Need help with a rocket motor ID

On Sun, 4 Feb 2007 12:28:20 +1030, "Dave Kearton"
wrote:

wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 02:47:10 GMT, "William R Thompson"
wrote:

I could go on, but I won't. I am the only person in the world
completly happy with both systems, and who thinks they are both
equally screwed up.

Henry H.



We all understand the difficulty of migrating from one system to another.

So, don't migrate, use what suits, which is what people do, anyway.

At least in the U. S. and to my observation, a lot in Europe, too.

I use to be involved with some standards activity. (in ordinary
language, you could have said I was a mermber of a ISO working group).
Some one once told me that the nice thing about standards was that
there were so many everyone could have one of their own. After a
while, I concluded that the result of having more standards ws that
there were more choices, because the old ones don't go away.

So, I went away.


Australia's change to metrics started on the 14th Feb '66 with the change to
decimal currency - dollars and cents. All Aussies over 45 can still
remember the TV jingle. A currency based on multiples of 10 makes more
sense than one based on 12s (unless your family tree doesn't branch)

The US has had decimal currancy for a while.

Once that was achieved, switching to Celsius from Farneheit in the mid '70s
wasn't such of a chore.

The question of temperature scales (very near and dear to me, a
mechanical engineer who is suppose to know about thermodynamics) is
really quite seperate from the "Metric" issue. The original Metric
system didn't even include temperatrue, as the concept was not really
established at that time.

In promoting the Centegrade scale, the proponents tried to paint
Farneheit as being stupid. Who would make a scale that went from 32 to
212 for Gods sake.

Well, he didn't. He had variations as the progresed in his work, but
basiclly he intended to go from zero to 96 degrees. The zero he had a
bit of trouble standardizing, but he intended it to be the coldest
temperature that would be expernced. The 96 was suppose t be avrage
human body temperature. (Why 96? A bit of numerology, apprently, but
it was at least three times a power of two. A power of two is very
handy when you are laying out scales. 100 has no advantage.)

The fact that water freezes at about zero is handy, maybe. But you
have to use negative numbers for ordinary temperatures. Not good in
Farneheit's day.

Water boiling is not really very relevant.

Neither the freezing point or the boiling point have actually be the
definitions of the scale for almost almost as long as the scale has
existed.

The actual definitions now are that there is only one refernce point
and that is zero, absolute. The "Celsius" scale is defined in terms of
the "Kelvin" or "degree" to ordinary people. The only difference in
that and Farneheit now is that a Farneheit degree is 1/1.8 times the
size of a Kelvin. Big deal.

What is the boiling point of LOX? Who cares what the scale is?


At one point, for a couple of years in the early '80s, as I recall, it was
illegal to posess for sale rulers with imperial units on them. It was
a ridiculous and draconian measure - but effective in getting some of the
older farts to consider using metric units.


Ridiculous and draconian measure, I say. The law is a fool, I say.




Road signs and speeds followed next, closely followed by weights and
measures in general. All up, the conversion for the general public
was completed by the mid '80s, I'd imagine it was completed a lot faster in
specialist industries.

Specialist industries in the US converted any time they wanted to, and
many, like the drug industry, have been metric forever.


The US had a fit of metrication fever about the same time. It got as
for as putting up a few speed limit signs. And "kilometer" posts.


When people saw those, the said what the F*** is this, and when they
figureed out how much money this was going to cost, most states said
"Forget it."

That was one of those "unfunded mandates" (that is not the right term,
maybe). The Federal government mandated it, but the states were going
to have to pay for it.

I live near the state of Deleware. They not only have mile posts on
their turnpike, they have kilo posts, too. In fact, they have HALF
kilo posts! Deleware is so small you can almost see all of them at
once. There are about 20 or 30 of them.

(I am not really sure about the mile posts. They may have the speed
limit signs in mph and kph also. They can if they want to.)


One thing that I find quirky with the US metric experience is your parochial
spelling of metric units. Whereas the rest of the world has adopted
the original spelling of Litre, Metre etc, why does the US prefer to use
the 'er spelling ?


I don't really remember. That has been going on for at least 150
years.

I think it has something to do with the idea that we speak, more or
less, English here. And we couldn't pronounce "metre."

I think that the US was the first country other than France to adopt
the meter/metre. A long time before the British. We just didn't make
it mandantory.

A few years ago, the inch was redefined so that it is now 2.54 cm,
EXACTLY. You just don't have to say it in cm. When that happened, the
US shrank by 20 feet. No big deal except to those with beach property.

In the metrication exercise, there was one part of it that did "catch
on." That was that the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms)
did mandate compulsory metric bottle sizes for all Alcoholic
beverages.

Of course, they completly screwed it up. Actually, they jsut made
brand new metric sizes for the old bottle sizes. So they are metric,
but wierd metric.

The main size is 750 ml, which is very close to the old 4/5 US quart
size (746 ml, IIRC). Not worth the effort. "Twice" that is not 1.5 l.,
as you might suppose, but accordign to the BATF is 1.75 l. Beats me.
Just makes it hard to compare prices.

The people who squeeled the loudest? The French wine industry, who not
only had to change bottle sizes, they had to have STANDARD sizes. 200
years and there was not a standard size for wine bottles!

The French said that was because the wine bottle was a standard in its
self, the perfect size for two people to consume at a meal! Known to
them, even if not to you.

There are several "funny" thing about the liter/litre. It has driven
the SI guys, who have a lot of time on thier hands, in to various fits
of stupid.

It is not as simple as I once thought, but the liter got "double
defined" like a lot of other stuff in the orginal metric system.

The kilometer was the orignal "base" unit, and was 1/40000 the Earths
circumference, (Paris meridian, of course. )

Before they even got the survey done, the scratched lines on a bar for
a "practical standard". Of course, those don't agree, and on, and on.

The kilogram was based on the weight (or mass, take your pick) of
1/1000 of a cubic meter.

The liter was either 1/1000 o f a cubic meter or the volume of one
kilogram of water, it fluctuated. And, those were not the same, of
course.

Just a few years ago, the SI banned the liter entirely. No matter how
you spelled I think maybe it was out for 6 years.

Then they let it back in, with the cobic meter definition.

The other oddity of the liter/liter is that the SI says you cannot
abreviate it except as "l.". Even though that is very confusing to
read often. "L." is not allowed because capitals are resereved for
units that are named for people.

Some genius tried to fix that by submitting a bio of Andre Litre, the
great physicist who was a the son of a wine merchant. The Si woudn't
by it. No sense of humor.

After haveing been following measurement issues for about 100 years, I
got a big surprise lately when I discovred the explanation for the
size of the US gallon. I always thought it was just dumb. 231 cubic
inches. I had read somewere that the people responsible for the
British standars at one time just happened to have a nice cup that
size.

Not so. In Queen Anne's day, there were several gallons, various
sizes, used for various things in various parts of Britian. So , Queen
Anne, or her agents, decided to have a new standard, so that there
would be one more gallon, "Queen Anne's Wine Gallon."

In order to demonstrate their scientific talents they defined that as
exactly the volume of a cylinder seven inches in diameter and six
inches hight. They picked those numbers because using them, you get an
exact whole number for the volume. 231 cubic inches! They also defined
the gallon as just that, 231 cubic inches.

Problem was, those are only the same on days when pi is equal to 22/7.
Most days, pi is closer to 355/113/

That is a differnence of 0.1 cubic incehs, or something. OH, well.

Later, after we ran them off, the British tried to catch up with the
French by defining yet another gallon, This one equal in volume to 10
pounds of water, at some conditions.

Well, happy metrication, and have a good 1/365.24 of a mean solar
year.

Henry H.

wrote in message
...
On Sun, 4 Feb 2007 12:28:20 +1030, "Dave Kearton"
wrote:

Well, happy metrication, and have a good 1/365.24 of a mean solar
year.

Henry H.



If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!



- Rudmetre Kipling (1865-1936)




--

Cheers

Dave Kearton

wrote in message
...
On Sun, 4 Feb 2007 12:28:20 +1030, "Dave Kearton"
wrote:

Well, happy metrication, and have a good 1/365.24 of a mean solar
year.

Henry H.



If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!



- Rudmetre Kipling (1865-1936)




--

Cheers

Dave Kearton

On 3 Feb 2007 00:12:02 -0600, jc wrote:

On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 18:38:32 +1030, "Dave Kearton"
wrote:
[snip]



The other thing is the way the fluid lines wrap around the
can looks like preheat to me. That either means a fuel that
doesn't vaporize easily, like kerosene, or a cold soaked
environment. That goes along with the idea that it's
designed for vacuum.

Well, yes. It does preheat the propellant.

But that is not the main idea, or usually isn't.

Almost all liquid propellant rockets are "regen" cooled. That keeps
them from melting down and burning through.

All your usual engines are like thta. Atlas, Delta, F-1, SSME, etc.

American LOX/RP engines use RP cooling. the temp rise is fairly small,
doesn't have much effect on combustion. Note that the engine has to
start so it has to run on "cold" propellant.

It is a bit different with LOX/LH2 engines. In fact, AFAIK, there are
NO "LH2" engines. The hydrogen picks up enough heat in the jacket so
that it enters the combustion chamber as a gas.

One of those engines, the P&W RL-10, the Centaur engine runs the H2
thru a turbine which drives the turbo pump. They call it the "expander
cycle."

At one time, there was a great series of studies of new engine
designs, and P&W was pushing "their" expander cycle. One of the
advantages they claimed was that the expander cycle has "graceful
degradation." Say you get a hot sopt in the jacket and it starts to
burn through (just the inner wall). That cuts the flow to the trubine
which reduces the heat flux and stops the burn through.

That sounded good. As as vehicle design team participant in the study,
I backed them all I could. For my own vested interests.

It turned out that P&W could find no other mode that the expander was
more graceful at than the competing "GG" cycle, And, the GG cycle was
not at all prone to burn thru. So it was something like a protection
agains a problem that you were causing.

P&W and I gracefully degraded, together.

Henry H.



[snip]

On 3 Feb 2007 00:12:02 -0600, jc wrote:

On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 18:38:32 +1030, "Dave Kearton"
wrote:
[snip]



The other thing is the way the fluid lines wrap around the
can looks like preheat to me. That either means a fuel that
doesn't vaporize easily, like kerosene, or a cold soaked
environment. That goes along with the idea that it's
designed for vacuum.

Well, yes. It does preheat the propellant.

But that is not the main idea, or usually isn't.

Almost all liquid propellant rockets are "regen" cooled. That keeps
them from melting down and burning through.

All your usual engines are like thta. Atlas, Delta, F-1, SSME, etc.

American LOX/RP engines use RP cooling. the temp rise is fairly small,
doesn't have much effect on combustion. Note that the engine has to
start so it has to run on "cold" propellant.

It is a bit different with LOX/LH2 engines. In fact, AFAIK, there are
NO "LH2" engines. The hydrogen picks up enough heat in the jacket so
that it enters the combustion chamber as a gas.

One of those engines, the P&W RL-10, the Centaur engine runs the H2
thru a turbine which drives the turbo pump. They call it the "expander
cycle."

At one time, there was a great series of studies of new engine
designs, and P&W was pushing "their" expander cycle. One of the
advantages they claimed was that the expander cycle has "graceful
degradation." Say you get a hot sopt in the jacket and it starts to
burn through (just the inner wall). That cuts the flow to the trubine
which reduces the heat flux and stops the burn through.

That sounded good. As as vehicle design team participant in the study,
I backed them all I could. For my own vested interests.

It turned out that P&W could find no other mode that the expander was
more graceful at than the competing "GG" cycle, And, the GG cycle was
not at all prone to burn thru. So it was something like a protection
agains a problem that you were causing.

P&W and I gracefully degraded, together.

Henry H.



[snip]

On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 03:40:31 GMT, "William R Thompson"
wrote:

Henry_H@Q_wrote:

I see that there was a lot of discussion I didn't read. I am glad to
see that the source was tracked down. But, I am I bit surprised to see
it was from Rocketdyne.

It looks like someone issued specs that said, basically, "make it
reliable and simple, and don't worry too much about the weight."

As I said, it doesn't look like it goes to far "up the stack". I
though about it being an "airplane" but I couldn't imagine which one.

But, it looks better, "all dressed up."

(For airplanes, RATO lost out to the army developed "JATO" solid
propellant "boosters.")

I can see why. RATO could be throttled and restarted, but I think
the only application anyone saw for that was in seaplane take-offs.
JATO looks a lot less maintenance-intense than RATO (see attached
picture).

Hey, looks simple to me! I have done my tour on both the liquid and
solid fronts. Both have advantages, both have problems. I will take
the liquid problems any day. But, I am in the minority it seems.

I think it turns out that rockets are much to expensive for general
use whether they are liguid or solid.

I meant to say that although Truax didn't have the right answer for
airplanes, that work lead drrectly on to the whole world of hypergols
in the US, many, many vehicles and engine/motors.


T-Stoff, was a mixture of 80% hydrogen peroxide plus
oxyquinoline or phosphate as a stabilizer. [most of the other 20
percent would have been water. _hh]

And that

C-Stoff was a mixture of 57% methanol + 30% hydrazine hydrate + 13%
water, with
traces of either cupro-potassium cyanide or copper oxide (probably as
a stabilizer).

I accept those as being correct. Methanol the kind of stuff you would
want as a fuel. The hydrazine hydrate would be added to provide
"smooth combustion" and the water may have resulted from using the
highest concentration of hydrazine hydrate that was available, or
possibly it was just added as coolant.

(Usually wiki is a really good place for this kind of stuff, but I
didn't find the exact numbers there)

Those are the same figures in Sutton's "Rocket Propulsion Elements."
I figure that Mano Zeigler gave different numbers in "Rocket Fighter"
due to conditions in Axisland--with the Allies bombing their plants
and supply lines, they may have had to settle for anything that could
flow through the lines and burn.


If I remember the book, and I am pretty sure I do, it was sort of a
"quick and dirty" account based on very limited sources. I think I
first read it myself only a couple of years after the war, so it has
been around a while. A lot of documentation dhowed up later that the
author didn't have then.


It is hard to find people in the rocket biz that have had long term
exposure to hydrazine that have not also be exposed to N2O4 so when
there are stories about long term effects, you don't know which to
blame. But I will take the alternative to "in a couple of more days,
they die." Better chronic than prompt.

As I recall, Vance Brand passed out from exposure to dumped fuels
during the Apollo-18/ASTP descent, and the crew was taken to the
hospital afterward. They didn't seem to suffer any long-term effects.


I remember somethign about tat, but I don't even know as much as you
said.

(In ordnance circles, I got into this thing of distinguishing between
"high order" explosions or "detonations" and "low order" explosions or
deflagrations. Then there are "no yield" ones, like tank ruptures. I
use to rankle when people talked about auto gas tanks exploding, or
example. Then I read some dictionaries. The "sufficient" definition of
an "explosion" seems to be some event in which a noise was heard.)

I know people who think that a proper footnote is anything with
an asterisk. (Sorry, but citing a newspaper gossip column isn't
quite the same as citing, say, a trial transcript.)

One thing that was more hazardous on the Me163 than the exotic (for
then) propellants was the operational scenario. Take off, climb to
combat altitude, run out of propellant, glide to a landing spot, and
be stuck on the ground on the landing skids.

The allied pilots quickly figured that out, and that there was little
to be done about powered flight, so they just waited and followed them
down and nailed them on the ground. It is a wonder that anyone had any
stories about explosions, they should have all been killed.

My conclusion from trying to find out what happened was that the
Luffwaffe was totally negligent in keeping any useful accident reports
in the WW II era, at least that I found.

That was a typical condition in the Reich. And, given how hard it was
to find self-confessed Nazis after the war, the condition persisted.
Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich" is a classic example.


You have to be careful about testimony of participants. You have to be
ten times more careful when they are under duress. And, being a POW
after having lost a war is a LOT of duress.

But there are all to many examples of people thinking up stories and
then feeding them to people just like that to get them to play them
back.

The worst one I think of off hand was some guy who was on the
interrogation team of the Japanese Navy participants in PH. His own
personal theory was that the Japanese should have left the ships alone
and gone for the oil tanks. So he asked that question over and over
again until all the Japanese got the answer right.

There was a similar deal about the pre war demands, whch are totally
unclear as to whether they mean "China" or IndoChina" or both. Some
different guy (I guess he was different) got all sorts of people to
say it would have been entirely different, "If they had only known"
what we said.

The Japanese were unusually eager to cooperate, be everyone is eager
in those circumstances.

Designers are often told that "You have to listen to what the user
says, they were the ones that know what is going on.

I agree that you should listen. But you should evaluate what you hear.
Anyone's "eye witness account" is likely to be highly biased and
frequently just imaginary.

That's what I was taught when getting my degrees in hysteria, er, history.
My favorite example has to do with the "Nuts!" event at Bastogne.
There are several accounts of exactly what was said; the accounts
come from people who were there--and they don't match up.


I have read many of those accounts. And there are very different
versions of what General McAuliffe initally said. Some say it was
profane, othere say that people heard what they wanted to hear, and
that McAuliffe never used profanity and that is exactly what he would
have said.

"It is very true, and if it is not, it should be."

Some stories are so well known and are so much a paart of what
happened they are as important as "facts."


But, there is another aspect of the "Nuts" story. In about 1950 the
National Archives put togetner an exibition on a train and it toured
the country. It had really "heavy weight" stuff on it. Including the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independnce, the originals (I
think!). Hard to imagine doing that now.


I toured the train. I was there. I SAW the piece of paper that
McAuliffe wrote it on.

Just like the Germans to file that away.

SO, although there can be debate about what he SAID, I KNOW what he
wrote, because I saw it.

However, I can't find any discussionof anyone else knowing that.


(Although the military historian SLA Marshall claims that the
Germans did, indeed, get the "Nuts!" message. Marshall interrogated
Manteuffel and his staff after the war. At one session Manteuffel
kept blaming his mistakes on his staff. At last one of his subordinates
leaned forward, waggled a finger in Manteuffel's face and shouted
"Nuts! Nuts!")


Another sub plot to that story that I have seen in one account was
that there was some junior officere there who was an English language
expert. He thought up the idea of the surrender demand. And wrote it
and got permission to deliver it. But, when he got the answer, he
didn't know what it meant.

The officer who escorted him back to the German lines explained it in
terms the German understood. He may have used any of the expressins
that have been suggested.

It was also said that when they parted, the German made a last plea
"you must accept or many people will die." the escort was said to have
said "this is war and that is what it is all about. Many will die and
they won't all be on our side."

Now, that is a REAL fairy tale.


And, what were the seals and all the other bits made of. I was once
reading a report on the X-1 which was very like an American Lox Me163
and at about the same time. There was something about an explosion and
a fire. The report said they weren't sure what happened, but they
though it might have involved a seal. (I think maybe it was in a check
valve and lit off when the valve closure slammed on it.) They then
started to discuss what sort of special, proprietary LEATHER (!) the
seal was made of. I quit reading.

The Ulmer leather gaskets, which if memory serves were treated with
tricresyl phosphate. The accounts I've read said that the treated gaskets
didn't react with the liquid oxygen--but in the presence of lox, the gaskets
became *very* sensitive to mechanical shock, making them "slightly"
explosive. I think the losses of the X-1A, X-1D and second X-2 were
blamed on that.


I have though about that a lot. The correct process for making leather
LOX compatable doesn't leave ANY leather in the leather. Or as I told
a guy once "Send me that (polyethelyne bottle) to be LOX cleaned and
I will send you back an empty bag with a tag on it."

In those days, I gather, they hadn't come up with impact testing. And
such events were how they got the idea.

In one sense, most things are "compatible" with LOX, as there is no
"attack' in the absece of impact.

RP won't react with LOX until you hit or subect it to an ignition
source. That is what makes it so dangerous, you can get an
accumulationt that will blow the back end of the vehicle into the next
county. "Static" compatibility is meaningless for LOX.

"Low order" reactions to impact are also pretty meaningless since even
a small pop can do a lot of damage, including possibly stuff like
igniting some surrounding stuff, like aluminum valve housings, say.

It is somewhat hard to see how anything could have been done wiht any
useful oxidizer, LOX, peroxide, N2O4 or whatever, untel Teflon came
along. But they did do lots of stuff. Even Teflon has a lot of
problems. (but is compatable.)


Henry H.

--Bill Thompson

On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 03:40:31 GMT, "William R Thompson"
wrote:

Henry_H@Q_wrote:

I see that there was a lot of discussion I didn't read. I am glad to
see that the source was tracked down. But, I am I bit surprised to see
it was from Rocketdyne.

It looks like someone issued specs that said, basically, "make it
reliable and simple, and don't worry too much about the weight."

As I said, it doesn't look like it goes to far "up the stack". I
though about it being an "airplane" but I couldn't imagine which one.

But, it looks better, "all dressed up."

(For airplanes, RATO lost out to the army developed "JATO" solid
propellant "boosters.")

I can see why. RATO could be throttled and restarted, but I think
the only application anyone saw for that was in seaplane take-offs.
JATO looks a lot less maintenance-intense than RATO (see attached
picture).

Hey, looks simple to me! I have done my tour on both the liquid and
solid fronts. Both have advantages, both have problems. I will take
the liquid problems any day. But, I am in the minority it seems.

I think it turns out that rockets are much to expensive for general
use whether they are liguid or solid.

I meant to say that although Truax didn't have the right answer for
airplanes, that work lead drrectly on to the whole world of hypergols
in the US, many, many vehicles and engine/motors.


T-Stoff, was a mixture of 80% hydrogen peroxide plus
oxyquinoline or phosphate as a stabilizer. [most of the other 20
percent would have been water. _hh]

And that

C-Stoff was a mixture of 57% methanol + 30% hydrazine hydrate + 13%
water, with
traces of either cupro-potassium cyanide or copper oxide (probably as
a stabilizer).

I accept those as being correct. Methanol the kind of stuff you would
want as a fuel. The hydrazine hydrate would be added to provide
"smooth combustion" and the water may have resulted from using the
highest concentration of hydrazine hydrate that was available, or
possibly it was just added as coolant.

(Usually wiki is a really good place for this kind of stuff, but I
didn't find the exact numbers there)

Those are the same figures in Sutton's "Rocket Propulsion Elements."
I figure that Mano Zeigler gave different numbers in "Rocket Fighter"
due to conditions in Axisland--with the Allies bombing their plants
and supply lines, they may have had to settle for anything that could
flow through the lines and burn.


If I remember the book, and I am pretty sure I do, it was sort of a
"quick and dirty" account based on very limited sources. I think I
first read it myself only a couple of years after the war, so it has
been around a while. A lot of documentation dhowed up later that the
author didn't have then.


It is hard to find people in the rocket biz that have had long term
exposure to hydrazine that have not also be exposed to N2O4 so when
there are stories about long term effects, you don't know which to
blame. But I will take the alternative to "in a couple of more days,
they die." Better chronic than prompt.

As I recall, Vance Brand passed out from exposure to dumped fuels
during the Apollo-18/ASTP descent, and the crew was taken to the
hospital afterward. They didn't seem to suffer any long-term effects.


I remember somethign about tat, but I don't even know as much as you
said.

(In ordnance circles, I got into this thing of distinguishing between
"high order" explosions or "detonations" and "low order" explosions or
deflagrations. Then there are "no yield" ones, like tank ruptures. I
use to rankle when people talked about auto gas tanks exploding, or
example. Then I read some dictionaries. The "sufficient" definition of
an "explosion" seems to be some event in which a noise was heard.)

I know people who think that a proper footnote is anything with
an asterisk. (Sorry, but citing a newspaper gossip column isn't
quite the same as citing, say, a trial transcript.)

One thing that was more hazardous on the Me163 than the exotic (for
then) propellants was the operational scenario. Take off, climb to
combat altitude, run out of propellant, glide to a landing spot, and
be stuck on the ground on the landing skids.

The allied pilots quickly figured that out, and that there was little
to be done about powered flight, so they just waited and followed them
down and nailed them on the ground. It is a wonder that anyone had any
stories about explosions, they should have all been killed.

My conclusion from trying to find out what happened was that the
Luffwaffe was totally negligent in keeping any useful accident reports
in the WW II era, at least that I found.

That was a typical condition in the Reich. And, given how hard it was
to find self-confessed Nazis after the war, the condition persisted.
Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich" is a classic example.


You have to be careful about testimony of participants. You have to be
ten times more careful when they are under duress. And, being a POW
after having lost a war is a LOT of duress.

But there are all to many examples of people thinking up stories and
then feeding them to people just like that to get them to play them
back.

The worst one I think of off hand was some guy who was on the
interrogation team of the Japanese Navy participants in PH. His own
personal theory was that the Japanese should have left the ships alone
and gone for the oil tanks. So he asked that question over and over
again until all the Japanese got the answer right.

There was a similar deal about the pre war demands, whch are totally
unclear as to whether they mean "China" or IndoChina" or both. Some
different guy (I guess he was different) got all sorts of people to
say it would have been entirely different, "If they had only known"
what we said.

The Japanese were unusually eager to cooperate, be everyone is eager
in those circumstances.

Designers are often told that "You have to listen to what the user
says, they were the ones that know what is going on.

I agree that you should listen. But you should evaluate what you hear.
Anyone's "eye witness account" is likely to be highly biased and
frequently just imaginary.

That's what I was taught when getting my degrees in hysteria, er, history.
My favorite example has to do with the "Nuts!" event at Bastogne.
There are several accounts of exactly what was said; the accounts
come from people who were there--and they don't match up.


I have read many of those accounts. And there are very different
versions of what General McAuliffe initally said. Some say it was
profane, othere say that people heard what they wanted to hear, and
that McAuliffe never used profanity and that is exactly what he would
have said.

"It is very true, and if it is not, it should be."

Some stories are so well known and are so much a paart of what
happened they are as important as "facts."


But, there is another aspect of the "Nuts" story. In about 1950 the
National Archives put togetner an exibition on a train and it toured
the country. It had really "heavy weight" stuff on it. Including the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independnce, the originals (I
think!). Hard to imagine doing that now.


I toured the train. I was there. I SAW the piece of paper that
McAuliffe wrote it on.

Just like the Germans to file that away.

SO, although there can be debate about what he SAID, I KNOW what he
wrote, because I saw it.

However, I can't find any discussionof anyone else knowing that.


(Although the military historian SLA Marshall claims that the
Germans did, indeed, get the "Nuts!" message. Marshall interrogated
Manteuffel and his staff after the war. At one session Manteuffel
kept blaming his mistakes on his staff. At last one of his subordinates
leaned forward, waggled a finger in Manteuffel's face and shouted
"Nuts! Nuts!")


Another sub plot to that story that I have seen in one account was
that there was some junior officere there who was an English language
expert. He thought up the idea of the surrender demand. And wrote it
and got permission to deliver it. But, when he got the answer, he
didn't know what it meant.

The officer who escorted him back to the German lines explained it in
terms the German understood. He may have used any of the expressins
that have been suggested.

It was also said that when they parted, the German made a last plea
"you must accept or many people will die." the escort was said to have
said "this is war and that is what it is all about. Many will die and
they won't all be on our side."

Now, that is a REAL fairy tale.


And, what were the seals and all the other bits made of. I was once
reading a report on the X-1 which was very like an American Lox Me163
and at about the same time. There was something about an explosion and
a fire. The report said they weren't sure what happened, but they
though it might have involved a seal. (I think maybe it was in a check
valve and lit off when the valve closure slammed on it.) They then
started to discuss what sort of special, proprietary LEATHER (!) the
seal was made of. I quit reading.

The Ulmer leather gaskets, which if memory serves were treated with
tricresyl phosphate. The accounts I've read said that the treated gaskets
didn't react with the liquid oxygen--but in the presence of lox, the gaskets
became *very* sensitive to mechanical shock, making them "slightly"
explosive. I think the losses of the X-1A, X-1D and second X-2 were
blamed on that.


I have though about that a lot. The correct process for making leather
LOX compatable doesn't leave ANY leather in the leather. Or as I told
a guy once "Send me that (polyethelyne bottle) to be LOX cleaned and
I will send you back an empty bag with a tag on it."

In those days, I gather, they hadn't come up with impact testing. And
such events were how they got the idea.

In one sense, most things are "compatible" with LOX, as there is no
"attack' in the absece of impact.

RP won't react with LOX until you hit or subect it to an ignition
source. That is what makes it so dangerous, you can get an
accumulationt that will blow the back end of the vehicle into the next
county. "Static" compatibility is meaningless for LOX.

"Low order" reactions to impact are also pretty meaningless since even
a small pop can do a lot of damage, including possibly stuff like
igniting some surrounding stuff, like aluminum valve housings, say.

It is somewhat hard to see how anything could have been done wiht any
useful oxidizer, LOX, peroxide, N2O4 or whatever, untel Teflon came
along. But they did do lots of stuff. Even Teflon has a lot of
problems. (but is compatable.)


Henry H.

--Bill Thompson

On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 03:40:31 GMT, "William R Thompson"
wrote:

[snip]

That's what I was taught when getting my degrees in hysteria, er, history.
My favorite example has to do with the "Nuts!" event at Bastogne.
There are several accounts of exactly what was said; the accounts
come from people who were there--and they don't match up.

After my first reply to this message I did some Googleing. I still
can't find any mention of the "Nuts" document.

However, I did find this on wiki:



*****************

The 1947-1949 Freedom Train was proposed by Attorney General Tom C.
Clark as a way to reawaken Americans to their taken-for-granted
principles of liberty in the post-war years. The idea soon got the
approval of President Harry S. Truman and everything else fell into
place. Top Marines were selected to attend to the train and its famous
documents. The Marine contingent was led by Col. Robert F. Scott.

The train carried the original versions of the United States
Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights on
its tour of more than 300 cities in all 48 states. As Alaska and
Hawaii didn't gain statehood until 1959, this train toured all of the
US States that existed at the time.


*****************

I saw it when it stopped in Atlanta, Ga. on Jan. 2, 1948/

I am very sceptical of authority in reference sources, I certainly
don't think the EB is very authorative. "Trust everyone, but cut the
cards, anyway."

But, as a friend use to say "Even a blind pig finds some nuts."

There are a LOT of nuts on wiki.

Various kinds.

No matter what you know, you don't know that you know everything until
you check wiki.


Henry H.

On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 03:40:31 GMT, "William R Thompson"
wrote:

[snip]

That's what I was taught when getting my degrees in hysteria, er, history.
My favorite example has to do with the "Nuts!" event at Bastogne.
There are several accounts of exactly what was said; the accounts
come from people who were there--and they don't match up.

After my first reply to this message I did some Googleing. I still
can't find any mention of the "Nuts" document.

However, I did find this on wiki:



*****************

The 1947-1949 Freedom Train was proposed by Attorney General Tom C.
Clark as a way to reawaken Americans to their taken-for-granted
principles of liberty in the post-war years. The idea soon got the
approval of President Harry S. Truman and everything else fell into
place. Top Marines were selected to attend to the train and its famous
documents. The Marine contingent was led by Col. Robert F. Scott.

The train carried the original versions of the United States
Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights on
its tour of more than 300 cities in all 48 states. As Alaska and
Hawaii didn't gain statehood until 1959, this train toured all of the
US States that existed at the time.


*****************

I saw it when it stopped in Atlanta, Ga. on Jan. 2, 1948/

I am very sceptical of authority in reference sources, I certainly
don't think the EB is very authorative. "Trust everyone, but cut the
cards, anyway."

But, as a friend use to say "Even a blind pig finds some nuts."

There are a LOT of nuts on wiki.

Various kinds.

No matter what you know, you don't know that you know everything until
you check wiki.


Henry H.

Henry_H@Q wrote:

"William R Thompson" wrote:

[snip]

That's what I was taught when getting my degrees in hysteria, er, history.
My favorite example has to do with the "Nuts!" event at Bastogne.
There are several accounts of exactly what was said; the accounts
come from people who were there--and they don't match up.

After my first reply to this message I did some Googleing. I still
can't find any mention of the "Nuts" document.

However, I did find this on wiki:

The 1947-1949 Freedom Train was proposed by Attorney General Tom C.
Clark as a way to reawaken Americans to their taken-for-granted
principles of liberty in the post-war years. The idea soon got the
approval of President Harry S. Truman and everything else fell into
place. Top Marines were selected to attend to the train and its famous
documents. The Marine contingent was led by Col. Robert F. Scott.

Well-armed and alert, I trust. The Liberty Bell had been sent on an
earlier tour (in the Twenties, I think--details escape me) during which
tour bits and pieces were hacked off the rim as souvenirs.

I am very sceptical of authority in reference sources, I certainly
don't think the EB is very authorative. "Trust everyone, but cut the
cards, anyway."

The history department's attitude was "multiple references, please,
and even then we may laugh."

But, as a friend use to say "Even a blind pig finds some nuts."

There are a LOT of nuts on wiki.

Both metric and SAE.

--Bill Thompson