Random Thoughts Thread

[Robert Hall]

^ Wild..looks like it started as an early 70s Citroen DS Safari wagon and was stretched and widened..

[balthazar]

[A Horse With No Name]

I Have a fetish for anbything British...

https://www.rideapart.com/car-lists/1970-bsa-441-victor-special-for-sale/#:~:text=The BSA 441 Victor Special,twisties and across the highways.&text=The bike has a clean California title.

 

Throw in the groovy looking clean white F series behind it and I would be in heven. 

Another similar bike..

 

Vintage pic...

 

[Robert Hall]

^neat bikes..my brother had a Norton and a Triumph in the 70s...the Norton was dark blue IIRC.   When he got back into bikes about 20 years ago, he switched to Japanese marques--has 2 Kawasakis, 2 Yamahas and a Honda now...all 80s vintage.

[A Horse With No Name]

4 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

^neat bikes..my brother had a Norton and a Triumph in the 70s...the Norton was dark blue IIRC.   When he got back into bikes about 20 years ago, he switched to Japanese marques--has 2 Kawasakis, 2 Yamahas and a Honda now...all 80s vintage.

I love vintage Japanese bikes also. 

4 Engine planes are going away fast. 

 

[riviera74]

Uh, Why? Are 2-engined large planes now the norm?

[A Horse With No Name]

36 minutes ago, riviera74 said:

Uh, Why? Are 2-engined large planes now the norm?

Because it is more profitable for airlines to fly direct than to hubs. Also...demand for air travels down. Thirdly...ETOPS which stands for extended twin operations procedures and standards...allows much longer operation over water than previously.

[G. David Felt]

34 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Because it is more profitable for airlines to fly direct than to hubs. Also...demand for air travels down. Thirdly...ETOPS which stands for extended twin operations procedures and standards...allows much longer operation over water than previously.

Not to mention that the engines themselves have gotten much bigger and as an example, the Dreamliner 787 can fly for 5000 miles on 1 engine alone.

[oldshurst442]

1 hour ago, riviera74 said:

Uh, Why? Are 2-engined large planes now the norm?

 

32 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Because it is more profitable for airlines to fly direct than to hubs. Also...demand for air travels down. Thirdly...ETOPS which stands for extended twin operations procedures and standards...allows much longer operation over water than previously.

There is another reason or two as well.   

Engines of the past were not reliable. Birds ramming them or high altitude where air was scarce or frozen temps would wreak havoc, etc,  it was mandated that trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific crossings would  be safer if the airplanes had 3 or more as safeguards just in case 1 engine or two would fail, the airplane would have the other engines to fly with. Remember, crossing the Pacific and Atlantic, no land available for the plane to land.

The Boeing 747 could actually fly and land with 1 engine.  It has to land immediately, but one engine has enough thrust to safely land the Queen of the Skies.  Its engineered that way.

As jet engine tech has evolved, more powerful and more economical engines exist today. And more importantly, more reliable and more fail proof.     It is no longer required/mandated for airplanes to fly over the Atlantic and Pacific  with a 4 engined airplane . 2 is sufficient as the engines today are almost bullet proof.  1 engine could do the job, if the other fails, but today, its almost impossible for 1 engine failure to happen. 2 engines failing is  really really impossible.  Therefore, 4 engined airplanes are just unnecessarily guzzling expensive jet fuel for nothing.   

                

Im not into bikes, but Ive got some faves. British bike for me is this Triumph. 

T100 

Steve McQueen and the Great Escape  introduced me to this bike and the retro version this past decade...

[balthazar]

If 'you're' going to scream incessantly "VOTE!!!", but then your election coverage maps immediately call a state the literal minute the poles close with ZERO data in, you're just disenfranchised an entire state of voters.

[A Horse With No Name]

9 hours ago, balthazar said:

If 'you're' going to scream incessantly "VOTE!!!", but then your election coverage maps immediately call a state the literal minute the poles close with ZERO data in, you're just disenfranchised an entire state of voters.

The country is insane. I want to go for a long hike in Patagonia. 

[A Horse With No Name]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF28kFyhHN_/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

[A Horse With No Name]

Ford Ranger on the Trans American Trail...not my ranger though. I am starting to really love mine. Fuel economy is dropping slightly as it is getting more broken in, probably because I am driving it loaded up with all sorts of things frequently, and also enjoying the Turbo. 

 

[Drew Dowdell]

On 10/29/2020 at 4:27 PM, A Horse With No Name said:

I love this Channel....

 

 

I know I can lock my front axle and I have the G80 on my rear axle.... I don't know if my center transfer case locks though.... now I need to go find out. 

12 hours ago, balthazar said:

If 'you're' going to scream incessantly "VOTE!!!", but then your election coverage maps immediately call a state the literal minute the poles close with ZERO data in, you're just disenfranchised an entire state of voters.

We need comprehensive election process reform. No other countries have these problems we have with counting votes. 

19 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Ford Ranger on the Trans American Trail...not my ranger though. I am starting to really love mine. Fuel economy is dropping slightly as it is getting more broken in, probably because I am driving it loaded up with all sorts of things frequently, and also enjoying the Turbo. 

 

As I often say, you can have Eco or you can have Boost, but you can't have both at the same time. 

[A Horse With No Name]

Interesting Video...

 

[A Horse With No Name]

An answer to a burning (if you have eaten Mexican or Thai, burning in more than one way) question that NO ONE here at C and G has asked...

 

[balthazar]

1 hour ago, Drew Dowdell said:

We need comprehensive election process reform. No other countries have these problems we have with counting votes.

We need comprehensive GOVERNMENT reform, on all levels... but unfortunately the 'fox runs the henhouse'.

[A Horse With No Name]

Iran is a cool country, would actually love to Visit. 

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, balthazar said:

We need comprehensive GOVERNMENT reform, on all levels... but unfortunately the 'fox runs the henhouse'.

More true than you realize...

[Drew Dowdell]

5 minutes ago, balthazar said:

We need comprehensive GOVERNMENT reform, on all levels... but unfortunately the 'fox runs the henhouse'.

I agree... I was simply stating step 1.

[Robert Hall]

6 hours ago, A Horse With No Name said:

The country is insane. I want to go for a long hike in Patagonia. 

I'd love to disappear to the Scottish Highlands or the Alps.   Lake Maggiore on the Swiss-Italian border would be such place (was there in 2004). 

[Drew Dowdell]

1 minute ago, Robert Hall said:

I'd love to disappear to the Scottish Highlands or the Alps.   Lake Maggiore on the Swiss-Italian border would be such place (was there in 2004). 

French Alps for me. It's a bit warmer. 

[Robert Hall]

2 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

French Alps for me. It's a bit warmer. 

I could deal w/ that also...been there, love them..   and they have diesel Grand Cherokees in Europe...

[balthazar]

Hudson RIver, NY :

[Robert Hall]

^ bucolic... I like the Hudson River Valley...been to a few places near the river years ago--Albany, Saratoga Springs, Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, Bear Mountain State Park... very scenic in places.  On my to-do list for an eventual vacation..

[Robert Hall]

Fascinating...

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2020/11/04/a-30-year-old-aerospace-engineer-on-using-obsolete-machines-as-a-relief-from-high-technology?refer=hccweekly&utm_source=hccweekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-11-04

[G. David Felt]

GM Defense was awarded in June a $214.3 million contract to build the all new Infantry Squad Vehicle or ISV which is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. GM Defense will build 649 ISV's with a extension of up to another 2,065 ISV's over eight years.

The initial contract order of 649 ISVs makes each auto cost $330,200.31. If the full contract is full filled, the additional cost for the 2,065 ISVs is $681,863,636.36 or what is approximately a $900 million contract.

The ISV is light enough to be sling loaded from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and compact enough to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter for air transportability. More details at the link below.

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/oct/1027-gmdefense.html

[balthazar]

36 minutes ago, David said:

The initial contract order of 649 ISVs makes each auto cost $330,200.31.

That is not how it works; there a lot more involved than merely dividing the contract amount by the number of vehicles.

[Robert Hall]

7 minutes ago, balthazar said:

That is not how it works; there a lot more involved than merely dividing the contract amount by the number of vehicles.

Each vehicle is probably $50k and the rest of the cost is paperwork, overhead, fees, etc...

[balthazar]

And other minor trivialities like all the spare parts, the engineering, the testing....

[Robert Hall]

3 minutes ago, balthazar said:

And other minor trivialities like all the spare parts, the engineering, the testing....

And probably a lot of custom 'mil-spec' parts that you can't find from normal GM suppliers...

[trinacriabob]

4 hours ago, balthazar said:

Hudson RIver, NY

Beautiful.  I love the Hudson River Valley.  And driving along I-87 between Montreal and NYC.  I stopped in Plattsburgh, where SUNY is located just south of the Canadian border, and got a fantastic gyro meal.  And, a long time ago, I met up with "razoredge" in Albany, his general area, and that was a hoot.

If you ever fly into Newark or LaGuardia airports and you diagonally go over the Hudson River Valley, it's amazing that so much pristine, wooded land is that close to NYC.  The same would apply to the eastern ~2/3 of Long Island.  The middle of it is very rural once you go way east.

[Robert Hall]

^ I definitely want to explore more of New York and the Northeast/New England...I've seen the parts of the Midwest that interest me, have little interest in the South or plains, and have seen a lot of the West over the years...

[trinacriabob]

On 11/3/2020 at 5:54 PM, riviera74 said:

Uh, Why? Are 2-engined large planes now the norm?

I was having this discussion with the curator of a small aviation museum.  I loved the Airbus 340.  The 330 is basically the same fuselage, with 2-4-2 economy inside, but has 2 larger engines.  In addition to saving fuel, he said that there are much fewer work hours spent on engine maintenance for the 2 engine Airbus 330.  They are the norm for many European carriers for transatlantic flights.

I am just thankful to have grown up "alongside" the Boeing 747, and being able to ride my bike to LAX, alone or with friends, to look at them from the observation tower or view areas surrounding the airport.

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by trinacriabob

[Robert Hall]

2 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

I was having this discussion with the curator of a small aviation museum.  I loved the Airbus 340.  The 330 is basically the same fuselage, with 2-4-2 economy inside, but has 2 larger engines.  In addition to saving fuel, he said that there are much fewer work hours spent on engine maintenance for the 2 engine Airbus 330.  They are the norm for many European carriers for transatlantic flights.

I am just thankful to have grown up "alongside" the Boeing 747, and being able to ride my bike to LAX, alone or with friends, to look at them from the observation tower at or view areas surrounding the airport.

 

I'm glad I had the opportunity to fly on 747s on British Airways several times during the '00s...flew on BA 777s also, but the 747 is my favorite...flew on them to Hawaii also. 

I wish I had had an opportunity to fly on Pan Am...my folks and siblings flew on Pan Am 707s from Cleveland to San Francisco to Hawaii then not sure what on to Guam and other parts of the Pacific during their years abroad in the 60s...(a few years before I was born). 

IIRC, my first flight was Miami to Tampa on Eastern in 1984...

[oldshurst442]

19 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

Beautiful.  I love the Hudson River Valley.  And driving along I-87 between Montreal and NYC.  I stopped in Plattsburgh,

Yes.  Very beautiful.

Ausable Chasm are awesome. 

Lake George is awesome.  

I always enjoy that drive going to Lake George.  

I only have one huge regret, is that I have never been to Lake Placid...yet. 

One cant edit anymore I noticed.   

OK... you folk are possibly going to witness PLENTY  of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors from my posts going forward.   

[balthazar]

^ the 3 lil dots in the upper right corner... 

[oldshurst442]

ah...  glance over it and a little magical thing happens:  more options appear.      Got it! 

[trinacriabob]

3 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

I'm glad I had the opportunity to fly on 747s on British Airways several times during the '00s...flew on BA 777s also, but the 747 is my favorite...flew on them to Hawaii also. 

I wish I had had an opportunity to fly on Pan Am...my folks and siblings flew on Pan Am 707s from Cleveland to San Francisco to Hawaii then not sure what on to Guam and other parts of the Pacific during their years abroad in the 60s...(a few years before I was born). 

IIRC, my first flight was Miami to Tampa on Eastern in 1984...

Pan Am, TWA, United, and American all had 747s going daily from LAX to New York back in the day.  I don't know if that meant fewer flights per day.  There was also 747 service from LAX to Chicago, Honolulu, and Miami.  It was National that flew to Miami and the airline was absorbed by Pan Am, so they got the route.  Some Honolulu bound 747s marketed that they had lounges for coach/economy in the back.  Continental - absorbed by United - was one such airline.  First class definitely had a lounge, and it was upstairs.  They then turned to using the hump for additional seating and "suites" that produced revenue.

This National 747 was the -100 series, the first ones.  You can see this one is named Linda (near the second level's 3 windows).  They had one named Patricia.  You can see their Florida themed sunburst logo on the tail. Their marketing went along the lines of "fly Linda" or "fly Patricia."  Back then, it would have been considered different and humorous.  Today, some snively, uptight individual would come forth and say it's sexist and be offended.

[trinacriabob]

On 11/3/2020 at 4:49 PM, A Horse With No Name said:

4 Engine planes are going away fast. 

 

Yep, this YouTuber has this interesting collection of videos he does.  He's really knowledgeable.  The A-380 photographs well from some angles ... and poorly from others. I've seen some of this guy's videos, made unique by his Australian accent.  As for the person who always speaks at the beginning of his videos (most likely in the tower), I need a translator.

[balthazar]

Bug of the day : 

[A Horse With No Name]

12 hours ago, David said:

GM Defense was awarded in June a $214.3 million contract to build the all new Infantry Squad Vehicle or ISV which is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. GM Defense will build 649 ISV's with a extension of up to another 2,065 ISV's over eight years.

The initial contract order of 649 ISVs makes each auto cost $330,200.31. If the full contract is full filled, the additional cost for the 2,065 ISVs is $681,863,636.36 or what is approximately a $900 million contract.

The ISV is light enough to be sling loaded from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and compact enough to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter for air transportability. More details at the link below.

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/oct/1027-gmdefense.html

Makes me want a ZR2 even more.

[Robert Hall]

9 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

 

I think is the first I've heard of National.  

[A Horse With No Name]

https://www.instagram.com/maria_moto_adventures/

A new person I am following on instagram, I feel like buying a motorcycle. Irrationally. 

My local Sherrifs race;

 

I voted for the Republican Challenger, Matthew Hafey because I think he would do a better job. Both of these guys have worked together for decades and respect the hell out of each other. Wish our national politics could be the same. Both of these dudes are good guys!

More Trans America Trail

 

Still love this advert...

 

 

[A Horse With No Name]

Little bit of Spyro Gyra

 

[balthazar]

The fact that a sheriff would run under a political party somehow seems grossly inappropriate. I don't know that I've ever realized that that's done, before.

[Robert Hall]

13 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

Yes.  Very beautiful.

Ausable Chasm are awesome. 

Lake George is awesome.  

I always enjoy that drive going to Lake George.  

 

Yes, beautiful area... drove up to Lake George and Saratoga Springs in a Mitsubishi Diamante rental on a long weekend in Albany back around 2001.   So beautiful up there in the fall.

1 minute ago, balthazar said:

The fact that a sheriff would run under a political party somehow seems grossly inappropriate. I don't know that I've ever realized that that's done, before.

Oh yeah..I don't think it's that way everywhere, but county sheriffs are very politicized in many places in the US>..

[A Horse With No Name]

20 minutes ago, balthazar said:

The fact that a sheriff would run under a political party somehow seems grossly inappropriate. I don't know that I've ever realized that that's done, before.

It is the way it's done here in Ohio, for btter or worse. 

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-5bf3ae135da343adfa2d41188b95ce37

Good news for GM!

[Drew Dowdell]

No political discussion.

[trinacriabob]

It's somewhat of a relief that not many people are talking about coronavirus these days ...

- - - - -

@A Horse With No Name

In terms of random one hit wonder-ness, I immediately think of this one.  It might be the "king" of one hit wonders of its era ... by King Harvest, no less ...

 

 

[G. David Felt]

47 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

It's somewhat of a relief that not many people are talking about coronavirus these days ...

I do think that society is tired of this pandemic, yet by letting our guard down now we are seeing the last few days with 100,000 infections happening daily and thousands of deaths. A very sad time with loosing so much life needlessly.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

We still need to stay vigilant till we can vaccinate the country.

I find this story very weird to me as they call the 19840Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta, a Sports Car for Luxurious People. ?

I remember this car and I never considered it Luxurious! 2.8L V6 with Automatic.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/rare-rides-the-1984-chevrolet-camaro-berlinetta-a-sports-car-for-luxurious-people/

In reporting news, Ford is going back to Monthly sales reporting and leaving GM and Tesla to be the lone Quarterly reporting companies.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/ford-returns-to-monthly-sales-reporting/

In tech news for ICE Auto's. Seems the blind spots are getting so big, that one company thinks the whole dash should see what is in front of the car. Not sure how that would help you not hit your front end.,

An IDIOT in LA stole a customer Velociraptor Ford 6x6 HD and then tried to evade police to a no wine situation. 

I really like this car from Jay Leno's garage.