We're getting old, folks...

Matt Whiting wrote:

I heard that from Bax long before Rod. I wonder who originated it?

Glenn Curtis. :-)

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Jay Honeck wrote:

So what's the solution? How do we make flying more feminine? How do
we attract females to the airport?

Well, the first step is to make the pre-flight inspection something that can be
done in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Morgans wrote:

Anyone have one, or seen one in action?

Just bought one from a catalog. Haven't had time to try it out yet. Maybe this
weekend.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Jim wrote:
Then they need to get those new "cool" soldering irons, they advertise on TV
all of the time.

I can't imagine how those would work worth a damn. What do they have in
them? My guess is a small, low mass filament, almost like a light bulb. I
would imagine that if the thing you were trying to solder was of any size
(mass), they would not make enough watts of heat to get it up to
temperature, within any reasonable time.

Anyone have one, or seen one in action?

I think it's called Cold Heat, I've been eyeing it for awhile now
myself, but I think I'll wait 'til I get a few good pireps on them
first :^)

The Monk

I can't imagine how those would work worth a damn.

Your imagination is accurate, as one with any soldering experience might
guess.

My sister gave me one last year; it is useless.

However, one of the best soldering tools I have (besides my temperature
controlled Weller) is a small butane iron I got from Radio Snack many years
ago. Highly portable and reliable.

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 17:46:58 GMT, Jack wrote:

Tom Conner wrote:

Personally, I think the mindset required to master the technical details
associated with learning to fly is similar to the mindset needed to get an
engineering degree.

I hope not.

Not being an engineer, my perception of what it would involve might turn
me to the law instead. The flying mindset could be related to both, I
suppose, but I am thankful I never had to find out first-hand.

I doubt there is much in flying for a pilot that even relates to
engineering, at least I see no correlation.

"To me":
Stick-and-rudder flying is an art and it is learned as a harmony of
the senses. Sight, sound, balance. A good stick-and-rudder pilot
needs little else.

Sure there is the book stuff needed to learn the regulations which is
no different than any other discipline, but it technical or business.
They both have their rules and regulations.

About the only real calculations are for distance. If a person can
understand a wing can go through the air at an angle rather than
straight then they can understand angle of attack. When you are
pushing the limits for the AOA you can feel it regardless of speed,
direction, or attitude. In relatively simple planes including most
high performance singles, you don't need an indicator to tell you
when your are getting near the edge. You really don't need a stall
warning indicator either.

Flight planning is little different than creating a spread sheet and
one whale of a lot easier than creating a relational database.

If you really want to pick nits and call it technical, a pilot needs
to learn to think in terms of time traveled instead of distance and we
have a lot of seasoned pilots who have failed at this, but overall it
is no more technical than any business course.

I had far more math in CS than it took to get my PPL.

Even creating an IFR flight plan, It consists of "abouts" .
Well, to the first intersection its 20 miles SW with the wind from the
south with our cruising speed we'll be getting "about"180 MPH. That's
3 miles per minute so that leg will be about 7 minutes or slightly
less. Heading? Oh...bout 10 degrees left of course then we'll see if
we need to make any corrections.

Except for training and for the check ride I've never done it any
other way. Actually on the check ride the winds were different than
forecast and I reverted to the ... Wellll...the winds are higher than
expected and it's causing us to parallel the desired course so we need
about another 30 degrees to intercept and then back to this heading to
hold course. It also means we'll need a heading about 30 to 40 degrees
right of course when heading north. So, even on the check ride a good
portion was "abouts".

If we use common sense there are no normal flight figures that require
any knowledge at the engineering level.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Jack

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 13:04:58 GMT, Matt Whiting
wrote:

Jack wrote:
Matt Whiting wrote:

I'm curious, what is your perception of what engineering involves?


Not flying.

Interesting. Of all of my flying colleagues where I work, I think more
are engineers than any other field.

Certainly! Where else can you find so many different toys in one
package?

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Matt

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 01:19:04 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote:


"RST Engineering" wrote

You can tell a PhD in Engineering today from the soldering iron burns on
his hands -- they don't know which end gets hot.

Then they need to get those new "cool" soldering irons, they advertise on TV
all of the time.

I can't imagine how those would work worth a damn. What do they have in
them? My guess is a small, low mass filament, almost like a light bulb. I
would imagine that if the thing you were trying to solder was of any size
(mass), they would not make enough watts of heat to get it up to
temperature, within any reasonable time.

Anyone have one, or seen one in action?

Two electrodes. (You can't get much simpler than that) You short them
together with what every you want to melt. That's assuming what ever
it is melts at less than the electrodes and the really wild assumption
that it'd have enough power to do so. :-))

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

George Patterson wrote:
Jay Honeck wrote:

So what's the solution? How do we make flying more feminine? How do
we attract females to the airport?


Well, the first step is to make the pre-flight inspection something that
can be done in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.

I could do this with my Cessna, pretty hard with the under-wing Piper
sumps and gear to check. :-)


Matt

So what's the solution? How do we make flying more feminine? How do
we attract females to the airport?

Probably the same way you make motorcycling more feminine.

Jose
--
You can choose whom to befriend, but you cannot choose whom to love.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.