to carry out his orders.

I would not put it past Trump to make an ill-informed, irrational decision to nuke some country that he thought was trying to attack America, without full verification.

Nuclear football - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The problem with Trump is that he thinks America is voting to endorse Trumps businesses - not actually putting him in the position of governing the nation.

He's used to delegating all the important decisions and fine details in his businesses, to every one of his managers in his businesses, and he thinks he's still going to be able to do that when he's POTUS. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. The Prez has to personally make a lot of hard decisions.

Trump is the personality type we all hate to have as a boss. Intransigent in decision-making, and does about-faces in decision-making, so fast, it leaves you breathless.

They mistake movement for action, and they're good at agitating and fomenting movement, that does nothing to unify people. In fact, their agitation causes splits and divisions.

They produce nothing in their proposed ideas, that has any attention to fine details and precise methods.

That's for someone else to work out - just as long as they can see agitated people running around, they think they have achieved great results.

They propose lofty ideas and spout BS on a scale unparalleled - then backtrack on the visions so fast, it stuns everyone watching and listening.

Trump "promises to make America great again". He proposes to do so by re-invigorating American manufacturing.

This is the greatest and most breathtaking load of BS and empty promise, that any politician has ever spouted.

He doesn't seem to realise that his corporate mates are the ones who have destroyed American manufacturing - by moving all their manufacturing to China, to increase their corporate profits to mind-boggling levels.

If Trump thinks he can reverse this in 5 mins, with his major bullshitting skills, then I've got some land in Denver with ocean views to sell him.

This man will make the scariest Prez that America has had since Nixon. He makes Nixon look positively honest and truthful.

Donald Trump's top 10 campaign promises

Interesting to see that the construction of the 4000lb bomb appears to be a pure "blast" type - nearly all explosive, with apparently little by way of casing.

A fragmentation bomb on the other hand, has a thick casing of metal, designed to produce a lot of shrapnel and cause many shrapnel injuries to human bodies, sometimes more than 200M from the actual blast point.

A blast bomb relies on the shock wave created by the explosion, creating a lot of damage to structures - but having a lesser effect on personnel than a fragmentation bomb - because, even if people are caught in the shock wave, they nearly always survive, even though it may knock them over, or even hurl them some distance.

Bex, that tail post looks a little flimsy to my untrained eye. Seems like it needs more metal depth, front-to-rear.

Remember the Lovebird crash (VH-UGF)? That was caused by useless Oregon timber. The rudder post collapsed, and the result wasn't nice.

My recommendation is to steer clear of any Oregon in the build. Well, maybe you could have Oregon trim around the instrument panel.

'PLANE CRASH. - Grave Statement at Inquiry. BROKEN RUDDER POST. TEMORA, Tuesday. - The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) - 29 Jul 1931

Nev, are you talking about seeing self-starters in the OP's video? - or the AWM WW1 film clips?

In the AWM film clips, I see one bloke pulling on one Rotary to start it - but I see no self starters anywhere.

The Gnomes were never fitted with self starters, but they could be hand cranked. They apparently started very easily - much more easily than a radial.

The following article explains why.

Rotary Engine Theory - 100 hp Gnome Monosoupape

Here's a great (and lengthy) article on the Hucks starter.

The Moment - First Hucks Start in 70 Years > Vintage Wings of Canada

That's a good effort - but personally, I prefer original film footage of WW1 - of which, an amazing amount was shot - and of which, a surprising amount has survived.

The AWM is the repository of nearly all of this footage, and they have both Allied and German footage. Here's some of it, it provides a lot of interesting viewing, despite being all silent. The incredible devastation of the countryside is very clear to see from the air. What is surprising, is the amount of actual in-air film footage.

Tucano - here's a good start.

AU: vintage gauge repairs - Google Search

I can vaguely recall from another forum, some crowd in Victoria doing a good vintage instrument reconditioning job - but their name escapes me right now. I'll need to contact associates to acquire their name.

I certainly cannot recommend Les Cooke Instrument Co in W.A. - they are as useless as a hip pocket on a vest.

I had a damaged pressure gauge from a Caterpillar hyd press that I wanted repaired, and they wouldn't even look at it!! It didn't even need any face markings repairs. They claimed they didn't have the equipment to re-crimp the brass bezel that holds the glass and seal in place.

In total disgust, I took it back to my shop and repaired it myself - and I must say, I produced a very worthy result, even though I don't have bezel crimping equipment, either!!

O.K., let's stop all this sidetracking, and get to right to the spec we all want to know - just how fast is this thing going to be, with say, 100HP pushing it, Bex?

Are we looking at at something that is going to give a Swiss Risen a run for its money? - or is it just going to be a whisker faster than a Cub?

Lots of people need to know this urgently - the amount of notes you can hear being rustled, will increase exponentially for every 10kts increase in promised design cruise speed, over your average ultra-light.

It's very hard to do comparisons, because we live in a relatively healthy world today, with huge advances in medicine, and very good treatment and control of diseases.

The actual ship losses were reasonably low - because the sailors and ship captains of the day were quite competent.

Most shipwrecks occurred when approaching coastlines, and unmarked, unlit, or hidden reefs and rocks.

The most dangerous areas were the Southern and Western coastlines of Australia - the infamous "shipwreck coasts".

There are in excess of 1100 known shipwrecks on the West Australian coast, with the largest number being sailing ships.

The dangers of sea voyages increased when shipping converted to the Great Circle route in the 1850's, via the lower latitudes, to gain the speed advantage of the "roaring forties".

The levels of seasickness then increased substantially, and serious numbers of people died as a result of severe seasickness.

It was not uncommon for dozens of passengers to die on a trip, and if a trip ended with only a dozen deaths, it was regarded as a very successful trip.

One captain received a lot of kudos for only losing 7 pax on his trip, in the mid-1800's.

Steamships rapidly became much more reliable, and shipping became much safer as a result, from around 1880. Steamships were no longer at the mercy of the winds, as sailing ships were.

Disease was rife in the 1700's and 1800's, and this was the major reason for deaths on the long sea voyages.

Hygiene was poor, there was no knowledge of germs or bacteria or viruses, and there was no cure for even relatively minor complaints.

You got sick, you often died - there was little by way of medicine, and little by way of life-saving surgery. Many a time, "medical cures" in bottles were nothing less than poisons.

Measles and smallpox were rife and nearly always fatal, particularly for children. The level of deaths amongst the children on early sea trips was horrendous.

As a typical indicator of medicine progress, my own grandmother (on Mums side) died in Scotland around 1913 - due to blood poisoning (septicaemia). There was no cure for septicaemia in 1913 and the docs weren't even sure what caused it. Today, a dose of broad-spectrum antibiotics will fix it and survival rates are very high.

Penicillin wasn't perfected until 1941, although it was first discovered in 1928.

From that point on, penicillin and the related antibiotics that followed, have saved hundreds of millions of lives from infections that would have previously killed them - including a large number of WW2 soldiers and sailors and airmen.

Then there's the time factor to consider. Sea trips from the U.K to Australia took months, flying today only consumes 2-3 days. So, on that basis, the comparison is essentially flawed.

Then there's the fact that todays flying is so safe, it borders on boring. If it was still early days of flying, and the pax numbers the same as today, the death toll would be in the multiple dozens weekly.

Sailing Routes: Museum Victoria

The Journey - by Sailing Ship | Maritime Museum of Tasmania

Groan! Bex, you'd better stick with your day job, instead of that night-time stand-up comedian aim.

IBob, I think I've pointed out there's plenty of positions for daring fighter pilots and aerobatics pilots, who love to display their skills pushing the envelope. Let's not just place them in a position where they can endanger the innocents. There are 11 innocent dead people in the U.K. as a result of one surviving stuntmans inability to make the link to the consequences of the failure of his manoeuvre.

Old Koreelah - I prefer Douglas Baders quote - "There are old pilots, and bold pilots. There are no, old, bold pilots".

A psych study of these showoff pilot types must be interesting. I'm convinced there must a remarkable similarity with the faulty mindset of criminals - i.e. - the belief in criminals minds that they are too smart to be caught for their crimes. Naturally, 99.9% are caught.

Pilots who break company rules, air navigation rules, and manufacturers instructions for operating limits, must also believe they are too smart to be "caught out".

As with criminal minds, they cannot make the connection with the potential consequences of their actions, if their risk-taking goes wrong.

In the case above, the pilot obviously has not even entertained what the possible consequences of even something minor going wrong, could be.

Just a slight mechanical/electrical hiccup, or a mild amount of windshear, right at the worst moment, and there would have been 4 fatals in the aircraft, possibly more on the ground, and maybe a hundred million dollars worth of destruction. Then there would have been the years of litigation following the event.

What is particularly disturbing, is that the pilot had others lives in his hands - and he placed no value on them. This is the ultimate dereliction of duty of care, and the ultimate in immaturity and irresponsibility.

These adrenaline junky-type people are probably just fine sitting in a single-seat fighter and running everything to the limit and beyond.

They could probably make the fighter perform well beyond the manufacturers limits - and isn't that what they're there for?

But when it comes to acting safely and responsibly, taking no risks when none are required to be taken, and taking great care with others lives entrusted to them - then they fail miserably - and they should never placed in these job positions.

There can never be any justification for aerobatic-style manoeuvres, in non-aerobatic aircraft, when none are called for.

If it was a case of having to do so, in an emergency, to try and rescue the situation - well, yes, there is more than adequate justification for that.

Lt "Bud" Holland only lived his entire shortened life, to provide a perfect example of an adrenaline-driven risk-taker, placed in the wrong job - and to show others where these types of pilots always end up - dead, and usually taking innocents with them.

Interestingly, I was reading where Holland taught a number of other younger pilots to act exactly as he did - ignoring rules and limits - and these pilots then had to undergo rigorous re-training, to correct their "Holland-style" attitude towards risk-taking, and "pushing the envelope".

There's a lot of BS floating around as regards fuel life. Much of it is unvalidated opinion. To get to the nub of the matter, we have to go to the oil company chemists, who have all the knowledge about fuel and oil chemistry, the legislative and end-user requirements that a fuel must meet - and who know precisely what the chemical components of a particular fuel are, and their physical properties.

Below is the relevant paragraphs from Shell Australias website; they're talking about ULP basically here, but see that it says, "all fuels";

As with all fuels, Shell recommends storing fuel in an approved fuel container for no longer than six months. Fuel quality during storage can be maximised if it is stored in a cool location in an approved clean, dry fuel container with an air tight seal and full with fuel to approximately 95% of the container volume.

"Approved" fuel container.

"Cool location".

"Air tight seal".

"Full with fuel to approximately 95% volume".

Approved fuel containers do not lose fuel via osmosis. We can safely put that furphy to bed. Store your fuel in a non-approved plastic container of dubious origin and ability, and all bets are off.

99.9% of fuel degradation comes from caps that do not seal properly - i.e. - are not an "Air tight seal".

"Air tight seal" means your containers change size when subjected to major temperature changes.

They blow up in the sun until they look like the Michelin Man, and they start to look like an Ethiopian famine victim on very cold mornings, when you have an "air tight seal" on your cap.

Buy quality fuel containers and ensure the cap seal is good, fill them right up, and your fuel is good for 6 mths.

Shell chemists say so, and I put a substantial degree of faith into what they are telling us, is correct.

Leave a large amount of air in your containers when you store them, and the volatile "aromatic ingredients", as they are called (that's benzene, xylene and toluene) dissipate into the air space in the container, and are then released to the atmosphere when you open the container.

At that point, you then DO have degraded fuel.

Storage temperature is important - particularly evenness of storage temperature. Store your fuel like your best Penfolds Grange Hermitage, and it won't suffer from problems - that can be caused by chemical constituent molecules starting to break down, due to high storage temperatures.

Huge temperature variations applied to fuel, produce the potential for condensation of the water vapour in the air above the fuel.

See "Fill with fuel to approximately 95% volume" to solve this potential problem.

My team once showered sparks from a grinder across a tray of petrol, but it refused to ignite. We put that down to the air being too cold to allow the fuel to vapourise.

I was using a 230mm grinder and producing some pretty heavy sparks (well, flying hot metal, actually).

Adjectives certainly do provide for more vigorous and interesting discussion.....the dictionary has it, our parliamentarians use it with regularity, our footballers use it, why don't forums allow the use of lovely colorful descriptive language

As a result, a well-run forum requires constant moderation to ensure that people remain civil towards each other, and that numerous threads don't descend into a public free-for-all.

Remember, we are dealing with the written word, which doesn't have the moderating effect of facial expression, or tone of voice, that you would use in regular conversation.

We are also often speaking to people who are TUI, who are angry because they have just - received a nasty phone call/received a summons/had a major row with other half/neighbour/MIL - or who have indulged in mood-altering substances!

Many people often regret what was written, the day after it was typed up. A cooling off period is often necessary to rebalance the outlook.

As a result, the moderators job is a thankless one, but a necessary one!

There's also the potential danger in the fume trail, to take into account, as well as static electricity.

You can have something in the area producing an ignition source, and the fuel fumes on the wind, will find it - and then the ignition will start a distance away, and work back to you and your jerrycan!

In my lifetime, I've seen fuel fires under the following conditions;

One person was refuelling and another was playing with spanners on a battery nearby. The spannerhand dropped his spanner, which arced on the frame when the other end made contact with the positive battery terminal. The sparks generated, set fire to the fuel fumes drifting on the wind, and the fire travelled 15 metres back to the refueller and ignited the fuel being poured.

A bloke was refuelling his car from a bowser, with caravan connected, in a large country fuel depot. He'd forgotten he had an LP gas fridge running inside the 'van. He splashed a little as he reached the full mark.

Petrol fumes travelled on the wind, into the 'van, where the LP gas flame ignited them. The fire travelled back along the fumes to the car, where it lit up the spilt fuel, then the fuel at the open fuel filler neck. By the time the bloke grabbed a nearby extinguisher, the fire was out of control.

The resultant major fire burnt the car, the 'van and the entire fuel depot to the ground!

I could see the smoke from 70kms away in the W.A. Goldfields - so I went to see what was causing it! It was the most spectacular fire I've ever seen!

Another episode was caused by a person using an electric mower near to a refuelling operation. The arcing of the brushes in the electric motor ignited the fuel fumes that were travelling on the wind, and the fire travelled back to the refueller and ignited his fuel being poured!

A mechanic who worked for me, on a country jobsite, wanted to open a metal jerrycan full to the top with petrol. Previously, because it was a very cold day, the other workers with him, had lit a fire in the open, to keep warm. The fire was down to coals.

Colin, the mechanic, moved around 10-12 metres away from the remains of the fire to open the jerrycan. He opened it by holding it between his legs (it had a very tight cap).

As he struggled with loosening the cap, it popped open and petrol from the slightly overfull jerrycan splashed out on the ground and around Colins legs.

The fuel fumes travelled to the warm coals, where they were promptly ignited - and the fire travelled back to Colin and his now-open jerrycan, igniting the spilt fuel on the ground, the fuel in the jerrycan, and the fuel spilt on his legs. He suffered serious 2nd degree burns to his lower legs as a result.

So, my advice is, check for potential fuel ignition sources at all times - ensure that they are removed to at least 30 metres away - and ensure that you know where your fuel pouring fume trail is heading on the wind, and that it is being dispersed to the open air, away from any potential ignition source.

Steady up, there, PMC. Concentrate on the main subject - it's unnecessary distractions that will cause you to crash and burn.

I think the moderators need to remove that "tuff jugs" pic, that has you distracted and thinking of anything but re-fuelling.