onetrack

Wow, imagine the bill when a gear or some other reciprocating part lets go, and ventilates that housing somewhere??!! 🥹 "Dear Customer, we are sorry to inform you that due to major component failure, you need a complete new engine, transmission and rear axle! The replacement cost will be $478,000 (!)"..... Ah well - I guess if you can afford a Lamborghini Miura or three, the cost of a complete new drivetrain wouldn't bother you!

Moneybox, you mean those with the vision of a 16 yr old? I'm struggling to see the airstrips, let alone the name spelt out in tyres!! But a low pass does help a bit! .....

Just 200kg payload cuts out a lot of Americans, for pilot weight! 😄 And get a look at the contortions required, to climb into it! 😘

Forget the fold-up ultralight helicopter! - get an eyeful of those perfect TEETH!! 😄

I've seen a 6 cylinder 1930 Bentley engine in an engine reconditioning shop, and it was an amazing piece of engineering - a monobloc with no separate head, and I hate to think of the amount of finicky work involved in repairing it and reassembling it.

...........manufacturer of that particular version of the Thruster, a dubious backyard operator registered as Turbine Thrusters Inc. The TIO Cappy refers to, actually stands for "Turbine Induced Oscillations", as these particular Thruster models were noted for scrimping on the number of rivets and fasteners, and thus they performed like a GAF Nomad that was built on a Friday night by the factory cleaning crew, on their coffee break. The ducking and weaving aerial movements of the TTI version of the Thruster was simply due to structural flexing and panel warping, and to say it made for an interesting style of performance would be the understatement of the year. In fact, when Kitplanes tested the TTI Thruster, it was only some time after landing, that ground crew could force open the fingers of the white-faced test pilot from around the control column, and even then...................

Moneybox, your local Shire Planning Scheme is the primary legal document governing virtually any type of development within the Shire. In your case, it's the Shire of Cue, Local Planning Scheme No. 2. Amazingly, neither the word "aircraft", nor the word, "aviation" appear in the document, essentially meaning the Shire has no interest or control over airstrips within its boundaries. https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2022-05/LPSC_Cue2-schemetext.pdf What I find even more amazing, is that the above Scheme text document, should have a Planning Scheme Map associated with it. It doesn't, and the only Town Planning Map for Cue that I can find is their "Town Planning Schematic, 1993" map, which is tied in with TP Scheme No. 1, which is now obsolete - and it's likely this 1993 Schematic Map is also obsolete, due to its age and the fact that TP Scheme No. 2. has superseded all previous Schemes. https://www.cue.wa.gov.au/documents/plans-and-policies

I've always been amused at the story (perhaps apocryphal) that reputedly occurred between the RR engineers and the Packard engineers, when the discussions were taking place with regards to manufacture of the Merlin by Packard. The story goes, the Packard engineers asked for details of the engineering stress and strain calculations on the Merlin components by RR engineers. It's reported the RR engineers replied, "Oh, we never bothered with those type of calculations, we just ran the engine under huge loads until something broke - and then we made that part stronger!" This news apparently horrified the Packard engineers who normally went into great detail regarding calculations of stresses and strains, and who never considered testing engine components to destruction. I think the best comment I've seen regarding the Merlin, is one that said, "if RR had ever known they were going to have to produce 150,000+ engines for aircraft during the War, they would've designed a different engine". If it wasn't for WW2, we would possibly only have ever seen a few hundred Merlins manufactured, before a new improved design was produced.

One of the problems with a large firebomber, is that everyone from the top politicians down, sees it as the total and complete answer to fighting large fires. Unfortunately, it's not. They are certainly good to have on hand when a major fire threatens, but the bottom line is, hundreds of firefighters on the ground, are ones who do most of the heavy lifting, when it comes to putting out bushfires. My middle nephew has 2 x Cat D6T's on call by the W.A. Dept of Parks, Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, 24/7/365 during the fire season, Oct to May each year. The dozers sit on his low loaders ready to go, and when he gets a call from DPBCA, he has to have the dozers on the fire site within 2 hrs, day or night. The dozers are crucial for cutting access roads and firebreaks, knocking down big trees that are spreading hot coals from substantial height, and even pulling out bogged or damaged fire trucks. He gets paid a very substantial sum for this contract, but I can assure you, he earns every penny of it. The cost of an out-of-control bushfire can run into billions. https://www.screenwest.com.au/made-in-wa/production-highlights/bushfire-wars/

No-one manufactures new Merlin parts - but because there were so many built, and so many spares produced during WW2, there's still enough new parts, components, and reconditionable parts around, to keep the Merlins that are still running, going for many more years. Rolls-Royce reportedly built around 150,000 Merlins. Final, carefully collated production figures, makes that 168,000 Merlins. Packard built 55,000 Packard-Merlins. Continental built 3000 Packard-Merlins. Ford of England built around 30,000 Merlins under licence. Even CAC in Australia manufactured more than 100 Merlins. No-one has recorded the amount of Merlin parts manufactured, it would run into at least the equivalent in parts to put together around 10% more engines than the above production figures. It could even be double that. The Allies produced lots and lots of parts for their war machines - it was a factor that helped the Allies win the War. The Nazis put all their manufacturing production into producing fully built aircraft, and failed to keep a decent supply of parts on hand. When a Luftwaffe aircraft broke down, other Luftwaffe aircraft were cannibalised for parts. This soon reduced the amount of operational aircraft available to the Nazis, and it cost them dearly. Some good info below, but neither article gives the full story of the Merlin. https://www.key.aero/article/many-factories-built-merlin https://www.jrcengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Packard-Merlin.pdf

There's a big difference between an exploration lease, and an operational mining project. The latter has to be officially approved and recognised as a project, with all the attendant extra permits and approvals from all levels of Govt. An exploration lease is simply a licence to explore for minerals with set expenditure provisions. W.A. mining laws are in the process of altering for smaller mining operations, the new legal structure for small scale mining is called an MDC (Mining Development and Closure Proposal). An application to install an airstrip in W.A. must cover local zoning laws, infrastructure laws, aviation regulations, and environmental laws. In mining areas, a GPL (General Purpose Lease) must be taken out for airstrip use. https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-mines-petroleum-and-exploration/mining-development-and-closure-proposals

Pick a golf course every time for a forced landing! Lots of nice smooth fairways - just the odd sand trap or water trap to add excitement to your day - and when all the crashing noises have stopped, you can get out with your clubs, and play a round to steady your nerves! 😄

There was no way the Rotodyne could have ever been economic, despite its touted fabulous abilities. The cost of the project just kept on soaring and soaring and the noise levels were most certainly never overcome. It's not just the decibel rating of noise levels, it's the frequencies as well. You can have a decibel rating that is within regulated limits, but if the frequency of the sound is extremely annoying, it will (literally) never fly. High speed electric-powered rail is more effective at moving people, and there's no delay as in getting airborne, a lot less traffic control and regulation is needed, bad weather affects them less - and maintenance and running costs are much lower than aviation. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3311483/chinas-airlines-raise-alarm-travellers-ditch-planes-bullet-trains

More importantly, there's no "D" in the word "pigeons". 😄

.......there had to be a sizeable number of LBGTQIA employees involved. But when a Workplace investigation was commenced, it was found that Thai Ladyboys made up the majority of the workforce (the factory was based in Thailand of course, to keep costs down), and this was all fully approved by the investigators, as they sampled the delights of Thai Ladyboys and Thai bars during the investigation. Amazingly, somehow, Cappy managed to wangle his way into the OSL investigation team - and once he found out that Ladyboys were involved, the rest of the team had to drag him away from the.........

I've been using Penrite oils for quite some time now, and I find they produce better overall performance, than the Valvoline oils I was using previously.

Skippy, they're called Dome Shelters, and they're very popular on mine sites, and even industrial sites, where fixed buildings are a wasted investment. The best part is, they're very saleable secondhand, because they can be easily dismantled and moved. The Australian-built ones are vastly better quality than the cheap Chinese rubbish. https://www.domeshelter.com.au/

No need to clear very much around Cue, you're struggling to find a tree big enough to park under at the best of times.

Skippy, I think the word you really want, is commodious. 🙂 Funnily enough, "commodious", meaning roomy and comfortable, has the same language roots as "commode", a relatively recent term for the toilet. The words come from the Latin "commodus" - meaning "convenient". A roomy cockpit is more than just convenient! 🙂

......a montage of sheeps daggy bums, roustabouts throwing fleeces and picking off the dags, sheep manure pickers raking the dags from under the woolsheds - and all the repeating imagery accompanied by the music from.......

...... the other players started producing dags to play with, which ruined Cappys great run of wins. The problem was, when a dag was flicked, it spun off little chunks of sheep poo, which besides annoying the other players who were spattered with bits of sheep poo, the chunks also made the floor sticky, which coupled with the lack of hardness in the dags, led to.........

The new BOM radar page is in this link, below - you can click on "more radars" to find the BOM radar sites. The problem is, however - I clicked on the radar site I wanted to check out, and the page came up with blank imagery! https://www.bom.gov.au/weather-and-climate/rain-radar-and-weather-maps#more-radars The new BOM website is a disaster, ABC radio had 774 callers yesterday that all stated their extreme disappointment with the new site. BOM has a long way to go to make this new site user-friendly, and to get the bugs out of it. It's all graphics-intensive, but the graphics are poor, anyway. I try to set up more than one location to check weather, and it won't allow any more than one location to be selected as "favourite". Time to rev up these website developers, they must have just bought off-the-shelf programmes.

The performance of synthetic oils should be better than straight refinery oils, as the base oil in synthetic oils is chemically manufactured, which gives it better properties than straight refined oils, due to the ability in the synthetic manufacturing process to produce purer base molecular structures, with the most desired oil properties. Oil refined directly from crude comes with a range of chemical component structures that are not necessarily ideal for lube oil use, and the oil makeup has to be balanced by adding other additives to counter the undesirable chemicals. Despite clever refining processes, the undesirable chemicals still slip through in the final base oil refinery product, because quite of number of the undesirable chemicals are either expensive to refine out, or have chemical properties that enable them to slip through hydrotreating. The bottom line is all base oils have at least 7 extra additives added to them, to make them perform to the required level or oil standard. These additives are often quite different between the various manufacturers, and the type/selection of additives would more than likely play the biggest part in an oils performance. The basic additives are; Antioxidants to prevent oil breakdown by oxidisation Acidity neutralisers Rust and corrosion inhibitors Viscosity index improvers (VIII's) to maintain oil thickness across a range of temperatures Anti-wear agents Detergents and dispersants to keep internal engine components clean Anti-foaming agents Extreme pressure (EP) additives for heavy-duty applications The oil chemists have a huge array of chemical additives to choose from, all with different properties and performance - and they keep finding new additives all the time. Plus, the chemists have to balance oil performance against their manufacturing costs, so if you want exotic, high performance additives, you have to pay. In general, the oil film will drain off metal surfaces it's supposed to be protecting, within as little as 3 months, and chemicals in the oil either settle, react slowly with each other, or simply degrade by chemical bonding breakdown, over an extended period. Therefore, using fresh oil, and keeping surfaces coated with oil, are two of the most important things you can do, to prevent engine problems related to poor oil performance.

.......because Cappy's nickname at university was "Daggs". This name came about because of Cappys propensity to continuously look for sheeps dags lying around, and to utilise them for..........

..... wanging his wang continuously over his wanton wahine Wanda, who wouldn't let him wang her - and besides, there was always the threat of a jealous Craig, who promised to drive Cappy into the ground like a tent peg, if he ever saw Cappy anywhere near his......