greenhouse gas

[skywords]

Anyone care to speculate how future legislation is going to affect the building and operation of classic cars once this eco wonder gets rolling? I know this is on the verge of a political discussion but it is so related to our hobby that it should be pondered. My hopes are that they consider us a tiny part not worth any consideration.

 

[Bill Blue]

Rick, states will have little choice but to ignore old cars, regardless of classic status. The alternative will be to refuse to license cars manufactured before a certain date. That would open a BIG can of worms. Normal attrition will rapidly reduce the number of "noncompliant" cars and cost of fuel will limit the road miles of the survivors.

In addition, if this comes down to an EPA issue, they have always been hesitant to apply more strict rules on existing facilites/equipment. Look at current car emissions rules. New limits only apply to autos made after the effective date of the new standard.

Not worry, unless you live in California.

Bill

 

[skywords]

I hope you are right Bill, Big Brother does not have a very good track record of considering the needs of the people, look at the fishing industry in the North East. They mean well but they forget that people have to eat. I will remain optimistic on the subject until I hear otherwise.

 

[Nickodell]

Something that the "Sky is Falling" crowd kept quiet was a report last year that bovine flatulence (in plain English, cow farts) worldwide create more greenhouse gas than all the autos, trucks, planes, ships and trains.

The message: we should all convert to vegetarians.

By the way, the source of the report was not some Al Gore hater. It was the U.N.

 

[Bill Blue]

I hope you are right Bill, Big Brother does not have a very good track record of considering the needs of the people, look at the fishing industry in the North East. They mean well but they forget that people have to eat. I will remain optimistic on the subject until I hear otherwise.

Rick, what is the issue with the Northeast fishing industry? The last I heard (several years ago), the big problem was the collapse of the codfish population from overfishing.

Bill

 

[skywords]

I saw a documentry on this and I believe it was the Gloster (I am talking thru my hat) fishermen and yes it was a over fishing problem but they went overboard and darn near bankrupted most of the fishermen with a ban. I am sure there is someone that knows a heck of a lot more about it than I.

The Government shut down many old airtankers because of the C-130 wing failure. One such company is ARDCO here in Tucson. They have been flying Douglas DC-4's for many many years with great success. The DC-4 has never had a wing failure and yet it was banned from service. The really crappy part of this is they waited till the start of the season after ARDCO spent all winter preparing the aircraft for the upcoming season. The kind of inspections they do are very costly. In fact they de-mated the outboard wing panels on all the aircraft and X-rayed the bathtub attach fittings. This company is family owned and they use funds such as home equity and Biz loans to do this work.The forest service signed off the aircraft as airworthy and a week or so later told them they were grounded. With not so much as a howdy do or reach around.

Makes perfect sense a turbine powered aircraft that is subject to high freqency vibrations and subject to many more cracking problems than a recipricating engine powered aircraft is allowed to continue flight and the proven recip aircraft is grounded. I talk from experience for i have worked structural repair on C-130, L-382, L-188, DC-3, DC-4, DC-6, DC-7. I have seen cracks six feet long in the upper wing planks of a L-188 Electra All we did was fix cracks in the Lockheed wings. Based on my experience I would rather fly the older Douglas recip aircraft than the newer turbine aircraft. The decision was purely political and ruined many good people. Keep in mind it was the C-130 wing that failed. And you won't see any ugly external doublers and tripler beef ups around the outboard nacelles of a Douglas 4, 6, or 7 only the Lockheed wings. This was due to the outboard engines leaving the aircraft (killing all aboard). Douglas got the wing right the first time.

Now in the commercial aviation world governed by the FAA aircraft are flown past their established life limits all the time using a continued airworthiness inspection program. But in the case of the DC-4 a life limit has never been established. Based on fatigue cracks in the wings "well there just isn't any". All this nonsense was initiated at the same exact time as one of the big boy's debute of the B-747 airtanker. Humm And by the way they sold that to the public as a new airplane when the truth be known it is a worn out corroded piece of crap Pan AM discarded years ago. I know I have worked on it.
Oh and the B-747 is limited to only 2 g's at gross weight. Just the airplane to fly in mountain turbulance at low level. But hey it's your money!

This is a quote from a Interagencies report on the grounding of the DC-4's in Tucson. Note their private think tank Dynaco could not determine if the aircraft were safe. So rather than go by the aircrafts safety record they choose to shot gun it and give the money to the big boys "sound familar?



Quote:
The report to the Chief and the Director from Dyncorp Technologies indicated that the contractors did not have enough data to provide to Dyncorp to determine the OSL. Fort Worth Texas-based DynCorp Technical Services was hired June 9th, 2004, to provide the expertise in analyzing the airworthiness documentation provided by contractors for each heavy airtanker. The DC-4 large airtankers are owned by ARDCO, Incorporated of Tucson, Arizona.

On May 10th, 2004, the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior terminated the contracts for 33 large airtankers to be used in firefighting missions due to concerns over the airworthiness of the aircraft, and firefighter and public safety. The decision was based on safety recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued April 23, 2004, at the conclusion of their investigation into three fatal airtanker crashes related to in-flight structural failures.
End quote

When the country is going up in smoke (greenhouse gases) and all you see are whimpy little single engine turbines and $10,000.00 an hour helicopters pizzing on the fire you can thank the Forest Service.

If you want to read more:

http://www.nifc.gov/nr_airtanker-contracts.html

 

[Bill Blue]

Rick, not to worry. Sounds like the Bush administration was, as usual, just taking care of their friends. Unless the greenhouse gas issue evolves in a way that Haliburton can profit, we have nothing to worry about.

Bill

 

[mikephillips]

I think they just want all those pesky trees to burn down... After grounding so much of the tanker fleet I read that the government has decided not to certify the 747 tanker and the project's effectively dead. was it the perfect answer, no, but better than no answer at all.

 

[Nickodell]

Rick: your post reminds me of the nonsensical 60 years age limit on airline pilots. It was never based on any medical grounds, just "everybody knows that ..... " and hundreds of careers of perfectly fit pilots were prematurely terminated.

Now they've quietly raised it to 65. To further compound the idiocy, the change was not made retroactive; a healthy captain with 20,000 hours of experience - the kind I want up front in the case of an emergency - grounded the day before the limit was raised, didn't get to fly again for five more years. Once you're grounded, that's it.

 

[skywords]

Bill
Maybe Haliburton needs firewood?

Mike
Ya I know it was better than nothing. I saw the films of the test water drops and I must admit thats a boat load of water it drops. They held it in pressurized vessels so it was released under pressure.

Nick
I boarded a flight in St Louis bound for Pheonix TWA B727-200 and I saw the captain board the aircraft he had a Dunlop and grey hair in need of a cut sticking out under his cap. He was wearing a well worn wrinkled uniform, I knew it would be a good flight. He came on the intercom and said "Ladies and Gentlemen this is your captain Captain Hank" and from there he anounced every landmark and sight there was to see.
At our cruising altitude he started the let down by pulling the power back to flight idle and we must have travel 200 miles without adding power, infact he did not add power and only slight amount on short final to check the flare. I thought to myself the airplane is not flying this man but this man is flying the airplane.