Edwards air show B-1 speed record attempt

Pat Norton wrote:
Michael Williamson wrote:

US military airports now give Terminal Area Forecast
visibility in metres. All without a fuss.

In some cases they might, but the last time I got ATIS
here at Davis Monthan AFB, visibility was in nautical miles


You may be thinking of the METAR rather than TAF. In any case, METARS
use statute miles not nautical miles.

I have just been given the following TAF for Davis Monthan AFB
(visibility in meters):
KDMA 280505 14006KT 9999 BKN290 QNH2990INS WND VRB06KT AFT 17 T29/23Z
T13/13Z

Can you check again?

I do believe that you are correct on the statute miles vs. nautical
miles. As for checking, the evil schedulers cancelled my flight for
today, so I didn't see the weather briefing sheet. We don't use
either TAFs or METARs directly- we request a 175-1 (weather briefing
form) or verbal briefing from the weather shop and always receive
visibility in miles. ATIS also always gives prevailing visibility
in miles. I've never heard it (in the US) given in meters on the
ATIS (recorded weather and airfield information transmitted at
most airfields).

Mike

Howdy!

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 10:01:14 -0700, (Harry
Andreas) wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

In other words, was Harry Andreas telling you that this standard size
isn't really 1.75 mm = 44.45 mm, but rather 45 mm = 1 98/127 in or
about 1.77 in? That's what it sounds like to me, but I don't know if
that is the case or not.

I almost don't want to go here, but... a 2 x 4 piece of lumber is really
only 1.75 x 3.75, and I've seen some that are only 1.5 x 3.5

If you want a 2x4 that's really 2"x4", you have to buy a 8/4x16/4.
There are two size systems that I'm familiar with for buying wood.

....and that doesn't quite work that way either.

Wood sized in quarters (4/4, 5/4, 6/4, etc) is only giving the thickness
of the rough plank. An 8/4 plank will be at least two inches thick, and
often a bit over. The promise is that you can a certain minimum
finished thickness out of such a plank. 4/4 rough promises 3/4 finished.

Quarter-sized wood is sold by the board foot. You get so many feet by
so much width of x/4.


One, in inches, uses the unfinished size as nominal, but finishing
uses 1/8" for each size, so the actual size is a quarter-inch
undersized in each direction. This system is used mostly for lumber
like Douglas fir, pine, etc. You frame houses with such wood.

Actually, for wider planks, the underage goes up. A 1x8 is 7 1/4 inches
wide, not 7 1/2 (and the usual underage for smaller sizes is 1/2 inch,
not 1/4).


The other, in quarters, uses the finished size as nominal. However,
it's only used for hardwood of fairly high grade, that's bought by
cabinet makers, etc. You make fine furniture with such wood.

Then there's metric, about which I know very little except that there
are common sizes that correspond to the old standards like 2x4, 2x6,
and so on. Whether they use the finished or unfinished size is not
something I know.

yours,
Michael
--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
| White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
| http://www.radix.net/~herveus/

Jo Stoller wrote:
"The court heard he had miscalculated the conversion
from US gallons to litres

Here are two mo


www.ntsb.gov/alj/O_n_O/docs/AVIATION/4510.pdf
"the shipper's weights had been in kilograms, not pounds, and that, as
a result, the aircraft was more than 30,000 pounds overweight"

In article ,
Alan Minyard wrote:

Statement 1:
Well, the US has, unquestionably, the most advanced scientific
system in the world, the US economy (GDP) is much larger than
any other, etc, etc.

Statement 2:
It does not appear that the unit of measure is
"broken".

There is no relation between these two statements. No one, not even
you, have a clue to what the US GDP would have been today if the US
had gone through with the decision to go metric.

--
Göran Larsson http://www.mitt-eget.com/

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:49:35 GMT, lid (Goran Larsson) wrote:

In article ,
Alan Minyard wrote:

Statement 1:
Well, the US has, unquestionably, the most advanced scientific
system in the world, the US economy (GDP) is much larger than
any other, etc, etc.

Statement 2:
It does not appear that the unit of measure is
"broken".

There is no relation between these two statements. No one, not even
you, have a clue to what the US GDP would have been today if the US
had gone through with the decision to go metric.

What I am saying is that, if the countries that use the metric (misnomer)
system were so superior, they would be the leading economies, they
are not. If the US had "gone metric" there would have been significant
economic damage for a long period of time.

At one time gasoline stations sold fuel by the liter and speed limits
were posted in KPH. The citizens of the US did not like, and refused
to tolerate, such usages.

Al Minyard

In message , Alan Minyard
writes
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:49:35 GMT, lid (Goran Larsson) wrote:
There is no relation between these two statements. No one, not even
you, have a clue to what the US GDP would have been today if the US
had gone through with the decision to go metric.

What I am saying is that, if the countries that use the metric (misnomer)
system were so superior, they would be the leading economies, they
are not. If the US had "gone metric" there would have been significant
economic damage for a long period of time.

Why? It's hardly catastrophic. British industry had far worse problems
than "changing units", for an example.

Having been trained in both, it really is a lot easier to do serious
work in SI than to try to work out whether a reference to "pounds" means
pounds, poundals or slugs...

On the other hand, we still buy beer in pints (even if it's officially
..568 litre measures) and measure distance in miles.


One of the more interesting summer work placements I had was rigging up
a gas-turbine engine to run on a novel fuel. One challenge was simply
trying to cope with the multiple screw threads used for the holes
already drilled and tapped: some US, some Whitworth, some ISO.

If the US wants its measurement system to prosper, you need to make it a
_lot_ easier to find the relevant taps, dies and fasteners. Muttering
that the rest of the world ought to do it your way is useless: make your
standard easy to use or see how young engineers drill and tap new holes
for threads they _can_ get easily.

At one time gasoline stations sold fuel by the liter and speed limits
were posted in KPH. The citizens of the US did not like, and refused
to tolerate, such usages.

At what point does this stop being a noble defence of fine units, and
start being King Canute ordering the rising tide to retreat?



--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

At what point does this stop being a noble defence of fine units, and
start being King Canute ordering the rising tide to retreat?

Well that depends on whether it is rising in feet or meters :-)))

OK, end of thread.

Al Minyard