Fuel container

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, Carbon Canary said:

I recall having to put the butane canister inside my sleeping bag while camping in Kosciusko NP in winter..

I’ve kept my plane’s tiny little Pdacid battery in my sleeping bag on winter nights or the plurry thing would never start the next morning!

[skippydiesel]

I believe the British Isles  & Canada are a "hodgepodge" of metric/imperial. Like Australia they started well down the metric track but lost impetus before finishing.

 

Our parochial cousin's, the Yanks - best say no more ( I am concerned about buying something as complex as a nuclear sub/weapon systems - how will a metric submariners cop).

Edited May 4, 2023 by skippydiesel

[Carbon Canary]

Wasn't that the problem that made the space shuttle Challenger explode ?  The fuel 'O' ring was metric rather than imperial or something ??

[facthunter]

OR something?  Nev

[sfGnome]

4 hours ago, Carbon Canary said:

Wasn't that the problem that made the space shuttle Challenger explode ?  The fuel 'O' ring was metric rather than imperial or something ??

The classic was the Mars probe that crashed because the European part was giving its altitude in metres, and the American part was interpreting it as feet. Oops.  In commercial software, we commonly put the units into the variable name, so instead of a variable called ‘height’, it would be ‘height_ft’ or ‘height_m’. Saves a hellava lot of problems. 
 

I lived in Ireland for a few years, and while everything was officially metric, everyone talked imperial. Confusing. Drive over the border into Norther Ireland, and it was all imperial. I got caught behind a tourist (I assume) one day who, when crossing the border and seeing a ‘60’ sign on the highway, immediately slowed down to 60kph… 🙄

[old man emu]

I can't handle altitude in metres, not tyre pressure in anything but psi. But that's just my two bobs' worth.

[spacesailor]

Metres per second per second, ! .

Thats the way to do it .

spacesailor

[Old Koreelah]

26 minutes ago, old man emu said:

I can't handle altitude in metres, not tyre pressure in anything but psi. But that's just my two bobs' worth.

Every time I top up my tyres I have to reset the servo’s unit from PSI to kpa.

Australia metricated thirty-odd years ago and we STILL can’t use the simplest, most sensible system ever conceived. 

Every vehicle has a recommended tyre pressure placard, usually next to the driver’ door. They are all in kPa, a very simple system, used EVERYWHERE, except backward countries.
What the hell is a PSI? What’s a pound? A square inch? 

 

One Pascal is the pressure exerted by 10grams (two teaspoons of water) sitting on one square centimetre (a fingernail). Standard air pressure is 1 Atmosphere, almost exactly 100 kPa, so if you put two Atm in your tyre, it’s about 200 kPa.

 

Can we please throw out those ancient, inefficient measurements?

[Blueadventures]

7 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Metres per second per second, ! .

Thats the way to do it .

spacesailor

That’s acceleration, meters per second is velocity.  In my head has stayed 26 meters per second is 50 knots and I work from that. Cheers

[Carbon Canary]

8 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

Every time I top up my tyres I have to reset the servo’s unit from PSI to kpa.

Australia metricated thirty-odd years ago and we STILL can’t use the simplest, most sensible system ever conceived. 

Every vehicle has a recommended tyre pressure placard, usually next to the driver’ door. They are all in kPa, a very simple system, used EVERYWHERE, except backward countries.
What the hell is a PSI? What’s a pound? A square inch? 

 

One Pascal is the pressure exerted by 10grams (two teaspoons of water) sitting on one square centimetre (a fingernail). Standard air pressure is 1 Atmosphere, almost exactly 100 kPa, so if you put two Atm in your tyre, it’s about 200 kPa.

 

Can we please throw out those ancient, inefficient measurements?

Two teaspoons - now there is standard measure 😎

Teaspoon, Tablespoon, half a cup, SydHarb.

[sfGnome]

12 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

Every time I top up my tyres I have to reset the servo’s unit from PSI to kpa.

Guilty as charged! 😛 I’m a bit of a metric nazi, railing against the use of imperial measurements. So your baby is 8lbs? How heavy is that? About 3.5kg? Ah, now I understand. But pull up at a servo for air, and it’s 42psi thanks. I really should repent and learn a new number. 

[facthunter]

I know Russia used meters for altitude but feet is better as 1,000 feet is a rounded figure and about right for most  vertical separation situations.  Nev

[Old Koreelah]

11 minutes ago, facthunter said:

I know Russia used meters for altitude but feet is better as 1,000 feet is a rounded figure and about right for most  vertical separation situations.  Nev

What’s wrong with 300 metres? As our instruments get more accurate, we might be able to standardise on 200m vertical separation. Pilots’ brains have enough to do without constantly switching between two systems for vertical and horizontal measurement. Add that load to the many who must communicate in a language they only recently learned (English) and you have a recipe for overload.

[facthunter]

It's not a problem OK in the real world.  The majority of the world does it. You just set 2  NUMBERS FL followed by a nought. ie FL 310. Over that LEVEL with a US autopilot you require 2 thousand feet vertical separation. Just for a bit of useless information... If you can't remember what  a foot is look down but it's just numbers Nev

[Carbon Canary]

Is there a difference between a Rod, Pole and Perch ?  If not, why does all three require being quoted for imperial measurement.

 

 

[old man emu]

Perch: measure of land equal to a square lineal perch" (usually 160 to the acre), late 14c., earlier "land-measuring rod" (c. 1300), from Old French perche "unit of linear measurement" (5.5 yards), also "measuring rod, pole, bar" used to measure this length (13c.),

 

Rod: As a unit of linear measure (5½ yards or 16½ feet, also called perch or pole) attested from late 14c., from the pole used to mark it off. As a measure of land area, "a square perch," from late 14c., the usual measure in brickwork.

 

Pole is now an equivalent length, but at one time a pole was 10 feet, or 3.3 yards. The ten-foot pole was a common tool used to set stakes for fences. Nowadays fence paneling is 2.4 metres.

 

It appears that perche came to us from the Norman conquerors, when the conquered were using the term "rod", from  Old English.

[Carbon Canary]

Thank you !

I always wondered why they were mentioned together.

CC

[onetrack]

Yeah, there's a few things I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole! Sounds better than a 3.048M pole, and I know exactly how far 10 feet is!

What bugs me is, in the transition to metric sizes, we managed to get ripped off at nearly every turn. 1/4" and 1/2" steel plate became 6mm and 12mm - when it should've been 6.35mm and 12.7mm - but we still paid the same price, as the inch sizing!

 

Vast amounts of other items were "shrunk" in the same manner - and I still like MPG, it's far better than that abortion of a measurement, "litres per 100kms"!!

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by onetrack

[facthunter]

 I move around a lot for  a person in my age group. Litres/100 Kms I use all the time. In machining I'm basically working in inch sizes but use metric just  as easy. Prior to WW1 most antifriction Bearings were metric sizes everywhere, including the USA.. Imperial bearings are about 4 times the cost of Metric. Nev

[facthunter]

IF you can even get them. Nev

[spacesailor]

I'm old. Er. .

I can' t tell a couple metres from a couple of yards.

Tyre sizes are still US inch , but US engine size is cubic inch .

US pints or quarts are not the same as UK pints/gallons. 

The different countries measurements are not the problem as the older generation passes and the new , have never used a different countries system. Will have a system they Know . 

To the metric system,  pushers  the  address is " System International Paris France " .

To me it's the same as King  Charles , is our king .

And , ! my Newest GreatGrandSon  will never understand the rein of Queen Elisabeth .

Born yesterday morning .

spacesailor

[skippydiesel]

22 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

Every time I top up my tyres I have to reset the servo’s unit from PSI to kpa.

.................................................................................................................

Using servo pressure gauges/read -outs is an accuracy lottery - I carry my own pressure gauge for consistency - so should everyone else.

 

Also - Tyre pressure recommendations, are for COLD TYRES ie have not be run for any more than about 5k. Any reading on warming/warm/hot tyres will result in incorrect inflation.

I do all my checks/inflations at home, in the cool of the morning (tyres out of direct sunlight).

If you don't have a compressor (even a 12 volt one) record the pressures, drive slowly to the nearest servo, check tyre pressure again, note change ( could be 14-35 kpa /1-5psi) for a shortish trip), inflate tyres to the required level (measure using your own gauge) plus the difference between home pressure and servo pressure.

Edited May 5, 2023 by skippydiesel

[old man emu]

14 hours ago, onetrack said:

1/4" and 1/2" steel plate became 6mm and 12mm - when it should've been 6.35mm and 12.7mm

Have you measured it? I'm pretty sure that the rolling presses for sheet steel are still set at the imperial measurement. How damned accurately can you manufacture in steel with anyway? I was once told that in wood or tube aircraft construction, if you get to within 1/8" you are doing really well. Just remember the old carpenter's maxim, "In glue and dust we place our trust. If that don't work, the putty must."

[old man emu]

13 hours ago, spacesailor said:

my Newest GreatGrandSon  will never understand the rein of Queen Elisabeth .

Born yesterday

Does that mean that his birthday is 3/5/23 or that he is gullible?

[kgwilson]

MPG is back to front. How far can you go on 1 gallon of fuel which is either 4.54609 litres or 3.78541 depending on which gallon you are talking about, Imperial or US. So it is a measure of distance you can go for a measure of fuel..

 

Litres per 100km is a measure of fuel consumption over a given distance.

 

Using MPG requires another calculation given that fuel has been sold in litres for donkeys years and land distance has been in kilometres for the same length of time.

Edited May 5, 2023 by kgwilson