Confessions of a Dumb Guy

One should have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the way things that
directly effect his/her life work. Relying on the advice and productivity of
"professionals trained to do that" without even the most basic understanding
leaves one very vulnerable to both the laws of nature and your unscrupulous
fellow man.


I heard that, during the second world war, that the US Army had a big advantage
over the German army in that practically every American GI, whether farm boy or
city kid knew how to make simple repairs on their jeeps, tanks etc. in the
field.

The practice in German schools at that time however, was to cull out the kids
not bound for college and send them to vocational schools where each kid was
intensively trained in a single specialty. As a result they had a cadre of
superbly trained mechanics and were about the only ones allowed to work on
cars. Therefore, the rest of the kids trained such as waiters, bakers and
carpenters didn't get the opportunity to work on cars and had no clue how to
trouble shoot and make even simple repairs to their vehicles in the field.

Dave Tate

On 11 Sep 2003 21:28:09 GMT, (Veeduber) wrote:

Richard Isakson cited the present-day FAR's as saying:

load conditions prescribed in
this subpart may not be less than that which would be obtained when
landing with a descent velocity (V), in feet per second, equal to 4.4
(W/S)\1/4\, except that this velocity need not be more than 10 feet per
second and may not be less than seven feet per second.


----------------------------------------------------------

I'm probably quite a bit older than the vast majority on here, but
there are a couple of you "old guys" I'm still willing to call "Sir".
:-))


Yeah, that cleared things up :-)

For everyone else who didn't get it, the object of the message was to
illustrate that I DIDN'T check the numbers because I THOUGHT I already knew
them. (And being ex-Navy a four-foot drop-test sounded good to me :-)

Being a civilian I've still been so close to the edge of the runway
when an F-14 "landed/impacted" and blew the dirt out sideways I think
I can identify at least as to why you might think that. Tis no wonder
those things leak oil all over the place.

The F-14 made the first taxiway, while the F15s and F16s were using
most of the runway.

Many, many years ago, but not quite as many as some on here, I took my
first flying lesson. To "politely paraphrase" the instructor, he
wondered if I'd ever thought about the flying in the Navy. I didn't
know what he meant at the time.

snip

But that WASN'T THE POINT. Being aviation types I assumed everyone already
knew that stuff, that you'd start to smile when you saw the first mention of
FIFTY INCHES for a drop test and would be laughing along with me by the time I
got to the punch line.



However, if ANY of this is new to you, I suggest you hit the books. There's
only a couple of equations invovled here, one for the gravitational constant of
acceleration, the other for energy in motion. And if you think I'm a whiz kid,
the joke's on you :-) I managed to escape the rigors of a formal education by
going to sea at a young age.

Not all that long ago, I quit work and went back to college. We not
only had to use those equations we had to derive them from
measurements.:-)) That is until the janitors got tired of trying to
clean out the dents the ball bearings were causing in the ground floor
tile. (we were dropping them from two stories up.)
So, my education was delayed a bit. I was darn near ready to retire
by the time I graduated. I graduated, worked just under 7 years and
retired.


-R.S.Hoover

- PS -- Reading over that, maybe the joke IS on you. Or on America. A lot of
the stuff I was taught in gammar school more than fifty years ago is now

"I think" education was certainly different, but back then things were
approached from a practical level. We learned a lot of practical
information and even basic formulas, but not to the depth, or detail
it's taught now.

Many of us did learn how to use the formulas for distance, speed,
time, and acceleration from a practical approach.

My first 8 grades were in a one room school. I liked it as when I
finished my work I could listen to the other classes and by the time I
was in those classes I already knew the material.


considered College Level material. I was about eleven years old when they hit

"I'd guess" it was probably about the same...One of us remembers and
the other has to guess:-))

us with 'Mechanics of Motion,' a chapter we were expected (and required) to
master before the Christmas break. Today, 'education' appears to have become a
largely SOCIAL activity of which the acquisition of knowledge is a mere
by-product, given little emphasis.


Unfortunately I'm now probably going to end up in "rambling mode",
but... "I think" education now approaches things with too much detail
when starting. They no longer start with the practical aspects, but
delve into the theory to the point of making some subjects far more
difficult than necessary and they don't seem to want to do things the
easy way.

Of course this is where they separate the science from the liberal
arts tract preparation.

In some subjects you have to derive everything before you can get
where you are going. So some of the practical aspects don't even
surface until much later. OTOH, they have separated the Practical
aspects into "technical" classes, and the theoretical into the
"college" stuff.

To me it makes a lot more sense to know where you are going before
starting the journey.

I was a project manager for a few years and one of the problems was
getting many people to see beyond the details. Some disciplines teach
to start with the details and build from there, but without knowing
where you are going that is not exactly efficient.

I had to look at the whole project from a practical standpoint just as
we did in the early grades. Then break the project down into smaller
sections where the details could be looked at and built upon.

I was not required to know the details, nor could any manager of a
wide range project expect to know how each engineer did what they did.
I only needed the practical knowledge of what I needed each to produce
and when. They provided the details, with a set of checks and
balances. That was to keep the "baffle them with bull****" factor as
low as possible..

Nowadays they need a seventy dollar text book the size of a coffee table to
teach that one chapter. 'Newton's Laws' or some damn thing. Mostly white

"Newton's Laws" as we learned them are simple until you have to
derive them. I've never seen much use for having the "regular "
student having to spend so much time deriving some of these things
when they "might" only need to use them.

space except for all the pretty pictures. Then they spend a full year
spoon-feeding that pap to youngsters already old enough to vote.

A couple of examples:

Rather than using the practical aspects of acceleration, we had to
derive all the formulas and prove them before we could move on. A
practical text devotes one chapter to the subject.

In Calculus, we spent the first term on a number of items including
"limits". After several months of working in the dark the instructor
demonstrated how all we had been doing was the foundation for "The
fundamental rule of Calculus", or at least that's what I think it was
called. :-)) How much easier it would have been to say, "This is
where we are going and this is how we get there", instead of making
the trek difficult on purpose.

To me the problem is the practical application is for the student who
does not plan on graduating from a 4 year degree program, but rather a
two year associates program with little likely hood of progressing
beyond a set of artificially imposed limits tied to required degrees.

With some exceptions, prior to going back to college full time I am
self taught. I taught every thing in the skilled trades program from
introductory electricity to "Logic circuit design" which included
Boolean Algebra.

The best college professors I had were adjunct faculty. One had never
been to college and taught electronics and computer circuit design.
Then one day the college decided he needed a teaching degree. Sooo,
he went into a teaching program where after 20 years of teaching he
was expected to take part in the program where he had to teach
(without pay) for a couple of terms. He couldn't afford it. I'm not
sure what they call that part of the teachers education, but I'm sure
either Ron or Margy know. At any rate, a teaching certificate is not
required at the college level, but they wanted him to have a degree as
it didn't look good for a high school graduate to be teaching college
classes. He was after all, originally hired due to his ability.
..
Americans may not be any less intelligent now as then but devoting a full year
to what every schoolboy picked up in a couple of weeks isn't what I'd call
smart. -- rsh

The way they have gone about it has made it much more difficult for
high schools as well. Now they have to choose college prep,or a
technical career path. Education "to me" is becoming much more
specialized every day. At least most have gotten rid of the "outcome
based" education.

What we picked up in a couple of weeks was practical. We could put it
to use. What you see now it the delving into the theory to the point
where it takes that huge and expensive book to get through a term.
OTOH, my son was taking Calculus in the 8th grade. I was an advanced
student and the highest math class available in high school was
college level Advanced Algebra. (I shouldda took Trig)

"I think" it's done with the expectations that the student going to
college will go one into research, but engineers still need that
practical aspect. Actually, all that theory with out the practical
application only means the graduate is ready to go out and learn how
to do a job. I'm not sure if all the extra theory helps much, if any
for those of us who never go beyond the Bachelors degree.

Yet as an off set, I was working out some calculations when one of the
"old time" engineers happened into my office. He wanted to know what
I was working on. He took one look and remarked that as an engineer
he had never had to get into math that deep, yet in today's world I
don't have enough math to become an engineer although I do have a
minor in it...and Art. I'm a whale of a lot better at art than math.
:-))

I'm almost embarrassed to say the degree opened a lot of doors that
had been closed to me before. yet other than the programming classes
I was still the same person and did not feel all the other classes
helped me in the real world. Yet...I did find those classes
interesting.

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)

On 10 Sep 2003 21:32:44 GMT, (Veeduber) wrote:

Most of you have never heard of Vernon Payne. He's best known as the designer
of a spiffy little biplane called the Knight Twister. Rag & tube fuselage,
solid spruce spars, plywood skins on cantilevered wings. Slicker than snot on
a door knob. First flew about 1929 and continues doing so today and very well,
too. Ask him nice, Vern would build you a set of wings. Fuselage, too.
snip

That story/Tribute should be published. It put a lump in my throat
thinking of people and things past.

Roger
Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)

You could have backed out the number from FAR23.473(d) but who reads the
regs.

(d) The selected limit vertical inertia load factor at the center of
gravity of the airplane for the ground load conditions prescribed in
this subpart may not be less than that which would be obtained when
landing with a descent velocity (V), in feet per second, equal to 4.4
(W/S)\1/4\, except that this velocity need not be more than 10 feet per
second and may not be less than seven feet per second.

Rich

V = A T, solving for T with A = 32 feet per second per second (gravity) we
get a min of 7/32 and max of 10/32 seconds.
S = 1/2 A T^2, solving for S with A and T from above gives us min of 9 3/16"
and max of 18.3/4".

Eric

"Veeduber" wrote
- PS -- Reading over that, maybe the joke IS on you. Or on America. A
lot of
the stuff I was taught in gammar school more than fifty years ago is now
considered College Level material. I was about eleven years old when they
hit
us with 'Mechanics of Motion,' a chapter we were expected (and required)
to
master before the Christmas break. Today, 'education' appears to have
become a
largely SOCIAL activity of which the acquisition of knowledge is a mere
by-product, given little emphasis.

Nowadays they need a seventy dollar text book the size of a coffee table
to
teach that one chapter. 'Newton's Laws' or some damn thing. Mostly white
space except for all the pretty pictures. Then they spend a full year
spoon-feeding that pap to youngsters already old enough to vote.

Americans may not be any less intelligent now as then but devoting a full
year
to what every schoolboy picked up in a couple of weeks isn't what I'd call
smart. -- rsh

Yup, this is the difference between rote learning, which is just
memorization, and actually learning, which is knowing the reason behind
things and and how to calculate things yourself.

Eric

"Eric Miller" wrote in message v.net...
"Veeduber" wrote
- PS -- Reading over that, maybe the joke IS on you. Or on America.
Americans may not be any less intelligent now as then but devoting a full
year
to what every schoolboy picked up in a couple of weeks isn't what I'd call
smart. -- rsh

Yup, this is the difference between rote learning, which is just
memorization, and actually learning, which is knowing the reason behind
things and and how to calculate things yourself.

Couple of possibly-relevant anecdotes.

My dad was a Navy radar tech in WWII. He was teaching a group of
fighter pilots how to use the new low-altitude radar altimiter in
their F6F Hellcats. He explained how the radio signal is beamed down
to the surface, bounces back, and is picked up by the reciever. The
unit then calculates altitude from the time lag. One of the fighter
pilots scoffs, "Man, that's BS. I'm traveling at 400 knots. By the
time that radio wave gets back, I'm long gone!" He may have been good
with farm machinery, but the difference between hundreds of miles per
hour and thousands of miles per second escaped him.

Different times require different skillsets. ironyI'm confident
that today's students, trained in diversity appreciation and skilled
at handling condoms, will be able to function well in a world where
all their clothing, household appliances, and electronic devices are
designed and manufactured overseas./irony

Second ancedote:

It's said that the great educational reformer Thomas Dewey visited the
classroom of a renowned geography teacher. Dewey asked the great
teacher if he could ask the students a few questions. "Of course!" he
replied.

"So, boys and girls," Dewey asked, "who can tell me what it's like at
the center of the earth?"

Silence and blank looks.

"Mr. Dewey," the classroom teacher chided, "you are not posing the
question properly. Class," he intoned, "WHAT IS THE STATE OF THE
EARTH'S CORE?"

In unison the students chanted, "IGNEOUS FUSION."

I use that example with my classes to explain the difference between
memorizing facts and understanding concepts and principles. There's a
place for rote performance - the engine-fire checklist is a good
example - and all high-level understanding must be based on a
foundation of "declarative and procedural knowledge." My fear is that
the "back to basics" backlash against postmodern touchy-feely
"education" will swing too far. I could go on and on - education is
what I do for a living - but I'll spare you the lecture. I am,
however, available for consultation at reasonable rates. ;-)


Re math - I did an prospective-freshman interview at a college of
aerospace engineering many years ago. The dean asked me what math I'd
had in high school. "Two years of Algebra, plus Trig, Geometry,
Pre-Calc, and a year of physics," I said. "Good!" he replied.
"You're ready to learn some math."

Dang, but he was right!


Corrie