onetrack

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.

Note the above key words and phrases;

 

"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've personally had no trouble at all, igniting an open-top parts washpan, about 1/3rd full of kerosene, with angle grinder sparks - which washpan was located 10 metres away, at the far end of the workshop! The day was moderately warm.I'd suggest your angle grinder probably wasn't producing heavy enough sparks, and they were effectively extinguished when over the tray.

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

Because people get carried away with adjectives, exclamation marks, and often-times - abusive language, on forums.

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.

 

 

Static electricity is a very real concern, and not for nothing does every refuelling tanker have a large static strap that is connected to ground as the very first step in emptying the tanker.

 

The Murray Bridge SE article is very good. A large portion of SE buildup comes from synthetic clothing, and movement of your body and clothing across upholstery and other components, that assist in creating static buildup.

 

Watch this young lady slide her body in and out of the vehicle, creating the static buildup that releases when she grabs the fuel bowser handpiece.

 

 

 

Google is your friend - but you have to click on and download the 1MB MP4 file.

 

Google Groups

 

hihosland, that's good! Got a good belly laugh out of it.

 

 

Q. Did you hear they came out with a new shoe for lesbians?

 

A. They're called Dikes. They have an extra long tongue, and they only take one finger to get off!

 

 

Accountant: I specifically stated in my instructions, "smaller" size glasses, with thinner glass thickness. Find the person responsible for over-riding my instructions, and making them larger as well as thinner, and let him be the company scapegoat. He was operating without proper corporate authority.

 

If the plaintiffs lawyers, by some deviousness, beat our team of scurrilous corporate lawyers, arrange to immediately and retrospectively, restructure the company, and transfer all the company assets to the new structure, so the plaintiffs win is a Pyrrhic victory.

 

 

Accountant: The glass can be made smaller, and of thinner material. This will immediately translate to an additional $500,000 profit, annually.

 

 

I'm guessing during the 45 minute stop someone not with the travelling group pulled the trailer pinCannot see any other reason for the trailer to become unhitched

I find it hard to believe a unhitched trailer from a prime mover would go for hours fine then suddenly just disconnect after a 45 minute stopover

Metal fatigue has been known to be a cause of trailers parting company with their tow vehicle. I can't see the fine details, but that trailer is a very large car transporter-type trailer and is more than likely, merely a towball-type coupling. It's easy to overload this style of large trailer, and when you do, towbar or towball failure is highly likely. I've had towballs snap at their neck (the thin part above the mounting base), I've seen entire towbars come off vehicles when the retaining bolts broke (usually caused by poor installation - the lowliest and most incompetent apprentice is usually the one given the job of towbar installation, because no-one else likes doing it - it's hard, difficult, work).

 

Drawbars have been known to fracture and detach because of metal fatigue - usually caused by inadequate metal thickness, poor welding, or excessive drawbar flex over many kms, heavy loads, and rough roads.

 

Towballs fracture because they are overloaded, or overstressed by reversing, and having the tow vehicle hit the trailer drawbar, thus imposing severe loading on the towball and towbar.

 

Safety chains should ensure that a detached trailer doesn't become a wayward missile, and in this case, the safety chains have totally failed. A major investigation needs to be initiated to find out why. Safety chains are there to stop the detached trailer from launching itself into oncoming traffic, usually with fatal results.

 

In addition (although I'm not familiar with U.K. trailer laws), trailers over 4500kg Gross Mass in Australia must be fitted with a breakaway braking system that activates the trailer brakes immediately upon the trailer becoming detached.

 

It's pretty obvious this trailer carrying the Spitfire didn't have a breakaway system, or a working breakaway system.

 

Whether it is required on a trailer that size in the U.K., I don't know, but it looks like it's big enough, that it should have one.

 

 

Good God, now Cundall will be ecstatic. He's now got his proof, that there actually are, surplus Spitfires in Burma!

 

Great story, red750, thanks for the links.

 

 

PM, you got the joke arse-about - and it's the old-time version.

 

I guess that was because it was in Latin? - as all Romance languages read back to front?

 

This is the correct modern version ...

 

A young lass named Gloria had arranged to pick up her boyfriend on the weekend in her old Ford van - but she warned him it was unreliable and it might not make it.

 

If she didn't arrive, it would be because of the van - and if that happened, she'd see him early next week.

 

The van broke down, of course, and she couldn't make it.

 

They were both Latin scholars, so she sent him a text which read .. "Ths psses glry of wrld".

 

He immediately translated it as "Sick Transit - Gloria; Monday".

 

 

I must confess, I glanced at the title and I misread, "Aviation, Masculinity and Good Looks".

 

Now, here's some aviation porn for real men. It's got it all. Taildraggers, gliders, brute muscle strength, guns ... and aviation engineers. And not a gal to be seen.

 

Ooops - that's right, the gals were too busy building the gear, that the guys were wielding!

 

 

 

Whatever you do - don't tell Cundall about the buried F-111's!!

 

 

I know where there's 20+ Spitfires buried in the desert! They just forgot to bury a Cessna 310 when they were burying the Spittys, so that's the major clue on their whereabouts!

 

Just send your donations of $10,000 and more to my PayPal account, so I can get enough funding to commence the search!

 

As part of the deal in exchange for your donations, I'll give you regular updates, on what I haven't found!

 

 

 

I can understand people finding wrecks lying on top of the ground - the crashed Kittyhawk found in the Sahara in Egypt is a classic example of desert preservation.

 

However - burying stuff and recovering it intact is another totally different scenario altogether. In a previous life, I was an agricultural earthmoving contractor and a mining earthmoving contractor.

 

I've both buried lots of stuff, and dug up lots of stuff. I can tell you this much, once an item has been buried in the soil - even if steps have been taken to preserve it, it is still totally knackered with corrosion from moisture and chemicals in the soil - even after a few short years.

 

Gold is transported through the ground via chemical reaction and the movement of water through the soil.

 

If gold can be dissolved and transported through the soil, deep in the ground, there is little chance of relatively delicate aircraft and airframes being preserved under the soil - particularly after 71 years of tropical rainfall and regular floods.

 

I'm reminded of the brand new '57 Plymouth Belvedere buried in a concrete bunker in Tulsa, in 1957, as a 50 year time capsule, to be raised in perfect condition in 2007.

 

This car was covered in cosmoline and plastic wrapping, buried in a "sealed" concrete bunker, and it was expected it would be raised as a pristine, brand new 50 yr old car in 2007.

 

As any of us who followed the raising of "Miss Belvedere" with interest, know - it rapidly became obvious that Miss Belvedere's vault was not properly sealed, it had 4 feet (1.2M) of water in it, and "Miss Belvedere" was nothing more than a sad, rusty wreck, completely unrestoreable. Any aircraft buried in the soil of Burma, even if buried in preservation materials, would now be little more than streaks of rusty stains.

 

 

I read about a yachty who found an island with lots of war supplies inside the hollowed hillside

I remember that story - the bloke made a film about it, he was an Alby Mangels-type of buccaneer, roaming the Pacific with a bunch of blokes and girls, having one big continuous party on this old schooner he'd bought.

I seem to recall he was pretty much a full-time drunk, and he plied all the girls on board with lots of booze to make them more compliant.

 

There were questions asked about the age of some of the girls (some were reputed to be under 16), so the bloke did a disappearing trick, and took off back to where he came from, which I think was Europe.

 

I can recall they found an abandoned U.S Army 6 x 6 truck and cranked it up, so they could haul all their scavenged stuff back to the boat.

 

The island was littered with concrete bunkers and there were hundreds of drums of fuel still inside the bunkers, along with all the other paraphernalia of war.

 

I can also recall there was an outcry from the people in the region about the U.S. Forces leaving their islands filled with WW2 junk - so the Australian Army sent in a team in the early 1990's, to blow up the bunkers, collect all the items still lying around, and take it all out to sea and dump it. They left the island clean, to the satisfaction of the locals, so there won't be anything left on that island, at least. For the life of me, I can't remember the islands name, I'm sure it was in Micronesia.

 

Cundall must be smoking some good stuff - it must make LSD look tame, for hallucogenic properties. How else could this dimwit keep prattling on with this rubbish?

 

What is even more amazing is the idiots he continues to find, to supply funding for his search. The bloke would be able to sell fridges, and air-conditioners, to Eskimos, I reckon.

 

Talk about the gift of persuasion - if he was selling religion, he'd probably already have 500 million followers.

 

 

Ah, yes - the Fokker D-XXI (D-21). Only 36 were produced, and they only operated between 1938 and 1940. Fitted with the beautifully engineered 9 cyl Bristol Mercury VIII, rated at 830HP.

 

A few were downed by the Lufwaffe, but the majority survived the total Nazi conquest of the Netherlands in 1940.

 

A large number of the survivors were then destroyed by the Dutch to prevent the Germans from utilising them.

 

However, it appears at least several fell into Nazi hands, as evidenced by the photos of the ones plastered with Swastikas.

 

More info here ... Fokker D-XXI [D-21] [War over Holland - May 1940: the Dutch struggle]

 

Incidentally, every Dutch person I know, who lived in Europe and survived WW2, had an undying hatred of Germans.

 

When you see what the Nazis did in the Rotterdam Blitz, as well as what they did to the rest of the country, you can understand why.

 

Cheers, OT

 

 

Well, you know what they always said about Volvo's, don't you? "It must be a great-looking car, once they get it out of the box!"

 

 

I wrote earlier that it looked " boxy" That was not serious critique

My "boxy" comment was. (serious criticism)

I saw, straight up, that you need harsh criticism to make you get cracking, and use those other 10,000,000,000 lazy neurons in your brain.

 

Hmm, 4 natural triangles, gentle curves for the "Boxy" whiners, might be onto something here.

Right on, Einstein! Now you're cooking with gas! Starting to look like some engineer with aerodynamic principles in mind, is having some input here.

 

The best part is - the more you curve components, the lighter the frame gets, and the strength increases as well.

 

Don't forget that they stopped putting flat panels and straight frame members on cars long ago. Curved, wins every time!

 

You got a goer there, mate. Airbus will be calling you in soon, for consultancy work.

 

 

As one observer noted -"The flying flea had the potential to bring the airplane to the everyday man on the street - usually by falling on him" ...

 

 

AussieB1rd - The Flying Flea was an aeronautical disaster, and they had a dreadful crash record. I'm sure Bex is looking to improve on the FF, and looking to avoid avoid the "flying deathtrap" moniker.

 

Tinworm-wings: An SSDR Flying Flea?

 

 

It looks too ... ummm ... boxy. Now, if you curved the upright bracing members, you could shorten the horizontal members, and you'd start to have it looking something like the aviation equivalent of a Mazda 6 Atenza ....

 

After all, anyone can build a boxy looking aircraft. They did that in 1910. Nowadays, despite all this super-duper CAD stuff, we are not seeing the aviation equivalent in design and shape, that is available in a current model $15,000 car.

 

In fact, I reckon a lot of current model cars are probably more aerodynamic than a lot of kitplanes.