On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 08:14:35 +1300, George wrote:

On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 22:57:26 -0500
PhantomView wrote:

On Tue, 18 Feb 2020 08:02:01 +1300, George wrote:

On Sun, 16 Feb 2020 21:39:04 -0500
PhantomView wrote:

On Sun, 16 Feb 2020 18:58:10 -0600, "Byker"
wrote:
Don't make me laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ1t993-vw0

Electric trans-oceanic aircraft ? Ridiculous !
Battery tech will not even get your Tesla from
NYC to Chicago without some long layovers
for recharging - and it is not going to improve
very much for a long time. You can recharge
your F-150 with gasohol in about five minutes
and be on your way.

That said, for intercontinental travel, greater use
of trains IS possible. Depends on your mission.

But for the LONG hauls, are they planning to
ressurect the Hindenburg ? Sailing ships ?
London to NYC in six or eight WEEKS, if
you are lucky ???

Sorry, the 20th century created aircraft for a
good reason, we no longer had the time to
dick around on sailing ships, the pace of life
had increased. Cannot go back.

Maybe in the 22nd century they will be able
to "beam" you anywhere or you step through
some dimensional thingie or whatever. But
NOW, no.



They tried the battery/solar powered aircraft.
Carried one crew/pax at a very low speed and required up to a month
at the end of each leg.
Stick to real aviation

I recently saw, I think on the BBC site, some company
that is trying to produce an electric puddle-hopper.
Looks almost exactly like a Piper Cub - probably made
of high-tech composites and carbon fiber weave that
take so much energy to create that it will put a big dent
in the overall "carbon footprint" of the plane. Will not be
very fast and probably has to lug 250 kilos of flammable
lithium-ion batteries around. MY guess ... a 100 mile
range before you have to sit around for 6 hours to
recharge the thing.

Long long back I got in exactly two hours piloting
a Cub. Fun, but SLOW. Think it had a 35hp engine.
Had to start the thing by hand-spinning the prop
too ...... don't forget the wheel chucks ! Switch-OFF,
throttle barely cracked, spin the prop through two
or three times, stop near a compression stroke,
switch-ON and SPIN that sucker hard ... and there
is a technique to that so your arms and body
naturally fall away from the propeller arc. I was 16,
but I still remember how.

For each task there is a best way of doing it. For long
range travel we have jet planes. If you just want to get
to the next town, drive a car (or maybe take that
electric Cub). Zeppelins are death-traps, even using
helium - bad weather snaps them in half. Ships,
especially Greta's favorite ones with sails, are
TOO DAMNED SLOW. They are for vacations,
not practical transport.

So, we await the tech to be "beamed" from 'A' to 'B'
and hope all the bits arrive in the right order ......


Only Cub I ever flew was the Super Cub.
We adopted them to use as ag aircraft
The rate of climb was astonishing and you could land on a bank note and
have change at the end of the run.
However most of my needs were met by Cessna

That relatively large thick-chord wing gave a lot of
lift at low speeds. You did not need a huge engine.

The one I tried out was an original J-3. I looked it
up and I remember the horsepower was in the
30s. The docs say 37hp. The thing would hold
altitude even at about 35 knots - speed of horse.

The military bought lots of Cubs back in WW-2.
They were cheap, they were relatively quiet, they
were stable enough to hang cameras on and could
use almost any short patch of grass as an airfield.
I guess the fabric skin also did not have much of
a signature to what passed as German radar.

I never loved tail-draggers though ... there was too
much risk of hitting a rut during landing and the
thing immediately dumping over on its nose. With
the J-3 the thing between you and the engine was
the fuel tank ......

Still, a hell of a lot of people post-war leared to fly
in surplus Cubs. The Super-Cubs are more "super",
but large numbers of J-3s are still up there too.

Cessna ... good general-avaition planes. Solid
design and I liked the over-wing models because
you could actually see the ground below.

But alas, the death of cheap AvGas put an end to
my flying. Now you can take that 16 and turn the
numbers around and then a bit. Hey, guess I could
buy one of those Gyrocopter kits - but those things
seem to crash a lot. Might be the pilots, might be
something about the mechanicals ......

Ooooh ! How about a hydrogen-powered Gyro ?
Greta might like that ! :-)