Friday - February 03, 2012
Truck U
A House committee passed a measure Thursday maintaining current tractor-trailer sizes and weights for three years until a study can be completed on the potential costs incurred by allowing longer and heavier trucks on U.S. roads.
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The original legislation, which includes authorizing about $260 billion over five years for federal highway programs,contained a controversial provision allowing heavier tractor-trailer trucks on highways by increasing the federal weight limit from 80,000 pounds to 97,000 pounds. In some cases, it would have allowed 126,000-pound trucks onto highways.
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The legislation also would allow the largest rigs, which comprise two and sometimes three trailers, to be as much as 10 feet longer—a total length of more than 100 feet.
“All trips begin and end on local roads. The cost of fixing these roads is in the hands of local taxpayers. Heavier trucks will damage local roads, which are not built to handle the extra weight,” said Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pennsylvania, who offered the amendment with Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Illinois.
“Local roads will become potholed, buckled, and broken much more quickly. They will need to be repaired and replaced sooner, and the cost for that will fall squarely on local governments and local taxpayers,” Barletta said in a statement.
But the Coalition for Transportation Productivity said this is a matter that has already been studied and it’s time to put heavier trucks on the road.
“It really is ‘Groundhog Day’ today because this very committee asked the Transportation Research Board to study this same issue back in 1998, and the Board strongly endorsed truck weight reform,” said CTP Executive Director John Runyan in a statement.
“There is no need to commit further study to this truck weight proposal. Voluminous academic research and practical on-the-ground experience has proven that states should have the option to put more productive, six-axle trucks on interstates.
The plain truth is that we have become a nation of trucks. We don’t use the railroads for anywhere near as much hauling as we once did. Trucks have the advantage of carrying your goods right to your door, instead of having to take another truck and go down to the RR depot to get your stuff. But today’s trucks are hard pressed to carry as much as it does. There is a strong need for more trucks and for bigger trucks. Another 15-60% load won’t change their mpg all that much; in the long run it is less expensive to carry more on fewer trips than it is to carry the current amount on more trips. And the government just put a stop to that idea. One more way this administration is (pardon the trucking pun) putting the brakes on any economic recovery.
It really is as simple as doing some basic arithmetic. An 18 wheeler tractor trailer distributes the load amongst 16 wheels. A 3 axle trailer would have 12 wheels; connected to the same tractor you’d get a 22 wheeler with 20 wheels carrying the load. Heavy load tractors already exist that have a 4th axle on the tractor that can be lowered to put 2 more wheels down on the road. That’s a 24 wheeler, with 22 wheels doing the hauling. Each tire has a set of brakes I believe, so the more tires you use the more braking you can achieve.
Current 80,000lb maximum load ÷ 16 wheels = 5000lb per wheel.
Suggested 97,000lb maximum load ÷ 20 wheels = 4850lb per wheel. The 3 axle trailers put 3% less weight on the road per wheel, and it’s the load per wheel that matters.
Suggested 126,000lb jumbo maximum load ÷ 20 wheels = 63000lb per wheel, a 23% increase over what the 18 wheelers haul around right now. Terrible. Bad bad bad. Is there any way out? Maybe. Let’s try it with a 4 axle tractor:
Suggested 126,000lb jumbo maximum load ÷ 22 wheels = 5727lb per wheel, which is still 15% more weight per wheel than what we see on the highways every day. Maybe we should go with a bit less weight?
Alternate 110,000lb jumbo maximum load ÷ 22 wheels = 5000lb per wheel. This is a 37.5% load increase over today’s 18 wheelers, but it has the exact same wheel loading as they do. Solution 1!
Alternate 100,000lb maximum load ÷ 20 wheels = 5000lb per wheel. This is a 20% load increase over today’s 18 wheelers, using today’s regular tractors and a 3 axle trailer, but it has the exact same wheel loading as current 18 wheelers do. Solution 2!
I think I just saved the government 3 years and many millions of dollars. They can cut me a check for 5% of the projected study cost, thanks. In the meantime they can throw some money at Goodyear to come up with a recap truck tire that stays together better. We have “tire-gators” all up and down the highways. I’ve seen them blow and have had to dodge the flying 100lb chunks of smoking rubber. No fun there at all. There has to be a better way to build a truck tire.
Ok, I’m not a fan of the triple trailer concept. I’ve never actually seen one, but they have those “road train” things out in the outback of Australia. More power to them, and perhaps they could be Ok here in the USA in the farm belt, where there is almost no other highway traffic. We have tandem rigs here in NJ, and that’s already quite a lot of truck, even though both trailers are of the shorter variety (40 or 45 feet I think, whereas large single trailers are up to 53 feet). Two 45s is already 90 feet, plus rig. Would a 53 and a 45 for a total of 98 feet plus rig be all that much different? I don’t think so.
Of course, one solution would be to only use trucks for source to hub and hub to destination haulage, and use trains for hub to hub. They are far more efficient on a per pound basis. Pity we let most of our railroads go to wrack and ruin 50+ years ago, and then built suburbia where the tracks used to be. Railroad freight cars are rated to carry 263,000lb, which is more than the weight of two of the suggested 97,000lb capacity trailers AND at least one of their tractors.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/03/2012 at 01:31 PM
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Permalink • Friday - January 27, 2012
Ro/Ro Row Your Boat
The Foss M/V Delata Mariner, launched in 1999, is a 312 foot long, 50 foot tall, 80 foot wide Roll On/Roll Off (Ro/Ro) carrier ship with an 8,000HP engine and just one job: it ferries giant missile engines, the Delta IV boosters used on the Space Shuttle and other rockets, from the Boeing factory in Decatur, Alabama down the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway, into the Mississippi, past New Orleans and then across the Gulf of Mexico either around Florida and up to Cape Canaveral, or through the Panama Canal and north to Vandenburg AFB in California. And that is all that it does. It’s a rocket ship, even though it has a top speed of just 15 knots. Rocket transport ship that is.
Thursday night the ship was heading upriver, and it looks like it tried to go under the wrong span of the Eggner Ferry Bridge. Big mistake. The impact tore out one span of the bridge and rolled it up like a rug, roadway and all. Some hours later another span of the 1932 bridge also fell. No deaths or injuries; the old bridge doesn’t see much traffic and was nearly empty in the middle of the night when the accident occurred. One local man was driving on the bridge, but he managed to stop his pickup truck just in time.
The ship doesn’t even look all that damaged, but it will take some time to clean up the mess and fix the bridge.
AURORA, Ky. – State officials are inspecting what’s left of a southwestern Kentucky bridge that partially collapsed when it was struck by a cargo ship that was too tall to pass under the structure.
Pieces of the Eggner Ferry Bridge at Aurora, Ky., are strewn across the front of the motor vessel Delta Mariner as it sits at the site of a Thursday accident.
Two spans of the Eggner Ferry Bridge at US 68 and Kentucky 80 were destroyed Thursday night by the Delta Mariner. No injuries were reported on the bridge or in the boat.
The ship was traveling upriver toward the Kentucky Lock and Dam when it hit the aging steel bridge, which was built in the 1930s and handles about 2,800 vehicles a day.
On Friday morning, the front of the ship remained tangled with steel from the bridge and hunks of asphalt from the roadway. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet officials said inspectors began an in-depth review of the bridge at daylight.
“There is a point where they may have to disassemble the structure completely or use a crane to move the debris,” Jim LeFevre, highway department chief engineer, told The Paducah Sun. “That ship is going to be there for some time.”
Transportation Cabinet spokesman Keith Todd said he believes most [italics: Drew458] of the navigational lights were functioning on the bridge at the time of the impact.
“Our people talked to the Coast Guard as recently as Tuesday to update them on the navigational lights, and we believe most of them were working at the time of this wreck,” Todd said. “Although the green bridge marker lights on the bridge should have been visible from both sides of the bridge.”
The 312-foot-long cargo ship was built to navigate shallow waterways and was carrying empty rocket booster cores, Coast Guard Lt. Jason Franz told The Sun.
Interestingly, but only as one of those odd coincidences, the Foss company, which is a shipbuilder, a transportation support conglomerate, and the largest barge company on the west coast, also supports bridge construction. They helped build the Tacoma Narrows bridge, and they’ve also just released their new “green” hybrid tugboat, which utilizes their new and patented hybrid propulsion system.
The Eggner Bridge is in western Kentucky, southeast of Paducah, in that thin corner of the state between Tennessee and Illinois. No blame is being assessed at this point; perhaps the green lights were not lit under the higher spans of the bridge where this ship should have gone.
The transportation cabinet said the bridge was in the process of being replaced, and pre-construction work began months ago.
Another one of those happy coincidences I guess.
Posted by Drew458
on 01/27/2012 at 04:00 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - January 04, 2012
But of course
It’s 15 degrees out. Damn.
So of course the muffler strap on my car chose today to break, popping open the exhaust system and making my car sound like some old motorboat.
I’m going to freeze my A off out there fixing it. Assuming I can find the part locally. Stupid muffler strap on Saturns is the one and only piss poor part on the cars; they rot out every 3 years. Everything else soldiers on forever.
Posted by Drew458
on 01/04/2012 at 10:18 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - December 17, 2011
Up In The Air, Junior Birdmen
Q: If it takes 2 wrongs to make a right, what does it take 2 rights to make?
A: An airplane.
On December 14, 1903, they felt ready for their first attempt at powered flight. With the help of men from the nearby government life-saving station, the Wrights moved the Flyer and its launching rail to the incline of a nearby sand dune, Big Kill Devil Hill, intending to make a gravity-assisted takeoff. The brothers tossed a coin to decide who would get the first chance at piloting and Wilbur won. The airplane left the rail, but Wilbur pulled up too sharply, stalled, and came down in about three seconds with minor damage.
Repairs after the abortive first flight took three days. When they were ready again on December 17, the wind was averaging more than 20 mph, so the brothers laid the launching rail on level ground, pointed into the wind, near their camp. This time the wind, instead of an inclined launch, helped provide the necessary airspeed for takeoff. Because Wilbur already had the first chance, Orville took his turn at the controls. His first flight lasted 12 seconds for a total distance of 120 ft (36.5 m) – shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 707, as noted by observers in the 2003 commemoration of the first flight.[3]
Taking turns, the Wrights made four brief, low-altitude flights that day. The flight paths were all essentially straight; turns were not attempted. [ which just goes to show that two Wrights can’t make a left ] Each flight ended in a bumpy and unintended “landing”. The last flight, by Wilbur, was 852 feet (260 m) in 59 seconds, much longer than each of the three previous flights of 120, 175 and 200 feet. The landing broke the front elevator supports, which the Wrights hoped to repair for a possible four-mile (6 km) flight to Kitty Hawk village. Soon after, a heavy gust picked up the Flyer and tumbled it end over end, damaging it beyond any hope of quick repair. It was never flown again.
Pity that today’s anniversary isn’t also the anniversary of the government’s recognition of that triumph. That took until 1942, because of some favoritism in the old Old Boys Network ...
The Smithsonian Institution, and primarily its then-secretary Charles Walcott, refused to give credit to the Wright Brothers for the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft. Instead, they honored the former Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley, whose 1903 tests of his own Aerodrome on the Potomac were not successful. Walcott was a friend of Langley and wanted to see Langley’s place in aviation history restored. In 1914, Glenn Curtiss flew a heavily modified Aerodrome from Keuka Lake, N.Y., providing the Smithsonian a basis for its claim that the aircraft was the first powered, heavier than air flying machine “capable” of manned flight. Due to the legal patent battles then taking place, recognition of the ‘first’ aircraft became a political as well as an academic issue.
In 1925, Orville attempted to persuade the Smithsonian to recognize his and Wilbur’s accomplishment by offering to send the Flyer to the Science Museum in London. This action did not have its intended effect, and the Flyer went on display in the London museum in 1928. During World War II, it was moved to an underground vault 100 miles (160 km) from London where Britain’s other treasures were kept safe from the conflict.
In 1942 the Smithsonian Institution, under a new secretary, Charles Abbot (Walcott had died in 1927), published a list of the Curtiss modifications to the Aerodrome and a retraction of its long-held claims for the craft. The next year, Orville, after exchanging several letters with Abbott, agreed to return the Flyer to the United States.
The Wright brothers hailed from Dayton Ohio, so my guess is that Christopher is at the parade today. Dayton does have an annual Wright brothers parade, don’t they Chris?
Please note that the Wrights were the first to actually fly a manned, self-propelled, sustained, heavier than air vehicle that they could (at least in theory) control. Other folks had been gadding about in other vehicles that managed short hops, bounces, or fairly long glides for about 78 years before them, in various things with wings on that didn’t meet the full definition; “powered flight” had been around since 1783, with the Montgolfier brothers and there hot air balloons. 1783 was also a great year for brandy, right Brenda?
Oh, and of course jizzlam claims credit 1100 years earlier, because back in the year 800 or something some loonie muzzie got tarred and feathered, then leaped off a tall building, managing a sustained but uncontrolled flight. Straight down.
Here’s a neat video of a modern copy of the Wright Flyer showing that it can still get the job done:
It was not until 1908 that Louis Blériot figured out that the control surfaces really belonged on the back end of an airplane. The Wrights and several others of the early era (Curtis etc) put the elevators in front.
Posted by Drew458
on 12/17/2011 at 04:30 PM
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Permalink • Monday - December 05, 2011
New Panamax Green Solution
Just because I’m a Conservative doesn’t mean I’m not in favor of green technology. The ones that work, I’m all for. Here’s one that might be able to cut the mustard.
You may have heard that the Panama Canal is being enlarged. It’s a multi-year project that is well under way. A new set of locks, much larger than the original pair, is being built on both sides. The project seems to be running on time. These new locks will allow much bigger ships to transit Panama. One ship builder is using those new size constraints to design a far more efficient VLCC oil tanker, and while they’re at it they’re adding on everything they can find to add to that efficiency.
The smallest dimensions of the [current] locks are 110 ft (33.53 m) wide, 1,050 ft (320.04 m) long, and 85 ft (25.91 m) deep. Because of clearance issues, the usable sizes are somewhat smaller (for example, the maximum usable length of each lock chamber is about 1,000 ft (304.8 m). The maximum size of the ships that can transit the canal is known as the Panamax.
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The new lock chambers will be 1,400 ft (426.72 m) long, by 180 ft (54.86 m) wide, and 60 ft (18.29 m) deep. They will use rolling gates instead of miter gates, which are used by the existing locks. Rolling gates are used in almost all existing locks with dimensions similar to those being proposed, and are a well-proven technology.
In late August [2009], traffic jams at the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Panama Canal impeded a healthy chunk of the world’s maritime commerce. Each day, on average, more than 40 massive ships, many of them three times as long as a football field and piled high with cargo, rode at anchor in impromptu fleets that stretched across the horizon. On the Atlantic side, most of the ships carried grain from the American heartland, bound for markets in Asia; the vessels on the Pacific side from the Far East were jammed with cars and electronics destined for the U.S. East Coast. Some ships with daily operational costs of $40,000 waited as long as a week for passage.
Ninety-three years after it first opened for business, the Panama Canal is finally maxed out. Designed before the Titanic was even on drawing boards and while the Wright brothers were still learning to fly, the canal today handles more traffic than its builders could have ever imagined. About 14,000 vessels carrying 5 percent of the world’s ocean cargo—280 million tons—pass through the waterway each year. Despite running the canal around the clock—at close to 90 percent of its theoretical maximum capacity—canal officials are struggling to keep up.
A VLCC tanker is an oil tanker built to carry about 2 million barrels of oil. That turns out to be the largest practical size for these giant ships; a few ULCC ships have been built but they are too large for most waterways, including the English Channel. Crude oil is a liquid, and 2 million barrels worth is a fixed volume. The new locks on the Canal will allow ships to be built that carry that same volume, but in a longer, shallower, relatively slimmer hull design, and that immediately translates into increased efficiency, even with the same basic shaped hull. Use a modern high-tech super hull design, like the ones used on racing yachts, and the efficiency increases even more. Now use the latest generation of pod propulsion motors and you’ve got a huge ship that’s fast and nimble with significantly reduced operating costs. Want to go further? Cover the massive ship in solar panels, and stick on a couple of dozen super efficient dynawing sailmasts, and it not only produces a large part of the electricity needed to run those motors, it also uses the wind to help move the ship along. Lastly, install high efficiency engines that run on LNG to help run the generators, and put a set of scrubbers in the smokestacks. Bottom line: a faster tanker that sails across the world for a whole lot less time and cost, and produces only a fraction of the pollution that the current ones do. And that’s exactly what Sauter Carbon Offset Design came up with. Nice going. Now build one and prove your concept.
Richard Sauter of Sauter Carbon Offset Design released his design for the “solar hybrid supertanker” today. If the ship is ever built, you can bet that some big oil company will be using it to tout its “green” credentials in short order.
Sauter’s certified carbon offset projects are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from super yachts and ships. His design team, Sauter Carbon Offset Design creates ships reducing greenhouse gas emissions down 50-100 percent by using all the technology available.
SCOD Presents Deliverance, a DynaWing Solar Hybrid Supertanker that qualifies as the Largest and by far the Greenest Post Panamax Vessel to be built and as such is the most Economical form of Crude Oil Transport to and from any part of the Globe.
To reduce fuel consumption and GHG emissions by up to 75% this superior fluid dynamic Emax Supertanker obtains half of her power from LNG and the other half from the latest advances in Solar and Wind Power Technology.
The Emax Deliverance is a 2 million barrel 330,000dwt Supertanker designed specifically for the newly enlarged locks of the Panama Canal which will accommodate vessels that have a maximum length of 426m, a beam of 54m and a draft of 18 meters.
Being longer, narrower and having less draft than previous 2 million barrel VLCC’s, the hull of the Deliverance produces less drag which in conjunction with twin CRP Hybrid Propulsion Pods reduces fuel consumption and GHG emissions by 35%. An additional 20 to 30% reduction is achieved her 5,000 sq. meter
DynaWing Boom Furling sails and another 15 to 20% reduction by her Solbian Solar Power generating array. The realization of up to a 75% reduction is made possible by Mitsubishi’s Bubble Hull and Wartsila’s Coded Hybrid power system.Generally speaking the total power requirement for a conventional 330,000dwt Supertanker is 30MWs.By comparison the total power requirement for the advanced 330,000dwt Emax Solar Hybrid Supertanker is 20MWs; 10MWs from LNG, 10MWs from the Sun and Wind.
Nice. Even when the sails are furled, the material that they’re made from will work as Fresnel lenses to concentrate light on the solar panels, making them that much more efficient. And lest you think this is all some kind of daydream, it isn’t. It’s pretty much built using off the shelf parts. The ‘bubble hull’ already exists. So do the engines, the solar panels, and the propulsion pods. Even the high tech Dynawing thing is proven tech - it’s the kind of sail used on the latest America’s Cup racing yachts.
The Dynawing design gives the same amount of thrust as a more conventional sail on a mast 25% taller. Shorter means sturdier, and sturdier means cheaper in the long run. But with 20 of these on the Deliverance, totaling half a million square meters of sail area, what it really means is quite a lot of thrust that took no fuel whatsoever to create. Sailboats don’t have exhaust fumes.
Roll it all up and you’ve got a supertanker that can save as much fuel cost in 4 years of operation as it took to build the ship in the first place. Which means it pays for itself, even if the thing cost 15% more than regular ships to build. And with a 25 year lifespan, that means 3 million tons less CO2 in the atmosphere. Nice. Why pollute if you don’t need to?
Posted by Drew458
on 12/05/2011 at 11:31 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - December 01, 2011
the world’s longest model train on 39,000ft of tracks over a quarter an acre
This is not only incredible, it’s an awesome undertaking. I love this kind of thing. Would love to go there. Darn, it’s only across the channel from us.
The article comes from THE DAILY MAIL
View full screen. Impressive! But you knew that already.
Take a ride with the world’s longest model train on 39,000ft of tracks over a quarter an acre that took 500,000 hours to build
(and it’s growing)By EMMA REYNOLDS
Last updated at 1:30 AM on 1st December 2011Welcome to the world’s largest model railroad, in which the whole of human life is faithfully recreated in miniature.
The Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg boasts more than 39,000 feet of tracks, on which 890 trains travel across a quarter of an acre of land.
And there is much more to the intricate creation than railway lines, with carefully crafted party-goers, lovers and mourners at a funeral making their way around the tiny planet.
Posted by peiper
on 12/01/2011 at 08:34 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - November 23, 2011
Up, up, and awaaaay! Um, nope.
We were comparing airline stories at bowling league last night (we lost 2-5 against the 1st place team, widening their lead to 16). Our teammate Bob took his wife down to Panama last week for their anniversary and was on this flight. He said it was pretty frightening but the passengers were quite calm, at least until just before landing when the pilot came on the PA to tell everyone to brace for impact. Then they landed reasonably smoothly. Good job Continental!
A Continental Airlines Boeing 737-900, registration N53442 performing flight CO-1022 from Panama City (Panama) to Newark,NJ (USA) with 176 people on board, was in the initial climb out of Panama when the left hand engine (CFM56) ingested a bird and repeatedly surged. The crew shut the engine down and returned to Panama City’s Tocumen Airport for a safe landing on runway 03R.
Panama’s Civil Aviation Authority [at first erroneously] reported the aircraft [as a different one that] was headed for Houston,TX (USA), however, this flight reached Houston on schedule.
Continental Airlines confirmed their flight 1022 returned to Panama due to necessary maintenance.
Nothing like your airliner shaking like a paint mixer while watching a 10 foot fireball coming out of one engine to liven up a long boring flight!
The Boeing 737-900 had just left Panama City when the bird was sucked into the engine, causing the pilot to radio the control tower for help. The aircraft carrying 176 passengers returned safely to Tocumen International Airport. VIDEO
The pilot was able to shut down the engine and get the plane back to the airport. A passenger on the plane wrote on a messageboard today, “Finally landed in Newark at 12:30 am this morning via Miami. It was a very scary experience. We took a Buzzard into the left engine when climbing after takeoff. This made an awful noise. Sort of like a truck backfire but bigger and did not stop. There was an air Wisconsin pilot in uniform, who was a passenger on the plane. He was the one who walked up the isle and looked out the bulkhead window to see the engine on fire. Pilots and CO flight staff were calm and helpful. The flight attendant in coach was terrific and prepped us for emergency landing. Noise and vibration had us all scared. We did not land for about 20 long minutes. We were out over the water when the noise started. Landing was fine but we burnt the brakes and wheels. We sat on the runway for almost one hour before departing to a bus. It was calm on the plane but once in the terminal, people were crying and hugging.”
Posted by Drew458
on 11/23/2011 at 09:30 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - October 30, 2011
Now, way over here in this corner, we have …
The first Navy airship commissioned in 50 years had its public presentation Wednesday inside Hangar 1 in Lakehurst, the scene of so much history in lighter-than-air flight — and a center for its potential renaissance.
The MZ-3A is the Navy’s scientific test platform for surveillance cameras, radars and other sensors, and won’t be deployed outside the United States. But it’s very significant as a return to an older technology, and there have been two years of testing “to prove LTA (lighter-than-air) has a place in our military construct,” said Cmdr. Jay Steingold, the commanding officer of Scientific Development Squadron One.
The airship is a modified A-170 built by the American Blimp Corp., capable of flying at up to 10,000 feet and cruising at around 50 mph. The Navy began the project in 2006 “to use it as a flying laboratory. The airship is a good platform because it’s very stable, and easy to take things on and off,” Huett said. “A lot of times you want to go slow.”
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“Airships bring affordability to the game. You can operate an airship for 40 percent of the cost of fixed-wing or helicopters,” said Huett
After 47 years, the U.S. Navy effectively terminated Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) operations, August 31, 1962, with the final flight of a ZPG-2 airship at Naval Air Station Lakehurst. Emblazoned with red, white and blue stripes on her rudders acknowledging the Navy’s Centennial of Flight and earliest days of Navy airship operations, the MZ-3A boasts a proud heritage and now serves as the only manned airship in the United States Navy’s inventory.
Built by American Blimp Corporation, the MZ-3A is propeller-driven by two 180 horsepower Lycoming engines producing a top speed just under 50 knots with an operational payload capability of up to 2,500 pounds.
The manned 178-foot LTA craft can remain aloft and nearly stationary for more than twelve hours, performing various missions in support of technology development for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) concepts.
“Airships offer extreme utility in C4ISR roles and patrol missions where persistent stare and reliable communications are often more important than speed,” said Bert Race, MZ-3A Government Flight Representative and Project Manager. “Our MZ-3A has proven that an airship is a very effective platform for mission system research and development.”
The MZ-3A is government-owned and contractor-operated. The contractor, Integrated Systems Solutions, Inc., employs highly qualified commercial blimp pilots whom the Navy has approved to command the airship.
Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1), stationed at the Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Md., is the U.S. Navy’s sole Science & Technology research squadron. Commissioned, December 2004, VXS-1 employs NP-3D Orions, RC-12 Guardrails, Scan Eagle UAS, and most recently, the MZ-3A in its support of NRL-priority airborne research efforts. Since its transfer to VXS-1 in 2009, the MZ-3A has accumulated more than 1,000 mishap-free flight hours in support of the Naval Research Enterprise and recently provided assistance during the tragic Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill in 2010.
The A-170 is the largest blimp model built by ABC. The next generation of Goodyear blimps will be rigid internal framed airships; “real" Zeppelins, built in cooperation with the Zeppelin company. Their first one, an NT model, is due in 2013, and will be half again as long as this Navy blimp, with double the gas volume. Even so, the Navy’s MZ-3A and all the airships Goodyear owns, including the 3 new ones they’re building, could fit with ease inside Hanger One, a building so large that it is said to have it’s own weather inside.
Posted by Drew458
on 10/30/2011 at 12:29 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - October 13, 2011
Oops
Yesterday:
Opening new terminal is a ‘defining moment’
Monroe Louisiana - Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo couldn’t help but smile as he toured the new Monroe Regional Airport terminal one last time before Monday’s official grand opening.
The grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony for the new $35 million Monroe Regional Airport Terminal is at 4:30 p.m. Monday.
“It’s going to be a historic day for the city of Monroe,” Mayo said. “It’s an awesome moment for all of us. It’s emotional as well because we’ve worked so hard to get to this point. Without question, it has been the No. 1 project during my administration. It’s very gratifying to know this will change the gateway into and out of Monroe and the entire northeast Louisiana region.”
The first flight at the new terminal is scheduled to arrive at 8:17 p.m. Tuesday. The first flight out will occur at 6 a.m. Wednesday.
“The first set of passengers who fly into Monroe will probably be shocked when they get off the plane and walk through the loading bridges and come into a brand new facility,” Mayo said.
Today:
Missed connections
Monroe Regional Airport officials learned Tuesday passenger loading and unloading bridges at the new $36 million terminal are not being able to connect to airplanes.
Airport director Cleve Norrell confirmed Tuesday afternoon that some of the loading and unloading bridges at the new terminal appear they will not be able to connect to some of the airplanes.
He said airport officials are working to determine what caused the problem, if the issue resulted from a design flaw during the construction process or if it was a result of an error on the city’s part.
“We are checking them out to see what the problem is, but it looks like some of them will fit and some won’t fit,” Norrell said. “We’re not sure what will fix it right now, but that’s what we’re working on. There are a lot of variables, but we’ll know when we try to put them up to the plane. We’re working to remedy the problem.”
Oops. Still, it’s just a bit of a glich. I’m sure another couple hundred thou can fix things right up. But the real falling short to me is how they spent the money in the first place.
From what I can find out from visiting the “>airport’s homepage, it seems that about two dozen significant commercial flights a day flow through this airport, mostly going in and out of Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta. Wiki tells me they have 3 runways, with the longest one being 7500 feet. That limits this airport to jets smaller than the A320 and modern 737 size; they can fly the old MD-80s and the tiny corporate jets, but that’s about as big as they can go. If they’d spent some of that $35 million on upgrading and lengthening the runway to about 9000 feet, then they could have perhaps grown into a regional hub. Once upon a time Delta was centered out of here, but they moved on to bigger and better airports long ago. To be a playa in the major airport game you need to be able to land the widebodies, and that means long runways built strong enough to fly the heavies. At the very least you need to build to handle the mid-size planes like the A320 and the 737, which make up nearly 1/3 of all native flights, even to make a decent financial go of it. If you can’t do either then you may as well hang Maggie’s Drawers on a pole as a windsock, because your airport will forever just miss the target.
But hey, I’m sure the 900 passengers a day who use the main terminal will be impressed. For $35 million, they damn well ought to be. So good luck to Monroe Regional. And yes, “are not being able to connect to airplanes”, because grammar and writing skills are apparently no longer required to get a degree in journalism.
Monroe is the 8th largest city in Louisiana, located in Ouachita Parish in the northern part of the state, with a population of about 50,000. 3 miles east of town and only 79 feet above sea level, Monroe Regional Airport has two 5000 foot strips and one 7500 foot strip. During WWII more than 15,000 navigators were trained there.
Below the fold: a partial solution?
Posted by Drew458
on 10/13/2011 at 01:59 PM
Filed Under: • Government • planes, trains, tanks, ships, big machinery, and automobiles •
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Permalink • Thursday - September 29, 2011
Driving the Recovery?
Motorway speed limits could be raised to 80mph to shorten journey times and boost the economy
The current 70mph restriction is rarely enforced, police often turning a blind eye to anyone driving at up to 10mph faster than the limit.
Experts have argued that by having a higher speed limit that is enforced more readily, drivers are more likely to have respect for the rules.
A report in the Daily Mail suggests potential changes could be discussed as soon as this month’s Conservative Party conference.
It states that it is now only a matter of time before the change to the law is brought in, although speed restrictions on motorways will be better enforced.
But the Department for Transport refused to be drawn on the matter, describing the report as “speculation”.
“We need to make sure that we are looking at the right criteria when considering what level speed limits should be set at,” a DfT spokesman said.
“This means looking at the economic benefits of shorter journey times as well as considering other implications such as road safety and carbon emissions.
“Any proposal to change national speed limits would be subject to full public consultation.”
The latest figures from the DfT show that nearly half of cars exceeded the 70mph speed limit on motorways last year.
Sounds like a good idea to me for over here too. But I would want state vehicle inspection standards raised to check somehow if cars were stable at those speeds, had the properly rated tires, and had proper brakes. Then I’d want a major effort from the police to enforce safe following distances. People drive on the highways of NJ at 80mph or better all the time ... right on each other’s bumpers. That is not safe driving.
But it would be nice for many of us to get to work 15 minutes faster, and if such a speed limit were to stay around, new cars could be given a more appropriate top gear so that they’d get the same mileage at that speed as they do at 65mph.
Perhaps a bit better driver training could help us, and the UK as well:
The problem with driving is drivers. Not you, dear reader, obviously – your three-point turns are vehicular ballet. It’s the rest of them. As roads have become busier, and our society more self-centred, drivers have become more volatile. And a ton of speeding metal is a lot with which to entrust an angry idiot. Today, even being a passenger is stressful. Although trains can be unreliable, they rarely get cut up on wet motorways, or honked at impatiently by another train travelling three inches behind them. And I can count on no hands the number of times I’ve seen a train driver mouthing curses at a fellow train driver while attempting to run him into a bollard.
In short, our roads would be lovely places to drive if only people didn’t keep driving on them.
Hmmm, maybe. But on the gripping hand, meting out just punishment for offenses behind the wheel seems to be a universal problem ...
Saudi King Abdullah has overturned a court verdict that sentenced a Saudi woman to be lashed 10 times for defying the kingdom’s ban on women driving.
The revelation was made by a government official, who asked to remain anonymous, and who would not reveal the king’s reasons for intervening in the case.
A day earlier, a Saudi court found Shaima Jastaina guilty of violating the driving ban, and sentenced her to 10 lashes, igniting a firestorm in the conservative Muslim kingdom.
It was the first time a legal punishment had been handed down for breaking the longtime ban in the ultraconservative Muslim nation. No laws prohibit women from driving, but conservative religious edicts have banned it.
I bet the Saudis won’t let women drive because there is no peripheral vision in a burkha. That, and they’re all a bunch of 7th century misogynists. But I’m having a happy moment here, daydreaming of NJ having Sharia-esque traffic police ... tailgating? 10 lashes, right now! Didn’t use your signals? 5 lashes, right now! Pennsyltucky Left Lane Dick? 20 lashes, right now! OGB*? 3 lashes when you finally get to where you’re going!
Ach crivens, it’s pouring again. Our third thunderstorm of the day. I am turning into an amphibian, I swear.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/29/2011 at 01:00 PM
Filed Under: • Economics • planes, trains, tanks, ships, big machinery, and automobiles • RoPMA •
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Permalink • Tuesday - September 27, 2011
Aargh Matey, Thar Be Tray-zure
When the SS Gairsoppa was torpedoed by a German U-boat 70 years ago, it took its huge silver cargo to a watery grave. US divers are working to recover what may be the biggest shipwreck haul ever, valued at some $210 million.
Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration on Monday confirmed the identity and location of the Gairsoppa, and cited official documents indicating the British ship was carrying some 219 tons of silver when it sank in 1941 in the North Atlantic some 300 miles (490 kilometers) off the Irish coast.
Valued then at 600,000 pounds, the silver today is worth about $210 million, which would make it history’s largest recovery of precious metals lost at sea, Odyssey said.
“We’ve accomplished the first phase of this project—the location and identification of the target shipwreck—and now we’re hard at work planning for the recovery phase,” Odyssey senior project manager Andrew Craig said in a statement.
“Given the orientation and condition of the shipwreck, we are extremely confident that our planned salvage operation will be well suited for the recovery of this silver cargo.”
Recovery is expected to begin next spring.
After a competitive tender process the British government awarded Odyssey an exclusive salvage contract for the cargo, and under the agreement Odyssey will retain 80 percent of the silver bullion salvaged from the wreck.
The 412-foot (125-meter) Gairsoppa had been sailing from India back to Britain in February 1941 bearing a cargo of silver, pig iron and tea, and was in a convoy of ships when a storm hit. Running low on fuel, the Gairsoppa broke off from the convoy and set a course for Galway, Ireland.
It never made it, succumbing to a German torpedo in the contested waters of the North Atlantic. Of the 85 people on board, only one survived.
The Gairsoppa was laid down in 1919 and was a 5200 ton steamer for the British India Steam Navigation Company. When it was torpedoed, it caught fire and sank in 20 minutes, which allowed all the surviving crew to escape in lifeboats. Unfortunately rough seas claimed 2 of the 3 boats, and most of the 31 on the 3rd boat died from exposure before they reached land. To add insult to injury, that lifeboat was wrecked in the surf, drowning all but 1 crew member.
The boat in charge of the second officer set sail with eight Europeans and 23 Lascars aboard, but after seven days most had died of exposure and only four Europeans and two Lascars were still alive when the boat reached land on 1 March. Sadly, it capsized in the swell and surf of Caerthillian Cove on The Lizard, Cornwall and all occupants drowned except the second officer, who was rescued unconscious by a coastguard.
The wreck was found very close to where the U-Boat logs said it was sunk.
another source article with lots of pictures
Posted by Drew458
on 09/27/2011 at 03:39 PM
Filed Under: • planes, trains, tanks, ships, big machinery, and automobiles • War-Stories •
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Permalink • Saturday - September 17, 2011
Tragedy in Reno
RENO, Nev. — At least three people are dead and more than 50 injured when a pilot lost control of a vintage World War II-era plane and crashed at an air show in Reno.
Twelve people are in critical condition, and the death toll is expected to rise, says CBS News correspondent Karen Brown.
Witnesses describe the scene as absolute carnage, reports Brown.
Thousands of fans come every year to the Reno Air Race to get the thrill of the event - like NASCAR on steroids, with planes going more than 500 miles per hour. But yesterday, thousands watched in horror when a P-51 Mustang pitched upward, rolled and plunged nose-first into the edge of the crowd of spectators.
“Boom! Right into the grandstands,” said photographer Jerry Maxwell. “I couldn’t believe it.”
The plane, flown by a 74-year-old veteran Hollywood stunt pilot, then slammed into the concrete in a section of VIP box seats and blew to pieces in front the pilot’s family and a tight-knit group of friends who attend the annual event in Reno.
Veteran airman Jimmy Leeward among dead in Reno
“It absolutely disintegrated,” said Tim O’Brien of Grass Valley Calif., who attends the races every year. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Dozens of victims lay on the tarmac. The most critically injured, were airlifted to nearby hospitals, carried on stretchers. Others, clearly wounded, walked into emergency rooms.
Pilot Jimmy Leeward of Ocala, Fla., died in the crash Friday after apparently losing control of the P-51 Mustang, which spiraled into a box seat area at the National Championship Air Races at about 4:30 p.m. Friday. Leeward and at least two others were killed; dozens were injured.
Family members were at the air show and saw the crash, said Reno Air Races President and CEO Mike Houghton.
...
Leeward’s pilot’s medical records were up-to-date, and he was “a very qualified, very experienced pilot,” Houghton said. He’d been racing at the show in Reno since 1975.
...
Maureen Higgins, of Alabama, said Leeward was the best pilot she knew. She was at the air show and said she could see his profile while the plane was going down. He was married and his wife often traveled with him.“He’s a wonderful pilot, not a risk taker,” she said. “He was in the third lap and all of a sudden he lost control.”
Authorities say it appears a mechanical failure with the P-51 Mustang — a class of fighter plane that can fly in excess of 500 mph — was to blame. Some credit the pilot with preventing the crash from being far more deadly.
“If he wouldn’t have pulled up, he would have taken out the entire bleacher section,” said Tim Linville, 48, of Reno, who watched the race with his two daughters.
“The way I see it, if he did do something about this, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives because he was able to veer that plane back toward the tarmac,” said Johnny Norman, who was at the show.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/17/2011 at 09:03 AM
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Permalink • Friday - September 02, 2011
Less Terminal
TSA to demonstrate new security scanners at Newark Liberty International Airport
Passengers with privacy concerns may soon feel less exposed when flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport, where officials say full-body scanners modified to produce cartoon-like, cookie-cutter images will be unveiled today.
The new images produced by the reprogrammed scanners — which have been likened to a gingerbread man — will replace the specific, anatomically detailed outline of individual passengers that has been criticized by religious groups, civil libertarians and elected officials as an invasion of travelers’ privacy.
All 11 full-body scanners at Newark Liberty have been reprogrammed to produce the new imagery, and will go into use within weeks, once screeners have been trained to use them, said Lisa Farbstein, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA will demonstrate the new technology this morning at Newark’s Terminal B.
“This new software ... auto-detects items that could pose a potential threat using a generic cookie-cutter type of outline of a person for all passengers,” Farbstein said. “It’s the same image whether the person is 17 years old or 47 years old, male or female, tall or short.”
If the technology does not detect an anomaly, it won’t produce any physical image, just a simple “OK” against a green screen. Otherwise, the object’s location will be indicated by a box superimposed on the cookie-cutter image.
The TSA began testing the new software in February, and last month announced it would be installed this fall on all 241 millimeter wave scanners nationwide, including the 11 at Newark. The total cost of the new software is $2.7 million, including research and development, Farbstein said.
The TSA is testing similar privacy enhancing software for the 250 other scanners in use at airports nationwide, so called X-ray backscatter scanners which subject passengers to a small dose of radiation. None are used at Newark.
The ACLU has sued the TSA to learn whether the images produced by the reprogrammed scanners are simply overlays, with the original, detailed images preserved unseen in digital form, with the chance of being leaked or misused.
A earlier ACLU suit revealed the U.S. Marshals Service in Florida had created a database of 35,000 full-body images scanned at a federal courthouse in Orlando.
“These machines are designed to store the images,” Jacobs said. “Even if they don’t show them.”
I think I agree with the ACLU. I don’t trust the TSA and their army of ghetto trash workers. Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/02/2011 at 01:52 PM
Filed Under: • Government • planes, trains, tanks, ships, big machinery, and automobiles • Science-Technology •
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Permalink • Thursday - August 11, 2011
A few days off
Not going to be much posting from me for the next couple of days. I’ve got a window job on a good sized house, and then I have a pair of doors to install. And my usual Sunday work of course. Good thing I spent half of today in the kitchen cooking. Chicken curry, meat sauce, several nice quiches. I’m set.
So here you go ... something to keep you occupied ... majorly clicky clicky but still SFW ...
Hey, it can’t be redheads all the time ya know. Sometimes it’s a blonde, sometimes you just have to wing it.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/11/2011 at 09:04 PM
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • Eye-Candy • planes, trains, tanks, ships, big machinery, and automobiles • work and the workplace •
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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