Semi Retired Aviator

What is it with these guys who gain some perverse pleasure from trolling? If they're on a forum, it takes no more to make an intelligent contribution than to troll. Maybe it does take a lot more to make an INTELLIGENT contribution by those who troll??

GallopingGhostler

Perhaps the best explanation is from Psychology Today:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...hs-and-sadists

gmeyers

I had to quit watching - that nonsense is just that NONSENSE with no merit whatsoever ! The present system needs reform is about the only thing that made sense. I know a lot of beans out there who can't find their way to the toilet let alone the floor of Congress. Many folks (beans) are functionally illiterate - couldn't read a bill let alone write one.
is this the right forum for politics?

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

Just to get back to something airplane related, I was over on Brodak's site. They carry a lot of C/L stuff and small R/C kits. They just brought out a new kit this week a Landcaster MK1 Bomber in a 60" wingspan! They already had a 60" Connie I have been drooling over along with a 42" B-25 like my uncle was on and a 40" Mosquito BMK-IV.

gmeyers

Can I add that we had another advantage in WWII and that was diversity. We had multiple aircraft manufacturers who each had their design concepts which gave us the Mustang, the Wildcat, the Hellcat, the P40, the Thunderbolt, the Lightening, the Corsair, the Avenger, the TBM, the PBY, the P39 Aircobra, each a specialist. While we like to give credit to the P51 Mustang, the Corsair, The Hellcat other specialist did their job too. The Avenger and TBM sank a lot of Japanese Tonage with each carrier drowning a lot of ZERO planes and other ships with ammunition, soldiers, supplies. Japan relied heavily on the ZERO which was quickly outclassed when the Hellcat and the Corsair entered the war and the Germans with the two, Focke Wulf and Messerschmidt couldn't deal with the p51, p38 and p47. We were also blessed with trainers who were also pilots and understood the advantage of tactics in air combat.

GallopingGhostler

When the Japanese first encountered the Grumman F6F Hellcat, they carried out their training in dealing with the older obsolete F4F Wildcat that utilized diving and zooming to kill tactics. The Hellcat didn't have to dive to build up speed and could out climb the Zeros. Prior to that, the US developed tactics to make the best use of the equipment on hand, which helped to turn the tide. This philosophy on tactics is carried to this day.

acdii

Hence Top Gun. We had some of the brightest minds back then too when you consider that the Fastest airplane ever built and flown in service, the SR-71, was all done using slide rules. Put a slide rule in front of our current load of genius' and they wont know what it is or how to use it. I think I still have one somewhere.

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

I remember my slide rule class back in 1972, it wasn't easy.

GallopingGhostler

I toyed with a slide rule in high school. By the time I went to college, back in the mid 1970's slide rules had significantly faded away. Scientific programmable calculators were appearing on the scene. My first, a Texas Instruments TI-58 could store a couple hundred keystrokes, solve simpler engineering approximations without resorting to key punch cards and the mainframe. I bought a 4" thermal paper tape companion printer so I could paste that to paper and turn in for homework credit. And I didn't have to put up with the Reverse Polish Notation keystrokes that the so called superior yet more expensive and harder to use HP calculators were famed for.

I had the usual "Why din't you buy an HP like me?" chiding by colleagues. I didn't have well to do parents like they to fund my college expenses, it was on my nickel. The HP cost $300 back in 1976, the TI-58 was $100. It wasn't hard to make up my mind on what I needed to feed myself and stay in school.

donnyman

I was in my teens when first introduced to the slip stick (slide rule) It confounded me for years, my friend Joe Reese could use it but I never could. I eventually learned to use a circular version of the rule that accomplished the same thing but I can't remember how I came by it. Didn't even have a need for a calculator until I took chemistry in college (boring)! The one I use now has more functions than I understand and have to keep the instructions handy at all times.

Let me wish everyone a delicious thanks giving day,week, month, year and life.

Happy turkey everyone!

karolh

I still have my old slide rule though it's leather case now shows signs of extreme wear. It was one of the better quality rules made from a bamboo base material which I have kept all these years, I guess just for posterity's sake.

Semi Retired Aviator

I had a circular slide rule, sometimes known as a navigation computer. I'm sure it doesn't have all the same functions as the traditional slide rule, logarithmic, etc., but every pilot has used one somewhere in his training. I guess these days they've given way to an ipad with a navigation app??

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

I hope training and proficiency is still required in using circular Navigation Computer. Electronics can malfunction or have the batteries die, the old Navigation Computers didn't have such weaknesses. The only one I can think of is the loose nut holding the thing!

donnyman

This loose nut still has a couple of the nav. computers somewhere in the maze of junk I have but they were primarily for aviation useage, the circualr one I spoke of was exactly like the slip stick but round with three wheels turned to align the numbers. If I ever find it I will provde pictures It was really easy to use.

The NAV computer fiscinated me because properly utilize it was dead nuts accurate, I especially liked cross wind calculations, I rarely flew unless I had to do cross wind flying and landings, otherwise I found flying boreing. now days a GPS can do the job in seconds but you better have good batteries. Just too easy and removes the fun of making a mistake and having to make corrections mid flight.

acdii

Did a search for an actual slide rule. I found a couple, but they start around $100 and up. I found the actual one I remember using way back then.

GallopingGhostler

Slides rules are now considered nostalgia items. I remember in the 1970's they were still being sold in bookstores. Cost was based on accuracy, they had inexpensive ones molded of plastic from Japan. They were also available by mail order. I had one, I think my father may have given me his also, that he had from the 1960's, but both have been long lost.

countilaw

Back in 1965, my freshman year in High School I joined the slide rule club. We met every morning before homeroom. I had a holster that hung from my belt for my slide rule to ride in.

Those were the days.

Frank

Greybeard1

$100? Jeez! I've been picking them up in second hand stores for years, I have over twenty now. I have one small circular, but unfortunately heat has warped it a bit. I have Dietzgen, Post, Pickett, even the cheap little wood one I had in high school. Now I'll have to go looking to see if any of them are worth doing anything with. Most of them are in pretty good shape, one is a 20 inch Post, the only one I've ever seen. Hmm.

Rich

GallopingGhostler

I checked E-bay, one can get a slide rule for under $30 shipping included. Personally, I've got enough junk as it is that I can use the $20 for something else. Time to down size, kids grown up, don't need a large house any more.

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

I'm not sure I could work a slide rule after all these years. I remember when my dad bought the first electronic calculator it had all the usual function plus a square root function! It had a built in rechargable battery and cost almost $90.00 from Montgomery Wards. I think that is what I paid for a top of the line graphing calculator for my kids to use on the SATs.

donnyman

Here we go again! registration is on the table. This time I think it will stick. It is my thought that with the rise of terrorism such as it is some idiot might do something dumb and the powers think a number would control it.
As I have said before numbers didn't stop previous terrorist ......................oh what the heck!

acdii

lemme guess, FAA?

Locks only keep out the honest, rules only are followed by the lawful.

Lets face it, every single one of us breaks a law every single day. I did it myself this morning. No one got hurt, not even the squirrel who crossed the road. Only a handful of people get caught doing it each day, so if driving faster than the speed limit is hard to enforce, just imagine how hard it will be to enforce the FAA one.

Joe Fisher

My Feedback: (4)

We have coal trains run by Parsons Kansas day and night. When I worked at a coal fired power plant we used gas in the summer and coal in the winter. Here in south east Kansas we have all kinds of new manufacturing starting up. I still use my old E6B flight computer and sectional charts I thought my students that way.

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

Yes, they are rolling it into law with the reauthorization bill, if you already registered you don't have to do it again

Stickslammer

I can`t find my old registration number.