Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967
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Posts posted by Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967
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I think Joe nailed it. This guy is a nutcase...
Three miles south, on the same road I live on. I'd say 'there goes the neighborhood,' but I'd be a mite late in saying it.
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I was literally across the road when this happened... freakin' low-life idiot. He drove something like ninety miles to shoot some young man he didn't know ~ "I don't like big pharma."
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Well heck... I think @Subdeacon Joe's post about "round engines" deserves more than being buried on page 907 of the "Memes" thread ~ those things are plumb cool!
Heck... I'll re-post it below.
So I followed Joe's post with a comment about sharing it with a retired Navy pilot I know, and did just that yesterday at the Monday Morning Clovis Veteran's gathering. And, as predicted, it brought about a big ol' grin; he indicated that Joe's post is pretty much spot-on. That led to a few stories... and the man does have some stories!
Dennis actually just published a book about his adventures ~ a fun read; the premise is that try as he might, he never managed to kill himself flying - written with a good dose of humor. Definitely a good read. On Amazon!
I had been a WestAir Airlines first officer for four years. I was landing in Los Angeles flying a nineteen-passenger twin turboprop Jetstream, following a Korean Air 747. The weather was clear. I had three and a half miles separation behind the Korean Air to avoid the wake turbulence, aka cyclonic flow, coming off the 747’s wingtips. The Korean Air landed and turned off the runway. I intended to land beyond where he touched down as per standard operating procedures.
Descending below 100’ above the runway I felt a slight yoke movement from the wake turbulence of Korean’s right-wing. I initiated a climb to get back in sequence for another approach. In the next two seconds had full power on the airplane.
Too late. I was caught in the 747’s vortices forcing the plane into a descending left turn. I countered the left turn. Two seconds later, I had full power on both engines, all flight controls at their limit for a climbing right turn but continued to descend in a left turn. Less than fifty feet off the pavement and descending, we were still out of control. We were going to hit the ground, uncontrolled. If I lived through the initial impact, I, and everyone else, would die in the fire....I surprised Dennis during a class a few years ago... the "birthday present" of a Binford Hoist-O-Matic 2000 underwear lifter was a definite hit.
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@Subdeacon Joe's post:ExpandDedicated To All Who Flew Behind Round Engines
We gotta get rid of those turbines; they’re ruining aviation and our hearing.
A turbine is too simple-minded, it has no mystery. The air travels through it in a straight line and doesn’t pick up any of the pungent fragrance of engine oil or pilot sweat.
Anybody can start a turbine. You just need to move a switch from “OFF” to “START” and then remember to move it back to “ON” after a while. My PC is harder to start.
Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse, and style. You have to seduce it into starting. It’s like waking up a horny mistress. On some planes, the pilots aren’t even allowed to do it…
Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a lady-like poof and start whining a little louder.
Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click, BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho fart or two, more clicks, a lot more smoke, and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It’s a GUY thing…
When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead. Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan. Useful, but, hardly exciting.
When you have started his round engine successfully your crew chief looks up at you like he’d let you kiss his girl too!
Turbines don’t break or catch fire often enough, leading to aircrew boredom, complacency, and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it’s going to blow any minute. This helps concentrate the mind! Turbines don’t have enough control levers or gauges to keep a pilot’s attention. There’s nothing to fiddle with during long flights.
Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman Lamps. Round engines smell like God intended machines to smell
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what exactly does calif offer to the taxpaying public to entice them to stay ?
Other than a moderate climate and gorgeous secenery...?
Lots o' freebies for lots of them folk that keep voting for the
cretinsgenerous people in charge ~ paid for by therest of usstate guv'mint, o' course.
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And don't forget... california has mandated solar on all new homes since 2020. AND approved reducing the rate electric companies have to pay homeowners for power generated by those installations. AND is also considering allowing the electric companies to actually charge those homeowners a fee for essentially generating their own electricity.
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Somebody was mighty busy!
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Dedicated To All Who Flew Behind Round Engines
We gotta get rid of those turbines, they’re ruining aviation and our hearing…
A turbine is too simple-minded, it has no mystery. The air travels through it in a straight line and doesn’t pick up any of the pungent fragrance of engine oil or pilot sweat.
Anybody can start a turbine. You just need to move a switch from “OFF” to “START” and then remember to move it back to “ON” after a while. My PC is harder to start.
Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse, and style. You have to seduce it into starting. It’s like waking up a horny mistress. On some planes, the pilots aren’t even allowed to do it…
Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a lady-like poof and start whining a little louder.
Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click, BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho fart or two, more clicks, a lot more smoke, and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It’s a GUY thing…
When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead.
Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan: Useful, but, hardly exciting.
When you have started his round engine successfully your crew chief looks up at you like he’d let you kiss his girl too!
Turbines don’t break or catch fire often enough, leading to aircrew boredom, complacency, and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it’s going to blow any minute. This helps concentrate the mind! Turbines don’t have enough control levers or gauges to keep a pilot’s attention. There’s nothing to fiddle with during long flights.
Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman Lamps. Round engines smell like God intended machines to smell.
Pass this on to an old WWII pilot (or his son who flew them in Vietnam) in remembrance of that “Greatest Generation.”
I'll be sharing this with an acquaintance tomorrow - a former Navy pilot. He flew C-1 Traders and S-2 Trackers, and even radial-engined crop dusters. He's likely seen it before, but whether he has or not, it'll bring a grin.
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"One written account, in the German newspaper Prager Tagblatt in 1879, noted that using honey to sweeten food avoided the risk of 'having your great-grandfather's atoms dissolved in your coffee one fine morning'."
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Noooo thankee.
I'd have to be drunk before I'd go that way, and THAT surely would not turn out well!
Heck... I wouldn't want to drive it today, sixty+plus years later. Ol' Hardpan don' do well with heights!
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And don't forget June...!
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I've had days like that. Sorta. But Tom... yours was a Doozy!!
Look at the bright side, though - from this point on, anything'll be an improvement!
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Oh, I dunno... it oughtta work~!
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His best role ever... for what it's worth.
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Reminds me of the Air Force physical I took back in '71. My lottery number was six... SIX! Dangit! I better hie my butt on down and enlist 'fore they snag me! I'd planned on going that route anyway after finishing school, and had actually long dreamed of an Air Force career. Oh well, a slight change in schedule.
So I did... and on the designated day at the designated time presented myself to the medical folk at Hamilton Field, in Marin County.
What a farce. Whole mob of us went through. On the pee thing, we were all issued a small beaker and sent into the loo with instructions to fill' em so full and bring 'em out. But a couple of guys "dried up" - no problem! - others happily shared. The color blindness test? Med tech opens the book of color test plates and asked, "Do ya see the nekkid girl?"
"Uh... nope..."
"Passed!"
The whole thing was on about that level of earnestness. Until we all had to see an actual doctor. In my case, a Major. And basically all the docs did was ask a couple of benign questions, count your eyeballs, and slap a stethoscope onto your chest to verify you have a heartbeat.
'Cept my Major.
He hemmed hummed and listened and thumped, then did some scribbling on a pad of forms, ripped off the page and handed it to me and told me to report to room such-and-so immediately.
Which I did. The mob proceeded down a corridor, and I had to turn left to find room such-and-so. Which I eventually did. And whereupon two lounging, slightly-anoyed, scrubs-attired med techs asked "whaddaya want?" I handed 'em the form, and before I knew it I was on a table wired up for an EKG. Eventually, the good ol' Major Doctor came in and studied the strip, humming and hemming and frowning.
Finally, he looked at me and said "Sorry, son... we can't take you. You have a pronounced heart murmur, so you're not qualified to serve."
WHAT??
"WHAT? Omigawd, Doc! Am I gonna die...?"
He smiled and said naw, and that I might even outgrow it.
Needless to say, I was at least mildly stunned. "Well..." sez I, "at least I guess I won't have to worry 'bout getting drafted."
At which point good ol' Major Doctor assumed a really sad, almost hang-dog look. He put a hand on my shoulder, looked at me, and said "Son... I hate to tell ya this, but the Army has a saying about heart murmurs. If ya have one, they'll just put you in the artillery, where you can't hear it."
"Waitaminnit! Are you tellin' me that I'm not healthy enough to do something technical or even administrative, but I AM healthy enough to shoulder a pack and slog through rice paddies and get shot at and all that swell stuff?"
"Yup. That's the way the government sees it."
Well poop. Anyway, I ended up with a student deferment. Got it in the mail two days before Nixon announced there would be no mor student deferments. And missed out.
But that's my pi$$ing in the cup story!
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"KAY-peks???"
The correct pronunciation of "Knipex" is "kuh-NIP-eks" (with the emphasis on the first syllable), as the "k" in "kn" is pronounced in German, unlike in English where it's usually silent.
But otherwise the dude's kinda funny, and he DOES have a point, even though he does not like points....
And by the way - Knipex tools are really cool. I've gotten a few as Christmas gifts from the Kid.
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There's a couple of reasons for that.
First - the store is(STORIES) on that list are all adult sci-fi. Starship Troopers is a juvenile. He wrote a dozen books under contract, one a year, for this publishing house "young adult"line.
Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)
Space Cadet (1948)
Red Planet (1949)
Farmer in the Sky (1950)
Between Planets (1951)
The Rolling Stones (1952)
Starman Jones (1953)
The Star Beast (1954)
Tunnel in the Sky (1955)
Time for the Stars (1956)
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)
Starship Troopers (1959)The second reason is chronological. The list was published in 1941. Starship Troopers was written in 1959. The number of the beast was written in 1980.
Hard to put something on a list when it won't be written for a decade or more.
I have a just-turned-thirteen year old grand-niece who recently discovered Heinlein. And I've collected a bunch of the titles on that list from local used book stores, prob'ly out in the mail in a day or two.
Still looking for "Podkayne" and "Space Suit." 🙂
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Took a Bit of Time Away and Something I Did Instead
in SASS Wire Saloon
Posted
It does look good ~ fine job!
By the way... what caliber? I've only shot 'em in .223/5.56, and never found recoil to be an issue - no "padding" required.