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Bruce Tuncks

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Everything posted by Bruce Tuncks

  1. Bruce Tuncks
    I think the 10,000 estimate would have been abortions. This figure , to most of us, has nothing to do with the murder rate. Why not include wasted sperms and make the figure millions? But please don't stop posting ,fb. As a freckled kid who grew up in Alice Springs, I really liked your stuff about dark people and vitamin D. It never occurred to me that there was another side to the uv argument.
  2. Bruce Tuncks
    A couple of good things about the poms tho... Recently, I heard an aboriginal activist ( well actually he was as white as me ) being asked about what other colonial power he would have chosen instead of the english... he was stymied for a reply. On similar lines, apparently the blacks in South Africa supported the english against the boers.
  3. Bruce Tuncks
    I don't think the percentage of vaccinated population matters...what does matter is the opportunity to be vaccinated. If you turn down a vaccination, then you are stupid and deserve anything you get. Personally, I quite like the idea that being vaccinated will not stop you passing the virus on.
  4. Bruce Tuncks
    You would think that with super-computers, a society could be modelled and the best policies found out. Alas, this seems not to be the case. People have a way to stymie this apparently. The worst thing is that common sense does not seem to work... for example, it always seemed common sense to me that social welfare money had to come from the pockets of more thrifty folk. This turns out to be untrue, but it is so "obvious" that it underpins a lot of what we do. Just why is it not so? Dunno if I can explain it either, but apparently very few of us are net taxpayers over our lives.
  5. Bruce Tuncks
    Please explain more Red. No disrespect here. Personally, I would prefer an unknown airframe to fail in the workshop in preference to on the first flight. But I have to say that I have never seen a proof-loading take place for real, unless you count the Melbourne Janus wing fatigue test. I don't think the Schneiders did proof loading, but they sure did a lot of flight testing. I can remember Harry Schneider rigging up a bag of sand near the tail-end of a new glider design. He had to demonstrate spin recovery at aft c of g ( an inch behind the rear "limit"). He had a string to pull on to spill out the sand as a safety measure.
  6. Bruce Tuncks
    One way to use the extra voltage of a LiFe battery would be to lose some voltage by using lighter leads if the battery was behind you. If you do put the battery back there, make sure it is in a compartment which has an external vent. If venting fumes does occur, they will not kill you. Yes, I know that LiFE does not catch fire and it is wise to fuse it close to the battery, but still there is a lot of energy there and I reckon nasty fuming is a possibility.
  7. Bruce Tuncks
    I'm well jabbed, I had one since 1998. It flies just great, but my son says its too little.
  8. Bruce Tuncks
    The worst thing I have seen on an RAAUs plane had been left there by a LAME who didn't know or like FRP stuff. This Jabiru had flown from Sydney to Gawler with the ram-air ducts nearly falling off. It had just been signed out by a LAME. But the LAME's at Horsham are good guys, so Thruster is quite right. You need to shop around and learn about the paperwork . For example, who was responsible for checking the AD's? I would have thought the person signing the inspection was at least responsible for noting what work needed doing.
  9. Bruce Tuncks
    I was impressed that AZ was $4 a shot and Pfizer was $40. This was because pfizer was making billions from the stuff but AZ was not. Personally, I want rewards for people who have had the shots, like exemptions from lockdowns.
  10. Bruce Tuncks
    But do not be fooled by "lead-acid equivalent" amp-hours which means nothing except a rip-off.
  11. Bruce Tuncks
    Thats a real hard question to answer: Enough time to start the engine, but that changes! My Jabiru usually starts immediately, but once in the Flinders, when it had been out all night, it took forever to start and I was worried about the battery when it finally started. I reckon it is best to have plenty of amp-hours there and if there is a weight problem, then a LiFe battery is best.
  12. Bruce Tuncks
    I just re-read Munger's post and it appears that the figure is more refined since my time... gosh, 40,000 times the damage... I have seen a big transport truck tearing up a country road near Narromine. It was just after a heavy thunderstorm and the edges of the road were soft and the big tyres were punching through.
  13. Bruce Tuncks
    Skippy said it correctly. One thing I remember from my previous life was that heavy trucks are roughly equivalent to 1000 cars with respect to road wear and tear. AND things are worse when you consider that the road is much more expensive to begin with because of truck loads. You may see this easier by thinking of bridge work. Well we all benefit from the loads trucks carry, and we would have to pay somehow or other. But when it comes to us small planes and airfields, I reckon we are being ripped off but how can we fight back when we don't have the numbers to influence elections?
  14. Bruce Tuncks
    With car driving, the most dangerous time is about 200 hours, when the overconfidence peaks.
  15. Bruce Tuncks
    Many of those "accidents" should be added to the suicide category.
  16. Bruce Tuncks
    I read a great science fiction book about how Nigeria became the "owner" of the moon. Why? because they offered LESS regulation! Our sort of aircraft would benefit from the same reasoning. Gosh, if the prospect of losing your life does not make you careful, why should a bureaucracy help? All they can produce is poverty. It makes me angry that I am officially regarded as stupid and regulated accordingly. Well I'm no Einstein, but I would be smarter than many of the regulators. For example, I know that the main cause of premature death in Australia is NOT aviation, it is due to poor diet and lack of exercise.
  17. Bruce Tuncks
    I hasten to add that the setup had passed the fuel-flow test before first flight... this must have been before the vent blockage.
  18. Bruce Tuncks
    Years ago, when my Jabiru was new and I was young and silly, I flew for months with no tank vent at all! On a one hour flight, not enough fuel was used to notice. Then on a nav flight with the CFI, we flew for nearly 3 hours and on coming home, there was a loud "bonk" as the top of the fuel tank was sucked in. The cause was found to be a bit of packing polystyrene in the fuel vent pipe. Under the fuel fumes, this had become like chewing gum and it had blocked the vent. The engine never missed a beat though.
  19. Bruce Tuncks
    Thanks Jerry. He sure has wonderful skills. For a Jabiru prop, I would like to try a 2 blader, made from stronger timber and using a CNC router for the roughing out. I also reckon that the glued laminations could be more refined to cut down on the removal volume. Alas, without a kit or plans, this is unlikely to happen.
  20. Bruce Tuncks
    Thanks Kyle Coms. I was mates with the guy who tested a very early Bolly carbon 3 blade prop on his Jabiru and it lost a blade! The pilot was lucky in that the engine stopped just before it ( the engine ) got ripped off, so his c of g was ok for the glide landing.
  21. Bruce Tuncks
    I wonder how they would go on a Jabiru motor.
  22. Bruce Tuncks
    I like the tarp under the carpet idea. If the source of moisture is the damp ground, an impermeable membrane ( plastic tarp) will cut it off. I have seen the same thing here with gliders in tee hangars. And I have seen it cured with cutting off the ground moisture.
  23. Bruce Tuncks
    At Edenhope, the aerodrome was made serviceable to allow medical planes to land there. And the water-bombing planes use the airfield on fire days. I don't know how these services are valued, but most country airfields would be similar I think. I reckon " 98%" of the ratepayers would agree that these services are worthwhile, and of course they need to be paid for.
  24. Bruce Tuncks
    My suggestion would be to apply proof-loads before flying. Just make sure the proof-loads are not so high as to cause damage which was not there to begin with. Of course a big inspection before and after the loading. There seems little interest in proof-loading in Australia and I think the reason for this is due to the risk of damage during the test. As for the engine, surely its condition is not too hard to determine?
  25. Bruce Tuncks
    I got a bit racist when in the USA. There was a billionaire starting a school for gifted kids in silicon valley. Selection was on the basis of an IQ test. But the billionaire insisted that the racial mix of the school reflected that of the contributing suburbs. Here's what happened.... If you looked white, no change to your score. If you looked chinese, 6 points were subtracted. If you looked black, 20 points were added. Now this is not really a racist rant, for all I know the top student was black. AND if you look at the olympics, why is table tennis dominated by chinese but the 100m dash is dominated by negros? Surely the answer is that different races are .... well.... different. Why is it racist to notice this?
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