Edwards air show B-1 speed record attempt

Gene Nygaard wrote:


Based on our review, we made eight recommendations intended to improve
the use of the metric system within NASA in accordance with national
policy and NASA guidance. We recommended NASA:

• reexamine the Agency’s effort to convert to the metric system and
develop a new approach for converting to the metric system,
• closely monitor technical interfaces between metric and English
units,
• reinvigorate the metric waiver system, and
• use the metric system as the preferred system for interactions with
the public


Gene Nygaard

Sounds pretty official to me...
--

-Gord.

"Tarver Engineering" wrote...

If we left things alone, instead of being globalist egotistical loons, these
problems would not occur.

If we left things alone, we would not progress.

"Tarver Engineering" wrote...

When we engage in industry, we must use the language of that industry, as
well as the existing infrastructure. A big part of training to do
engineering is to apply a reference and measurement system applicable to the
problem. Aerospace is expressed in feet, pounds, clockwise and attempts to
use alternative SI units have resulted in problems.

The aerospace industry developed first and foremost in the USA. Before there
was such a thing as "aerospace," the fuel and aviation industries evolved with a
preference for measuring liquid fuels such as gasoline and kerosene in gallons.
By your argument, aerospace should measure fuel in gallons.

Hi

You all might want to read the story below about the Gimli Glider.

http://www.flightsafety.org.au/articles/t0357.php

Here's an extract from the above.

Cheers...Chris

The flight from Montreal to Edmonton, including a brief stop in Ottawa,
required 22,300kg of fuel, an amount expressed as mass because of the
importance of knowing an aircraft's weight.

The mechanics needed to work out how many litres made up 22,300kg. They
could then subtract the 7,682 litres already in the tanks, and use the
fuel gauge on the refueling truck to tell when they had reached the
right number of litres to make up 22,300kg.

But the 767 was the first aircraft in Air Canada's fleet to use metric
units (kilograms) rather than imperial (pounds). Metric units were being
phased in across Canada, and the conversions were still causing confusion.

With the help of First Officer Quintal, the ground crew used the correct
procedure to calculate the weight in kilos. However, they had not been
trained in correct conversion, so the figure of 1.76 provided by the
refueling company on their refueling document, was taken to be the
required multiplier. It was typical of the numbers seen on previous
slips and they assumed that the numbers provided over the previous few
months had indicated specific gravity in the new metric system.

They decided to multiply 7,682 by 1.76. This would mean 13,597kg
remained in the tanks, requiring an infusion of 8,703kg to bring the
fuel level up to 22,300kg. They then divided 8,703kg by 1.76, assuming
that this conversion would give them the correct volume in litres.
Through this calculation, the crew determined that 4,916 litres needed
to be added from the fuel truck.

The problem was that 1.77 is the multiplier that converts litres into
pounds, not kilograms: to convert litres into kilograms you need to
multiply by 0.8. Flight 143 did not have 22,300kg on board, it had about
10,000kg, less than half the amount of A-1 kerosene jet fuel needed to
get the aircraft to Edmonton. The refueller didn't know where the flight
was headed, so no alarm bells rang for him as he poured fuel into the tanks.

Using a computer to calculate fuel also caused confusion over
responsibilities. In the past, when fuel was calculated manually, a
flight engineer's duties included checking the fuel load. Flight
engineers were a thing of the past on this 767, as a Presidential task
force, under Ronald Reagan, had determined that aircraft could be built
to be operated by two pilots instead of three, if the tasks previously
given to the second officer (flight engineer) were either fully
automated or handled by ground staff.

Responsibility for ensuring adequate fuelling had passed to the
maintenance branch. But because these men were not trained to calculate
fuel, they assumed the pilots would make sure it was done properly.
The problem was neither of the pilots was trained in this technical
task. Safety procedures had failed to keep pace with new technology.

As the investigation later concluded: 'Air Canada ... neglected to
assign clearly and specifically the responsibility for calculating the
fuel load in an abnormal situation.'

The investigation attacked Air Canada's training procedures, noting
'both flight crew and maintenance personnel seemed to be somewhat
mesmerised by the complex, computerised characteristics of the 767. They
did not appear to have sufficient background knowledge of these aspects
of the aircraft. They did not appear to have received sufficient
training about some of the critical aircraft systems, in particular, the
fueling system.'

Wait. How about the 100, 200, 400, etc. meter swim and track and field
races? Not to mention the world altitude flying records, which are in
meters. And more and more...

John Keeney wrote:



But nobody weighs things in "grams", it's always "kilograms".
Nor do the measure things in "meters" (as was stated concerning
building a house) they measure in "milimeters".

From: "Tarver Engineering" j

snip

All fuel is bought as weight, that is how an aircraft works. The fact that
you pay for volume is a book keeper's issue.


I have never seen anyone buy avgas by weight for small GA aircraft like the
Cessna 172.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

(Harry Andreas) wrote in news:andreas-2410031001420001
@147.16.85.59:

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

I've heard (but don't really believe) that "2x4" refers to the lumbers
dimensions when it is rough cut. There is sanding (and some loss of water)
involved betwen rough cut and the product you buy at the lumber yard. While
I can belive that sanding could take a quarter inch off a board (1/8" per
side) I find it hard to belive that it could take a half an inch.

Tarver Engineering wrote:
Why change from the units of aerospace to some other arbitrary
set of units in the first palce?

That question does not parse. The problem is not a 'change' from setA
to setB. The problem is multiple units for the same thing. UnitX
coexists with unitY (and perhaps unitZ). You may wish to ask:

Q1. "Why do we want to reduce the co-existence of multiple units for
the same thing?"
Q2. "If that is what we want, then which ones should be eliminated in
which circumstances?"

The units of aerospace are controlled by Annex 5 of the ICAO Chicago
convention.
"The standardized system is based on the International System of Units
(SI) and will eventually eliminate the use of different units of
measurement for the same quantity and provide for the standardized
application of all units of measurement for those quantities used in
air and ground operations. It is nevertheless necessary to retain for
the foreseeable future the use of some commonly used non-SI units [in
parallel with SI units], such as the foot [in parallel with the metre]
for the measurement of altitude.
www.icao.int/icao/en/pub/memo.htm

Over a long period, the problem is being resolved. The trend is
towards metric, not away from it. North American aviation converted
from F to C in 1996. US military airports now give Terminal Area
Forecast visibility in metres. All without a fuss.

Similarly there was no fuss in British and Irish aviation when they
dropped the use of many imperial units. The units used in aviation in
Britain and most most countries are now:

nautical mile = long ranges (navigation)
....spoken as 'mile'

metre, cm, mm = short range
(visibility, runway length, rain, snow)

foot = altitude
knot = horizontal speed
ft/min = vertical speed
hPa = pressure
°C = temperature
kg, metric ton = weight
litre = fuel volume

statute mile, fahrenheit = not used


Why is anyone working in NASA Operations
that does not know aircraft units?

One of the more bizarre features of NASA is that they quote height in
nautical miles.

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 17:34:08 GMT, lid (Goran Larsson) wrote:

In article ,
Ralph Savelsberg wrote:

As much as I dislike feet and inches, I have to agree with you there,
John. Don't you Americans have a saying: "If it ain't broken, don't fix
it!"?

In the area of US measurements it should be: "If we can't fix it, pretend
that it isn't broken".

The question of course is whether it's broken :-)

It is.

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

Al Minyard

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:51:10 +0200, Andreas Parsch wrote:

Alan Minyard wrote:

Actually, the unit of mass is the gram.

Of course the gram is a unit of mass, but it's not _the_ unit (depends
on the definition of "_the_" ;-) ). All I said is that the kilogram is
used in SI to derive units, and not the gram (as in 1 N = 1 kg m / s^2).

Andreas

I look at it as "a kilogram is 1,000 grams, therefore the underlying "unit"
of mass is the gram". Simply a matter of semantics, and I suppose
that the two definitions are interchangeable. :-)

Al Minyard