REFLECTIONS Ed Chenevey
It's sure cold outside
but I'm sitting by the radiator with the sun shining in the window. I don't have
to go out if I don't want to - - - life is good. I hope yours is too.
I checked the EAA website
but found nothing new. Old news is that Rutan successfully tested his rocket
ship last month and that the Sport Pilot proposal was signed off at DOT and sent
to the bean counters. By Sun - n - Fun we may see what it looks like.
Alvin got some new
software and has now put the back issues of the newsletter on the website. Go to
angelfire.com/nj4/238.
At the December meeting
we agreed to leave the dues at $20. (Please make any checks payable to me.)
Wally Shelby is the first to pay his dues. The last newsletter showed that we
ended the year $188 in the black. EAA renewal for 2004 cost $40 plus $140 for
insurance so we are still ahead. When we come up with bigger programs such as
DAR Charles Terry, who signed off John's Defiant, we can spend some money and
rent the large Chase room.
If you need metal pieces
there is a Metal Supermarkets in Plainfield at 1280 North Ave (908-757-0404). I
don't know of anywhere else around other than junkyards and the large metal
suppliers. I got a foot of 1.5 in round steel for $6. Shipping costs become
significant for mail orders. The same thing applies to aircraft tubing. I
stopped at Dillsburg Aeroplane Works on Saturday on the way to Cabin Fever. Even
if it is not on your way, if you need pieces longer than 8 ft we are talking
truck shipment so you might as well just spring for the gas and drive.
I went to the Cabin Fever
Model Engineering Expo as I have every year and as expected couldn't find things
that I wanted, bought things that I didn't need, and passed on others that I
have since regretted. There seemed to be a few more vendors including two mail
order suppliers of metal. I found my obligatioy antique tool, a pre 1900 spiral
screwdriver, and inexpensive top quality modern stuff, Cresent, Williams. One
vendor had zillions of files, something that we tend to not use anymore, but he
had odd things such as silversmith's rifflers.
The nicest new model that
I saw was a Whizzer motorbike about 16 in long. It certainly looked real. I
sprung for the instructions for aluminum anodizing which can be simple; with
only a battery charger, sulfuric acid, a plastic bucket, and some dye if you
want color. Or not, depending on the alloy.
Nation
Builders Books ( NBBooks.com) had just had just issued a reprint of Aerosphere
1941 - Modern Aircraft Engines. As usual, I found some that I didn't know about.
Believe it or not there were 5 different barrel engines; one French and the
others American. Many people have worked on barrel engines over the last 100
years but none have made it; well the Dyna Cam may be around but nobody is going
to buy it.The configurations included a 2 cycle opposed piston, a 2 cycle single
piston, a 4 cycle double headed piston, and a 4 cycle single piston with
individual crankshafts for each cylinder. To visualize this, lay a propeller on
the floor, place a table over it, stick a shaft vertically through the table to
the propeller, then put a bevel gear on the shaft facing upward. Then take three
B&S horizontal shaft engines with bevel gears on the ends of their
crankshafts and set them on the table in mesh with the propeller shaft. The
French went one better for if you place another propeller shaft inside the first
one and place a bevel gear on it facing downward, you will have counter rotating
propeller shafts with each cylinder driving both shafts. They also used straight
line twin cylinder modules like the present day Hexadyne with three throw cranks
and three rods for the two cylinders. There even was an engine furnace brazed
together from tube and sheet like the early Crossley engines. Of course, WWII
killed all of this.
Subject: Aviation Seminar, Tuesday 7:00pm, February 3, 2004
Hi Folks --
The Allaire Flight Instructors' Association will be conducting a free aviation
safety seminar Tuesday, February 3, 2004 from 7:00pm to 9:00. We meet at the
public library on Route 71 in Eatontown, adjacent to the Eatontown Borough Hall.
This is half a mile north of Route 36 and half a block east of Route 35. (This
is *not* the big county library).
This is the last opportunity to sign up for the FAA altitude chamber training in
June. If you have not already e-mailed me with the following information,
this is your last invitation:
* Full Name
* Social Security Number
* Gender
* Date of birth
* Mailing Address
* Daytime phone number
* Date & class of FAA medical held
* Primary aircraft Type
* Country of origin (and passport number if not a U.S.
citizen)
* Drivers license number and state of Issuance
* Organization Represented
* And, if driving your vehicle to the training site,
the vehicle's
* Year
* Make
* Model
* Color
* License plate number and state in which licensed
* home/work/cell phone numbers
* e-mail address
Please return this information to me sooner rather than later.
Remember the constraints:
Restrictions: Participation in an altitude chamber flight will not be permitted
if the applicant:
* does not hold a valid class I, II, or III medical
certificate
* has an acute respiratory and/or systemic infection
* has a beard
* has been scuba diving within 24 hours
* has donated one unit (500 ml) of blood within 24 hours or donated more than
one unit of blood within 72 hours of the scheduled training
* has consumed any alcoholic beverage within eight hours or is under the
influence of alcohol
* has not completed the required academic portion of the aviation physiology
course
* is less than 18 years of age
I need a volunteer to take over the April meeting. And please help me get a great turn out for the FAA at the
march meeting. The TEB FSDO SPM will be down here with an exciting presentation
and I would like a SRO crowd for Ron.
There will NOT be a meeting in June, 2004. I am not sure how I did it, but the
Air Force and FAA CAMI have taken the unprecedented step to have a Saturday
training course to familiarize US civil aviation pilots and flight crews with
the physiological and psychological stresses of flight. For the AFIA program,
this will be the second Saturday in June and replaces our regularly scheduled
classroom meeting.
Greg would like to get some flying time in with anyone going up in the next few
weeks so if you are going anywhere and need company or someone to share the gas,
please contact Greg at 917-796-2176
(greg@alchemymarketing.com).
AVIATION HUMOR
Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than there are
submarines in the sky.
If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter
-- and therefore, unsafe.
Navy carrier pilots to Air Force pilots: Flaring is like squatting to pee.
When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane, you always have enough power
left to get you to the scene of the crash.
Without ammunition, the USAF would be just another expensive flying club.
What is the similarity between air traffic controllers (ATC) and pilots? If a
pilot screws up, the pilot dies. If ATC screws up, the pilot dies.
Never trade luck for skill.
The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in aviation are:
"Why is it doing that?" "Where are we?" and "Oh,
s--t!"
Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.
Airspeed, altitude, or brains: two are always needed to complete the flight
successfully.
A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is
prevarication.
Mankind has a perfect record in aviation: we never left one up there!
Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for the purpose of
storing dead batteries.
Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on
the ground incapable of understanding it or doing anything about it.
When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, you forgot something.
Just remember, if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be held on a
sunny day.
Advice given to Royal Air Force pilots during World War II: When a prang (crash)
seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the
vicinity as slowly and
gently as possible.
The Piper Cub is! the safest airplane in the world: it can just barely kill you.
(Attributed to Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot) A pilot who doesn't have any
fear probably isn't
flying his plane to its maximum. (Jon McBride, astronaut)
If youre faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as
possible. (Bob Hoover - renowned aerobatic and test pilot) If an airplane is
still in one piece, dont cheat on it. Ride the bastard down. (Ernest K. Gann,
author &aviator)
Though I fly through the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil, for I am at
80,000 feet and climbing. (sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operations area
in Kadena, Japan).
You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3. (Paul F. Crickmore -
test pilot)
Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you.
There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime. (Sign over
squadron operations desk at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, 1970).
The best things in life are a good landing, and a good bowel movement. The night
carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to
experience both at the same time. (Author unknown, but someone who's been there)
"Now I know what a dog feels like watching TV." (A DC-9 captain
trainee attempting to check out on the "glass cockpit" of an A-320).
If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to.
Basic Flying Rules: Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the
edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground,
buildings, sea,
trees, and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.
You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to
taxi to the terminal.
