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GRIPES


Phil Perry

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My gym is the steep hill I built our house on.
Regular trips up and down battling weeds and carrying firewood.
No ride-on mower- my wizzer does a great job and copes with rocks and rough terrain; it even has a Tai Chi setting!

I can drift from one half-finished building project to another, providing plenty of exercise variety.

 

 

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Do you watch videos about historic aircraft? There are a lot of well researched and presented videos. However, I don't know about you, but when I want to talk about the performance specs of an aircraft, I want to use knots for speed and feet for altitude or, in the case of aircraft specs, service ceiling.

 

Too many of these videos quote these figures in mph/kph, or metres. My base value for comparing speed is 100 knots. That's about what a basic tin can trainer (C-152 or PA28-160) will cruise at. I have no value in my head that tells me what 100 kts is in mph or kph, except that I know that after conversion, the knots value will be less than mph and kph. Roughly, 100 kts = 185 kms, so  kph -> kts = 0.5 x kph. 100 kts = 115 miles, so mph -> kts = 0.8 x mph.

 

But who wants to do mental arithmetic while watching a video and sipping rough red?

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Nautical Miles for distance /speed and height in feet  and temps in degrees C is the go for aviation in most of the world. Russia for one is metric. It makes the assigned levels complex. 1000 feet is a good vertical separation figure but converted to meters not so nice to handle. I Km would waste airspace. Nev

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USA, which is the home of aviation has no standard. The manufacturers will give cruise and top speed in mph or at other times on kts. No constistency. The only good thing is that I grew up and learnt to fly in an age where we were taught how to convert one to the other in our heads.

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I guess this is a gripe or a whinge, it's something I find frustrating.

 

When I am preparing aircraft profiles for the other site, I search for aircraft which have not previously been covered. Often I will find a name not seen previously. I start researching it, only to find that is is already covered under a different name, because it has been built under licence, or because the rights to the aircraft have been bought by another company, often when the original company goes out of business. Licence  built Tupolevs and Antonovs are typical.

 

The other annoying situation is where the same name is used by different manufacturers for totally different aircraft. eg. Flying Machines s.r.o. FM250 Vampire, Sadler Vampire, de Havilland Vampire.

 

How many Mustangs are there? Or Spitfires? Or Phantoms?

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4 hours ago, red750 said:

How many Mustangs are there? Or Spitfires? Or Phantoms?

Post war, when J.S. McDonnell got going in a big way, the U.S. government granted him sole rights to all names belonging to the spirit world. Phantom, Voodoo, Demon, Banshee, Goblin etc.. That would have been only for U.S. manufactured aircraft.

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59 minutes ago, willedoo said:

Post war, when J.S. McDonnell got going in a big way, the U.S. government granted him sole rights to all names belonging to the spirit world. Phantom, Voodoo, Demon, Banshee, Goblin etc.. That would have been only for U.S. manufactured aircraft.

Big corporations must have teams of creative types, brainstorming and copyrighting names for future cars, kitchen gadgets, etc.

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You fellas may recall the Favourite Aussie Music thread... Well, sometimes, I peek back in there and listen to some of my favourites. And, occasionally, when under the influence of some red grape juice, the sense of rationality kicks in and I hop onto Amazon and buy a CD - yes - I still buy them. This time, it was Boom Crash Opera.. The CD arrived today, and as the missus has Covid Arm from her booster, I had to attempt to prepare something that resembled a semblance of edibility.

 

So, in went the CD.. and buggah me... All of their songs were artiste renditions, that focused on the deep and meaningful side of things - i.e., a bloke with his guitar and a singer, all slowed down as if to be an intimate gig at a funeral.. I hate it when bands do that. At Kew Gardens in London, they have concerts of famous musos usually from the 80s and 90s.. Everyone who goes is around my age and hoping to hear the old classics belted out.. instead they get the same sort of rendition and some new stuff they have released that doesn't even get a mention on radio.. After two such concerts (one including I think Pete Townsed of the Who.,. but can't recall).. I never went back..

 

Total waste of money!

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Further to my gripe (whinge) of Jan 11, a question regarding derivites.I was collecting photos and was looking up the Apollo Fox (what an uncommon name). The first line in the description starts - "The Apollo Fox was derived from the Aeropro Eurofox, which itself was a metric adaptation of the Denney Kitfox. The Kitfox in turn is a derivative of the Avid Flyer." Do you think we need profiles for each derivitive?

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