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  #41  
Old 10-02-2009, 02:39 PM
C-GRVT C-GRVT is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 305
Default sometimes it does really matter

Twelve kilometres above the Manitoba countryside, the unthinkable happens: a brand new Air Canada Boeing 767 runs out of fuel. The 120-tonne, $40-million plane becomes a glider, dropping at over 600 metres per minute with no hope of reaching Winnipeg. Amazingly, the powerless plane makes a successful emergency landing at an abandoned airbase in Gimli, Man. A week later, Air Canada reveals how the newest plane in their fleet could simply run out of gas.
'Gimli Glider' lands without fuel

? The plane began to run out of gas near Red Lake, Ont., 225 kilometres from Gimli, Man.
? Air Canada flight 143 was saved by a series of lucky breaks. The pilot, Capt. Robert Pearson, was an experienced glider pilot (he co-owned a Blanik L-13 sailplane). First Officer Maurice Quintal had once been stationed at the Royal Canadian Air Force base at Gimli and was familiar with the landing strips.

? The problem was caused by confusion over metric conversion. The Boeing 767 was the first metric plane to fly in Canada. The Fuel Quantity Information System computer on flight 143 was malfunctioning, so ground crew in Montreal loaded the fuel manually using calculations involving the specific gravity of jet fuel. But the factor they used was 1.77 pounds/litre, not the all-metric .8 kg/litre required for the new 767. The plane had half the fuel it needed to reach Edmonton.

? Without hydraulic pressure, the nose landing gear of the plane could not be fully lowered, and the nose of the 767 slammed into the ground, shooting out sparks as it dragged along the tarmac.
? The Gimli base had no control tower or fire trucks, and was being used as a racetrack. It had been divided into various courses, including a drag strip with a steel guardrail down the middle.

? July 23, 1983, was "Family Day" for the Winnipeg Sports Car Club. The Gimli base was full of families and campers, and the runway was being used for go-cart races. Spectators and racers had to scatter as the giant plane touched down.
? After the landing, a fire in the nose of the plane was extinguished by go-cart racers with hand-held fire extinguishers.

? The only injuries were to passengers who exited by the plane's rear emergency slide. Because the nose landing gear was not extended, the tail of the plane ended up three storeys in the air.
? The aircraft was fixed at Gimli and flown to Winnipeg for full repairs. It was later put back into regular service. Flight crews nicknamed the plane the 'Gimli Glider.'

? After the landing, the pilot and co-pilot of Air Canada flight 143 were praised for saving the lives of the 61 passengers on board. But on Oct. 4, 1983, Air Canada disciplined them for allowing the near-tragedy to happen. The pilot was demoted for six months, the co-pilot was suspended for two weeks and three ground workers were also suspended. A 1985 Transport Canada report blamed errors and insufficient training and safety procedures.

? Many residents of Gimli credit the incident with putting their town on the map. On July 1, 1986, Pearson, Quintal and the plane's flight attendants were given a place of honour in Gimli's Canada Day parade for making Gimli the site of Air Canada's most famous unscheduled stop.
'Gimli Glider' lands without fuel

Bill Brooks
Ottawa, Canada
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  #42  
Old 10-03-2009, 10:05 AM
Steve Steve is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Roy, Utah
Posts: 1,144
Default dual units

An airport bud is hosting an 18 year exchange student from France. She holds a pilot certificate with a glider-only rating. She tells us the rate-of-climb in gliders is indicated in meters per minute, but it's feet per minute in airplanes. Not a burden for ATC folk as they don't work gliders but it's gotta be tough for pilots who fly both categories of aircraft.
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  #43  
Old 10-07-2009, 02:32 PM
rv8eh rv8eh is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Posts: 202
Default May the force be with you

HEY DOUG, DOES THIS THING DO SUBSCRIPTS?

lbf (pounds force) and lbm (pounds mass) aren't the same, IIRC.

32 ft/s^2 x poundsmass = poundsforce

9.81 m/s^2 x grams = Newtons

I have to admit that we laughed at having two different things with the same names in the imperial system.

I grew up, as far as I have so far anyway, learning both systems, and got to listen to a lifetime supply of folks complaining about the metric transition.

Like everything else, one seems most comfortable with

.
.
.
.
.
.
what they're already comfortable with and have used.

Odd that this is surprising.
-----------------------------------
I go back and forth a lot, including knots and nm (which make life with maps easy). Use whatever makes the math easier. And you learn to never assume the units.

AT -40 degrees, F and C meet. While it may be argued that there is no F in Cold, there is a C. Below zero is ice, above is not. Don't need to remember that it's 32F to freeze, but I do.
Water boils nominally at 212 F or 100C

Sea level = 101.325 kPa, 14.96 psi, about 30 ft of water head, about 30 inches of mercury - just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

I don't bother with volumes, just cube the lengths. 25.4mm per inch.
You can amuse yourself for a while on the highway with that, or remember 0.6/1.6 to go from km to miles or miles to km.

BTU/Horsepower/Joules/Watts aren't as easy. Well Joules and Watts are :-)

However, there doesn't appear to be an SI equivalent for YMMV.
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  #44  
Old 10-07-2009, 03:13 PM
dhammer's Avatar
dhammer dhammer is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Keller, TX
Posts: 151
Default Its a variometer and -

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve View Post
An airport bud is hosting an 18 year exchange student from France. She holds a pilot certificate with a glider-only rating. She tells us the rate-of-climb in gliders is indicated in meters per minute, but it's feet per minute in airplanes. Not a burden for ATC folk as they don't work gliders but it's gotta be tough for pilots who fly both categories of aircraft.
US glider's variometers are marked in knots up or down. Strange thing is a 4 knot climb = 400 ft per min. 8 knot is 800 etc. Easy as pie
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  #45  
Old 10-07-2009, 06:06 PM
rv8eh rv8eh is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Posts: 202
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by C-GRVT View Post
Twelve kilometres above the Manitoba countryside, the unthinkable happens: a brand new Air Canada Boeing 767 runs out of fuel. The 120-tonne, $40-million plane becomes a glider, dropping at over 600 metres per minute with no hope of reaching Winnipeg. Amazingly, the powerless plane makes a successful emergency landing at an abandoned airbase in Gimli, Man. A week later, Air Canada reveals how the newest plane in their fleet could simply run out of gas.
'Gimli Glider' lands without fuel

? The plane began to run out of gas near Red Lake, Ont., 225 kilometres from Gimli, Man.
? Air Canada flight 143 was saved by a series of lucky breaks. The pilot, Capt. Robert Pearson, was an experienced glider pilot (he co-owned a Blanik L-13 sailplane). First Officer Maurice Quintal had once been stationed at the Royal Canadian Air Force base at Gimli and was familiar with the landing strips.

? The problem was caused by confusion over metric conversion. The Boeing 767 was the first metric plane to fly in Canada. The Fuel Quantity Information System computer on flight 143 was malfunctioning, so ground crew in Montreal loaded the fuel manually using calculations involving the specific gravity of jet fuel. But the factor they used was 1.77 pounds/litre, not the all-metric .8 kg/litre required for the new 767. The plane had half the fuel it needed to reach Edmonton.

? Without hydraulic pressure, the nose landing gear of the plane could not be fully lowered, and the nose of the 767 slammed into the ground, shooting out sparks as it dragged along the tarmac.
? The Gimli base had no control tower or fire trucks, and was being used as a racetrack. It had been divided into various courses, including a drag strip with a steel guardrail down the middle.

? July 23, 1983, was "Family Day" for the Winnipeg Sports Car Club. The Gimli base was full of families and campers, and the runway was being used for go-cart races. Spectators and racers had to scatter as the giant plane touched down.
? After the landing, a fire in the nose of the plane was extinguished by go-cart racers with hand-held fire extinguishers.

? The only injuries were to passengers who exited by the plane's rear emergency slide. Because the nose landing gear was not extended, the tail of the plane ended up three storeys in the air.
? The aircraft was fixed at Gimli and flown to Winnipeg for full repairs. It was later put back into regular service. Flight crews nicknamed the plane the 'Gimli Glider.'

? After the landing, the pilot and co-pilot of Air Canada flight 143 were praised for saving the lives of the 61 passengers on board. But on Oct. 4, 1983, Air Canada disciplined them for allowing the near-tragedy to happen. The pilot was demoted for six months, the co-pilot was suspended for two weeks and three ground workers were also suspended. A 1985 Transport Canada report blamed errors and insufficient training and safety procedures.

? Many residents of Gimli credit the incident with putting their town on the map. On July 1, 1986, Pearson, Quintal and the plane's flight attendants were given a place of honour in Gimli's Canada Day parade for making Gimli the site of Air Canada's most famous unscheduled stop.
'Gimli Glider' lands without fuel

Bill Brooks
Ottawa, Canada
My memory of the book Freefall about the incident was that with the nose gear collapsed, some of the egress slides didn't reach the ground, and caused some injuries.

Good use of the fence posts to slow down, too, IIRC.
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  #46  
Old 10-07-2009, 06:31 PM
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GLPalinkas GLPalinkas is offline
 
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Location: Venice, Fl
Posts: 1,020
Default Give me the 10mm wrench

I don't know about all of the above but....

I know I would rather have metric wrenches as standard....

At my advanced age I need reading glasses, up closer reading glasses and really up close reading glasses to work on my airplane depending on what I am doing. It sure would be nice to limit the choices.

Give me the 10mm wrench instead. Trying to find the 13/64ths wrench or the 37/64 socket makes me crazy....or crazy'er.... I am building an airplane in my garage.
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  #47  
Old 10-07-2009, 08:06 PM
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dhall_polo dhall_polo is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Cumming, GA
Posts: 610
Default metric history

1975 - Remember when Jimmy Carter was going to make us all go metric? (I think Canada jumped on the jimmy bandwagon at around the same time, eh?)

1982 - Remember when Ronald Reagan saved America from the metric system? Canadian kids grew up knowing Celsius. American kids grew up knowing Fahrenheits, heck that can't be an American word, can it?!

I loved Ronnie, and with apologies to all you old dogs, I think he made a mistake. The metric system sure seems better to me. But then I am an Electrical Engineer. The IEEE mandated the use of the metric system starting back in the mid 90's. The ASME? No way Jose. Horsepowers and BTUS to the death!

I am kinda glad to report that my engine is 180 horses instead of watts.

I think I'll go read up on priming, tipups, and taildragging.
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  #48  
Old 10-07-2009, 10:16 PM
Bevan Bevan is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: BC
Posts: 1,674
Default

[quote=
I am kinda glad to report that my engine is 180 horses instead of watts.

[/QUOTE]


Watts should be only used for electric motors!!

Bevan
Rv7A
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  #49  
Old 10-07-2009, 10:33 PM
mdredmond mdredmond is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 416
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jferraro16 View Post
Just be glad you aren't speaking French when you fly. )Joe
Surely you jest. RVs don't have a reverse gear.
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  #50  
Old 10-08-2009, 09:21 AM
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longranger longranger is offline
 
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Location: 45G, Brighton, MI
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Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by rv8eh View Post
However, there doesn't appear to be an SI equivalent for YMMV.
I love it! The phrase "your kilometerage may vary" just doesn't play, does it? (IOW, why use 4 syllables when one will work?)
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