How much longer?

One thing I have noticed at the lake we frequent: The nearby marina
day-use docks used to be filled every weekend with the "big boat" crowd
from the town about 25 miles up the lake. Now there's always room for
our little 18-footer. I think those folks realized that it's a couple
hundred dollars for the fuel to get to and from. They're just hanging
out in their slips instead and not starting those engines.

Kind of similar to the $100-200 hamburger flight.

Al
Spokane Wa
1964 Skyhawk

Jay Honeck schrieb:
An interesting question to ponder: At what price point do the masses rise
up and over-ride the environmentalist rules that currently restrict the
process?
whatever the price is: what will mankind do after that? you're only moving
the finding of a solution to later generations.

So....you're saying we should not look for more oil?

haven't said that. but oil is a finite ressource (whenever you believe
this will be). We can all make our economy more healthy if it does not
solely run on oil.

Move the pain up
sooner? Leave the oil in the ground and force the collapse to happen
sooner?

you'll die without oil?

I should think we'd be better off to not destroy our world economy. My
parents lived through the Great Depression, and it doesn't sound like
something to aspire to...

one day you might find out that you can't drink oil. the point is: as
long as there is good evidence for having oil for another decades start
NOW looking for alternative sources (not other oil sources, other
sources of producing energy). And start conserving. I bet you will be
ahead of costs in a couple of years in your hotel if you start
conserving energy (investing in things like insulation etc.) without
losing comfort.

#m

On 2008-04-07, Mike Isaksen wrote:

"Alan" wrote ...
Bertie the Bunyip writes:
I will fly as long as there is air. Gasoline be damned.
I started without it and I'll finish withour if needs be.

You say you started without - how?
Even gliders seem to need tows.

Maybe he'll build an electric motor rope launch skid powered by wind
turbines.

You don't even need a winch. Just find a suitable hill and bungee launch
off it - it's *people* giving the initial run of energy for the glider.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6-EeuEi-KY

In any case, a winch is quite frugal, our Jaguar 4.2L based winch uses less
than 1/3rd gallon to launch a glider (in comparison, an aerotow to 2000'
uses about 2 gal). An electric winch would be even better - electric
motors have ideal characteristics for winch launching since they have
huge amounts of torque at low RPM, so it would give a really good pull
from a standing start. The challenge in building an electric winch is
the cost. Building a gasoline powered winch is cheap - a 6 or 8 cylinder
engine out of a scrapped car costs very little and works very well. The
batteries for an electric winch would be expensive however you cut it,
without getting on to obtaining a suitable traction motor.

Finally, there's always hang gliding. Find a suitable slope, and run
into the wind. Of course this demands a certain level of fitness that
seems to be absent from a large proportion of the population.

--
From the sunny Isle of Man.
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.

On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:13:56 -0400, John Smith wrote:

Not really. I never had a speck of trouble in 900 hours with a 172RG,
which has the same gear. Do proper maintenance (you'd do that anyway,
right?) and it will be fine.

Dan, time to send Jay some photos of the "new" plane for the Rogue's
Gallery.

I did; months ago.

--
Dan
T182T at 4R4

On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:01:26 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

At what level of soreness do you wake up and realize how hard the
petroleum economy is f***ing you?

Um, apropos of what, exactly?

Your blindness to what it's really costing you, Jay.

Apparently you have no problem adding more hidden costs--on top of the
massive price of U. S. military adventures in the Middle East--by
allowing refiners to pollute the air and water. Not everything you
pay is at the pump.

It's time we got off the oil tit. If you think it's expensive now,
wait till China, and then India, surpass the U. S. as petroleum
consumers.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed121507b.cfm

On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:00:35 GMT, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

I just hung up mine... at least for the time being. I can no longer
afford to fly as a hobby.

I know, Dean. Yours was the impetus for my thread.

And you're not alone. I see an awful lot fewer folks at the airport
nowadays.

I waited 6 years for a T-hangar at 4R4. Now there are vacancies.

--
Dan
T182T at 4R4

It's time we got off the oil tit. If you think it's expensive now,
wait till China, and then India, surpass the U. S. as petroleum
consumers.

As much as I agree, this is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. What's
the alternative? We're going to need oil for the foreseeable future, and
hand-wringing isn't going to change that.

I, for one, am not willing to see my kids grow up in a world that has been
reduced to economic squalor simply to benefit a "green agenda". At some
point, probably when food and transportation costs are unaffordable due to
unreasonable environmentalist restrictions on research, the electorate will
rise up and overthrow the politicians who have created this mess. Only
then will we see fuel prices stabilize.

It will be an ugly time, I fear.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Let me see.....how many pints equals 1 hour of flight time?

Back in "the day" I could get about 30 minutes of flight time in a clapped
out Cherokee 140 for a unit of plasma.

Now, that's probably down to 15 minutes...although I haven't checked the
price of plasma in the last decade...

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Move the pain up sooner? Leave the oil in the ground and force the
collapse to happen sooner?

you'll die without oil?

I don't think you've thought this all the way through, Martin. The affect
on the world economy of $100/barrel oil prices is staggering. The recent
run-up in gas prices alone has thrown the U.S. into a major (if
media-enhanced) recession.

Trillions of dollars that were being spent on, oh, say, *food*, is now being
spent on oil. The economy can't make that up instantly or fully,
translating into terrible hardship for common folks.

An example close to home: Our employees have been hit terribly hard by the
decades-old decision to not develop our domestic oil reserves.
Housekeepers, desk staff, and other entry-level jobs don't pay exceptionally
well in the best of times, and no one has received a raise to "make up" for
the sudden doubling of energy costs. EVERYTHING -- gasoline, heat, air
conditioning, (and, thus, rent, food, clothes, etc.) -- has gone up in cost
dramatically, causing them extreme hardship. I see and hear about it every
day.

Unfortunately, there is no way for me to raise their pay to match, because
no one is willing to pay more for a hotel room during an economic downturn.
As business drops, there is LESS money with which to pay employees, and the
downward spiral can really get wound up tightly.

And it's only just begun. Thanks to the short-sighted policies of people
who put the well-being of polar bears ahead of people, we haven't developed
our Alaskan oil reserves. Thanks to the short-sighted policies of people
who fear marring the beauty of the Rocky Mountains (as if we *could*), we
have not developed our Colorado oil reserves. And the Canadian oil shale
reserves. And the off-shore reserves.

The list goes on and on. My father was in the energy business his whole
life, and predicted this exact scenario almost 40 years ago. He called it
the "environmentalist's energy crisis", and -- although he predicted the
collapse for the year 2000 -- he was only off by a decade or so.

You may wish to ponder this, Martin. You're well protected from a backlash,
sitting in Austria, but at some point people around the world -- stupid,
slow, and easily kept in the dark for short periods -- are going to wake up
to the fact that their economic hard times are due to people who think like
*you*.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Dan, time to send Jay some photos of the "new" plane for the Rogue's
Gallery.

I did; months ago.

Sorry, guys. I "lost that lovin' feelin'" for the 'groups -- and, thus, the
Rogue's Gallery -- after the trolls took over. When most of the regulars
were driven off the groups, there didn't seem much point in maintaining the
gallery anymore.

Gee, maybe we should add pictures of the trolls to the gallery? If anyone
has any pictures they'd like to submit of, oh, say, a bunyip, I'd be glad to
add them.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"