FYI: Dec 12 MythBusters: Airplane Hour

On Dec 13, 4:11 am, James Sleeman wrote:
On Dec 13, 10:19 pm, James Sleeman wrote:

For those outside the US, you can find it with a search for
mythbusters on piratebay.org now, but you didn't hear that from me.

Argh, before anybody else does, don't bother if you're only wanting
plane ona treadmill, because, they dropped it from the episode.
Quoting from the MythBusters forum...

--- Begin Quote ---

I have just received an email from Dan Tapster, executive producer of
MythBusters.

Thanks to all the activity, he can't log in and asked me to post this
for him.

quote:
"Adam? Jamie? Dan? Someone step up and tell us what happened tonight."

Dear all,

As wbarnhill called out, I thought I should step in to what is rapidly
becoming a hornet's nest. I will try to calm things down but I don't
hold out much hope!

First up, for those concerned that this story has been cancelled,
don't worry, planes on a conveyer belt has been filmed, is
spectacular, and will be part of what us Mythbusters refer to as
'episode 97'. Currently that is due to air on January 30th.

Secondly, for those very aggrieved fans feeling "duped" into watching
tonight's show, I can only apologise. I'm not sure why the listings /
internet advertised that tonight's show contained POCB. I will
endeavour to find out an answer but for those conspiracy theorists
amongst you, I can assure you that it will have just been an honest
mistake. At one point
several months ago, POCB was going to be part of Airplane Hour.
Somewhere, someone has mistakenly posted the wrong listing. It will
have been a genuine mistake but nonetheless it was a mistake which is
unacceptable. As said I will try to find out what went wrong and hope
that you will see fit to forgive the team at Discovery.

Thanks in advance,

Dan

And with that, the entire board is going "READ ONLY" until I can clean
up the mess.

MythMod

--- End Quote ---

I want the treadmill..... I want the treadmill.... :)).

Lil ben

"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
...
They tried, in one previous show, to duplicate the old cartoon shotgun
barrel blow up with the barrel unwinding. They tried to use modern
shotguns
which are made from solid tubular steel. Shotguns made before about 1920
were generally made by wrapping steel wire around a mandrel and using the
old blacksmith welding with a hammer and anvil.
Those barrels would have flaws and weak spots.

More like 1880 than 1920.

"Damascus" barrels were not really produced after the 1880's or so, long
before the introduction of smokeless powder around 1900. Smokeless powder
would easily destroy such a barrel.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Robert M. Gary writes:

I have no doubt that our buddy from France firmly believes he can
land a 747 if necessary. In fact he's done it hundreds of times.

If the airplane is normally airworthy and with the use of automation,
I have virtually no doubt of it.

I have no doubt either. you'd crash.

Bertie

On Dec 13, 3:11 am, James Sleeman wrote:
On Dec 13, 10:19 pm, James Sleeman wrote:

For those outside the US, you can find it with a search for
mythbusters on piratebay.org now, but you didn't hear that from me.

Argh, before anybody else does, don't bother if you're only wanting
plane ona treadmill, because, they dropped it from the episode.
Quoting from the MythBusters forum...

--- Begin Quote ---

I have just received an email from Dan Tapster, executive producer of
MythBusters.

Thanks to all the activity, he can't log in and asked me to post this
for him.

quote:
"Adam? Jamie? Dan? Someone step up and tell us what happened tonight."

Dear all,

As wbarnhill called out, I thought I should step in to what is rapidly
becoming a hornet's nest. I will try to calm things down but I don't
hold out much hope!

First up, for those concerned that this story has been cancelled,
don't worry, planes on a conveyer belt has been filmed, is
spectacular, and will be part of what us Mythbusters refer to as
'episode 97'. Currently that is due to air on January 30th.

Secondly, for those very aggrieved fans feeling "duped" into watching
tonight's show, I can only apologise. I'm not sure why the listings /
internet advertised that tonight's show contained POCB. I will
endeavour to find out an answer but for those conspiracy theorists
amongst you, I can assure you that it will have just been an honest
mistake. At one point
several months ago, POCB was going to be part of Airplane Hour.
Somewhere, someone has mistakenly posted the wrong listing. It will
have been a genuine mistake but nonetheless it was a mistake which is
unacceptable. As said I will try to find out what went wrong and hope
that you will see fit to forgive the team at Discovery.

Thanks in advance,

Dan

And with that, the entire board is going "READ ONLY" until I can clean
up the mess.

MythMod

--- End Quote ---

Aha! It is a conspiracy. If it weren't they wouldn't be trying to
deny it!
I wasted an evening waiting for 10 p.m., went through a 6 pack...oops
I guess it wasn't 'wasted' after all.

Harry K
Looking forward to Jan 30th.

Mark Hickey wrote in
:

"Casey Wilson" wrote:


"Newps" wrote in message
m...

johnsonbomb wrote:

Dude, it's mythbusters. These guys are freaking brilliant and they
will cover this thing from all angles. I can assure you.

yeah, like when they shot frozen chickens thru a Cherokee windshield
and applied the results to airliners. Brilliant.

But they did do a mostly reasonable job with piercing the skin of a
pressurized fuselage with a 9mm. The shaped charge part was hokey.

And frightening. I think the results of the "experiment" caught
everyone off-guard. I know I for one have resolved to NEVER, EVER
place a shaped charge against the wall of an aircraft I'm flying on.

Wouldn't be a surprise to antone familiar with the damage that can be
caused by a tear in the wrong spot on most any pressurised fuselage. the
damage caused by a simple tear can easily break an airplane in two. Just
ask DeHavillands...

there have been a number of airplanes lost over the years due to a simple
crack that grew rapidly...


Bertie

On Dec 11, 1:07 pm, Jim Logajan wrote:
wrote:
John, I would agree these guys are fun to watch, but their
experimental designs are often sophomoric. If they worked in my lab
they'd get retrained, or fired.

They are special effects guys, aren't they? They are good at that, and
great at entertainment, but the 'science' I'd seen on some of their
shows made my hair hurt.

Boy - do I disagree with you! I say they _are_ doing science. "Full
Stop." ;-) Here's one checklist for some of the essentials that define
scientific methods of experiments (all IMHO of course):

0) State the nature of the question to be resolved.
Check.
0.5) Write proposal/grant request and do resource budgeting.
Partial Check. ;-)
1) (Mostly optional) Design and build preliminary small scale
experiments where possible.
Check.
2) Make predictions on expected results of small scale experiments.
Check.
3) Run preliminary experiments, record observations, and compare with
expectations.
Check.
4) Run experimental controls (i.e. factor being tested is absent or
otherwise not applied) if at all possible and/or relevant.
Check.
5) Run steps 1 through 4, but using larger or "full" scale.
Check.
6) Compare observations with the original question and attempt to draw
conclusions.
Check.
7) Publish the way the experiment was preformed and the reasoning used
in drawing the conclusions. This should give others enough
information to either replicate the results, critical review the
experimental methods used and the reasoning applied in the
conclusions.
Check (done via their show and their fan site feedback forums).

Last I looked, real science isn't defined by how "clean" the experiments
are but by the methodology employed. On that basis I'd say they show
_real_ science as it really is because they show how difficult or
ambiguous it can be at times, not how wonderfully elegant it is (because
often it isn't). As far as credentials go - if the methodology is
basically correct then I think the main value added by credentials is
that it reduces the probability any given experiment will be
"sophomoric" or poorly designed. It also reduces the need to do
experiments in the first place, because as the old saying goes:

"A couple of months in the laboratory saves spending a couple hours in
the library."

But of course their show isn't about saving time in the library. ;-)

But hell, if I could have as much fun as they seem to, I wouldn't care
that the science part was weak.

Well, I don't think they have to put together grant proposals, so yeah,
lots of fun if someone else is bankrolling your efforts! On the other
hand they do have restrictions on time and budget. Just like real
scientists do! :-)

Jim, who cares about scientific process ? That redhead is cute . In
previous episodes I have seen her doing some welding and machining. My
kind of woman.
FB

On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?

Jim, I caught just the parts of the show where J and A tried to land
the plane with some coaching from the sim instructor (Mainly to see
how the instructor would do this). These portions of the show were
amazingly brief (Possibly for security reasons ?) . The stuff they did
show was scary and I doubt they could have gotten awhay with some of
it in a real plane. I do watch the show for its "Infotaiment" value
but I remain unconvinced that someone could actually be talked down in
an airliner. I think it has been tried a time or two in GA after the
pilot became incapacitated.
FB

F. Baum wrote:
On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:
What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?

Jim, I caught just the parts of the show where J and A tried to land
the plane with some coaching from the sim instructor (Mainly to see
how the instructor would do this). These portions of the show were
amazingly brief (Possibly for security reasons ?) . The stuff they did
show was scary and I doubt they could have gotten awhay with some of
it in a real plane. I do watch the show for its "Infotaiment" value
but I remain unconvinced that someone could actually be talked down in
an airliner. I think it has been tried a time or two in GA after the
pilot became incapacitated.
FB
The big rub in the equation are of course the variables. They are HUGE
in this equation and any one of them could take out the airplane.
Just off the top of my head, one has to factor in the EXACT aircraft in
the scenario, as each airline has the option to customize their cockpits
to whatever the chief pilot wanted installed at the time of the contract
signing with the manufacturer. This aspect alone might well require a
company pilot completely familiar with the cockpit of THAT specific
airplane, as even in type, changes are made to the cockpit
configurations during a manufacturing run as requested by the front
office, so that you might have one airplane with a switch or lever
"here" and another with it "there".
Then you have the issue of getting this company guy familiar with THIS
cockpit on the radio and in touch with the guy trying to land the airplane.
THEN you need a guy in the cockpit who can not only follow directions
NOW, but follow them CORRECTLY and in real time.
Notice we're talking here about a manually controlled landing. If the
aircraft AND the landing facility are BOTH equipped accordingly,
autoland might be a possibility and negate the manual landing.

All things considered, my vote goes to doing it in the simulator with
the help of the sim instructor but a high risk factor for losing a real
aircraft in the manual mode.
Could be done of course, but I wouldn't want to be a passenger on that
one for sure :-)

--
Dudley Henriques

Matt W. Barrow wrote:
"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
...
They tried, in one previous show, to duplicate the old cartoon shotgun
barrel blow up with the barrel unwinding. They tried to use modern
shotguns
which are made from solid tubular steel. Shotguns made before about 1920
were generally made by wrapping steel wire around a mandrel and using the
old blacksmith welding with a hammer and anvil.
Those barrels would have flaws and weak spots.

More like 1880 than 1920.

"Damascus" barrels were not really produced after the 1880's or so, long
before the introduction of smokeless powder around 1900. Smokeless powder
would easily destroy such a barrel.

Actually it's not the barrels but the chamber that couldn't take the
higher pressure. I know one gunsmith that has somewhat permanently (red
loctite) installed 20 and 28 gage adapters in 12 gage Damascus steel
barrels. The adapter takes the load from firing the cartridge and the
rest of the barrels are strong enough for the rest. This makes for a
heavy low powered shotgun but it also makes a wall-hanger into a useful
piece.

Tony

F. Baum wrote:
On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?


Jim, I caught just the parts of the show where J and A tried to land
the plane with some coaching from the sim instructor (Mainly to see
how the instructor would do this). These portions of the show were
amazingly brief (Possibly for security reasons ?) . The stuff they did
show was scary and I doubt they could have gotten awhay with some of
it in a real plane. I do watch the show for its "Infotaiment" value
but I remain unconvinced that someone could actually be talked down in
an airliner. I think it has been tried a time or two in GA after the
pilot became incapacitated.
FB

I had the opportunity to "fly" a American Airlines F-100 in their full
motion simulator with an instructor. He was able to talk me through a
landing at O'Hare Airport without crashing the airplane. However,
without someone familiar with the aircraft the intimidation of the
lights, buttons, dials, radios, switches, etc would overwhelm anyone.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI