will it take off?

[rback33]

Pat,
It's funny how people go about getting things unstuck. I myself have followed the method of going into the ditch to get out. Was a completely different situation though. I'll try and help you picture this. The highway we were on was pretty snow packed and slick after about 2 in of white stuff. I watched a fullsize van do a 360 and slide of the road. The drop off from the road to the ditch was very gradual and about 2 1/2 feet vertically over all. On the other side of the ditch were houses with a running parallel to the highway. It was maybe a foot and a half rise over a similar run to the driveway. The poor woman was a little freaked out as she was from southern CA. It was not feasible to try and get it back on the road with out assistance (I was in my car) so I told ust to ease on through the ditch and onto the drive. She was scared the van would tip over on the slope (I stifled my laughter) and she asked me to do it. So it did. Drove her up onto the drive jumped out and let her back in and she was on her merry way. Slowly I might add....

I have been carrying my chain in my Dodge ready to pull people out, but most people out here know how to handle things safely.

 

[daTeacha]

I live on the end of the power -- literally. Whenever a squirrel walks on a wire anywhere between here and the Ohio River, about 200 miles away, I think my power goes out. It blinks sufficiently to cause most of the digital clocks to need resetting about once every week or two now, more like twice a week in the summer.

I have a 5000 watt genny that burns natural gas wired into dedicated circuits in the house, a gas stove, and a woodburner. I need to manually switch the genny output to the well circuit every once in a while to get water, but other than that we function well enough, even when it's out for a couple of days at a time.

 

[patrick_g]

Pat,
It's funny how people go about getting things unstuck.

Or stuck! They were pusing this SUV into the ditch which was very gradual in slope both downhill to the rear of the direction of travel after they got it in the ditch and uphill of course to get out of the ditch. As it was all glaze ice and almost impossible to walk on it I didn't see them building momentum and making it out, not trying to drive uphill.

They only got enough traction for their feet while manually pushing because there was a ridge between the ice on the road and the ice in the ditch to brace their feet. Smart money would have bet on heading the vehicle downhill and driving along the ditch (shoulder with a central swale) until buillding up some speed and then trying to get on the road. I was at first concerned the truck might slide downhill instead of dragging tghe SUV uphill but I guess the ratio of weights was 2-3 to 1 and it was noi problem.

Of course when I got home I went out wilth my 4x4 tractor and broke ice for the herd to get water. I have done it many times. I use the pallet forks. For some stupid reason I got too aggressive and stuck the front wheels and couldn't get them to climb up and out, even assisting with the pallet forks. Had to walk and get my truck to pull myself out. I'll be satisfied to breal the first 2-3 feet instead of getting too carried away from now on.

When I was in the service in Minot ND I saw all the guys wives from the south who had no clue how to drive on ice or snow. The town of Minot is in the Souris River valley and the main highway north toward the base has a fairly steep hill in it to get out of town (a guy in our squadron got a speeding ticket going down it on a skate board.) Dependents used to stack up like cordwood failing to be able to drive up the hill when it was slick. I would sometimes have to drive 3-4 cars up the hill to clear a path for those of us who could drive up the hill. We were all 2 wheel drive. I had a VW station wagon part of the time and a Sunbeam Tiger (165 MPH high performance Ford Mustang V-8 version of the Alpine sports car) part of the time. Two winters with the sports car and narry a scratch or problem. You just had to know how to drive smoothly and shift a manual tranny smoothly. Up there they used to close the shopping center at about 6PM so for an entertaining evening we used to go to the shopping center and run slalom races on glaze ice covered with loose snow as well as just mess around for fun. Driving on ice at 5-25 MPH is real close to driving at speeds over 150MPH as regards loss of traction if you do any thing juerky or to excess. We pratciced 180 reversals front to back and back to front, 360 turns and all kinds of stuff coming close to ice capades in a car. The first winter I also had a MG A model with no heat, side curtains instead of roll up windows (very drafty), but it couldn't hold a candle to the VW Variant wagon with its air cooled rear engine. (Yeah, it didn't overheat in the winter or the other two months either.)

It is fun and at low speeds you don't hurt anything is you stay away from any curbs or islands. The worst thing is to get a red face if you really goof up or maybe hit a pylon or 3 or 7 if you loose it. What can I say? Gas was cheap, we were poor GI's, and it was harmless fun. After the cops sort of got used to it and we didn't ever hurt any property or each other no one ever complained.

Pat

 

[patrick_g]

Whenever a squirrel walks on a wire anywhere between here and the Ohio River, about 200 miles away, I think my power goes out. It blinks sufficiently to cause most of the digital clocks to need resetting about once every week or two now, more like twice a week in the summer. /QUOTE]

Today we have had several periods of flashing lights. My UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) is down stream of a good surge protector but it acted weird and had to be removed from the system after a couple of light flashes.

We have a lot of fractioinal second poutages just long enough to make the clocks blink in the stove, 3 microwaves and a bunch of other stuff. I feel your pain!

Pat

 

[daTeacha]

Yeah, I played winter gymkhana a lot in Michigan when I was up there. Back in the late 60's I was in a Camaro club in Flint. We went further up north to watch the ice races -- guys on motorcycles with studs about half an inch long racing on frozen lakes. Then the cars got into it,too.

Down here, the school parking lot makes a nice place to practice unless you're a kid and the sheriff catches you. We even had a school bus driver doing donuts with the bus one day several years ago when he came in for the evening run. He no longer drives bus for the school district.

The Sheriff's department used to use our lot for a summer High Performance/Tactical driving school until some neighbor complained about the noise and tire smoke. I was teaching driver ed. in the summer at the time and had the kids run the slalom at increasingly higher speeds, then in reverse without using the brakes. The fun part was driving them through the maneuverability cones at 35+ and not touching a cone. To get their license they had to drive into the pattern, stop, and back out without touching anything and a lot of them had trouble, so zipping through it that fast really got their attention.

 

[Glowplug]

Okay, this may have already been addressed in this 73 page thread but I couldn't go and read through all of them.

If a plane were landing on a treadmill could it theoretically shorten the distance to land?

If so, you could build smaller aircraft carriers and such as long as you had really fast treadmills.

 

[BillyP]

Okay, this may have already been addressed in this 73 page thread but I couldn't go and read through all of them.

If a plane were landing on a treadmill could it theoretically shorten the distance to land?

If so, you could build smaller aircraft carriers and such as long as you had really fast treadmills.

OK, I'll bite, Yes! But on second thought, NO

 

[DieselPower]

Okay, this may have already been addressed in this 73 page thread but I couldn't go and read through all of them.

If a plane were landing on a treadmill could it theoretically shorten the distance to land?

If so, you could build smaller aircraft carriers and such as long as you had really fast treadmills.

Nope. Wheel speed is independent of air speed. The very little resistance the wheel bearings would provide would barely be noticeable.

 

[SPYDERLK]

Okay, this may have already been addressed in this 73 page thread but I couldn't go and read through all of them.

If a plane were landing on a treadmill could it theoretically shorten the distance to land?

If so, you could build smaller aircraft carriers and such as long as you had really fast treadmills.

Yes - same appropriate physics as previously posted. Just change the sign.
larry

PS - Why dont you lengthen your pages. I only have a 19 pg thread.

 

[patrick_g]

You don't need a treadmill on an aircraft carrier (it won't help.) What you need is a way faster aircraft carrier to reduce the relative landing speed and proportionately reduce the landing roll.

If a carrier could go as fast as the landing speed of the plane then the plane would make a vertical landing and not need arresting gear. Every kt of speed the ship makes good is a kt of airspeed for the plane and a reduction in takeoff roll and landing speed.

Any design ideas for a hydrofoil carrier or a hover craft carrier?

Alternatively you can install big fans to blow lots of air down the flight deck. This is as effective as having the ship go faster. If there is enough wind down the deck the aircraft can land vertically or nearly so.

This is easy to test with say a T-Craft. A Taylor craft has such a minimal landing and liftoff speed that in a stiff wind you can essentially make vertical takeoff and landings.

Pat