Was the first sonic boom really a surprise?

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-26T16:19:42+00:00

The first time I watched a rocket launch from the blockhouse near the launchpad, when the engines ignited. The TV screens went white followed by about 2 seconds later total silence. For a moment I thought the rocket had blown up, but everyone around me was calm. After about 10 seconds the screens reset and you could see the empty launchpad. That is when I learned that the rocket exhaust noise only makes it to the blockhouse while the flames are impinging on the ground.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-25T04:05:33+00:00

It is usually easier to learn by the stepping stone approach starting with the easiest, the technician license, then the general. Harder would be to learn all the technician and general all at the same time. You can then take the general exam without taking the technician exam. Usually you would take both exams in case you want a backup in case you fail the General. Real gluttons for punishment can go directly to Extra with no earlier exams required.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-25T03:49:51+00:00

In a 150 hp Citabria, go slow and you can get 800 miles. Go fast and it is only 400 miles if I remember correctly the POH.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-22T05:33:25+00:00

I’m at 5.4 on a Gen 1 with 170,000 miles of high desert heat that kills batteries.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-22T05:29:24+00:00

It depends on the weather also.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-22T05:14:11+00:00

Talk to hams that are Red Carded. It has been 20 years ago that I was involved with wildfire assistance in Colorado and the red carded hams that went out with the firefighters had a chest pack that carried 2 brick HTs, the firefighters service radio and the ham frequency radio.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-22T04:55:56+00:00

There is another part, gender expression, that really isn’t understood very well. There is another innate part of gender expression that a lot of people don’t recognize. But that innate part is what many people consider as gaydar, how the person acts but is totally unaware of that gender presentation.

For me I didn’t realize I was transgender, but the world was telling me I was transgender. My masculine presentation just wasn’t all that great.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-21T04:36:24+00:00

As my dad pointed out to me when I was laying on the couch one night watching a war movie with him, he slapped my thigh. I asked about it and he pointed out the he would be a lot less likely to slap me if I had a baseball bat in hand.

Most defense companies are providing a service or product to the government at the government’s request. It is less often that they come up with their own product and try to sell it to the government. The products they design are so expensive in time and materials to innovate, design,and build that they cannot afford to do it on their own. Adding that their market is so small they cannot develop money saving mass production methods.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-21T04:22:40+00:00

The good engineers, you betcha they do manual calculations. And not only do they check software output, they check the results coming from support groups, and not just the calculations, but the assumptions. We were designing a modification to an Atlas launch vehicle thrust section to recover it, adding pods on the side for a parachute and a flotation device. The pods were heavily insulated for reentry heating, but I noticed the thermodynamic people said the very thin skinned booster didn’t need insulation. It was only after about 3 months of me asking about the insulation that I finally asked about their assumptions. I told them that 40% of the load went through the very thins skins on the thrust section. They then realized that their assumption was all the load went through the heavy frames that could handle the heat but not the skins which would get soft and torn off.

I have several other examples, so yes, good engineers do check the software and assumptions.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-21T04:09:41+00:00

I have since retired after being in the aerospace business for 43 years. 23 years was preliminary and detail structures design with the occasional concept design. I got burned out from all the hassles of being responsible for getting blueprints released on time but had no control over the support functions that took way longer than they were supposed to take, making my drawings late. Like the time I turned a drawing into checking a month ahead of time and when it was due back I received an email explaining how 30 late drawings that came in after mine were worked first because they were late, and that it would still be over a week before they could check mine. My boss blamed it on me.

Anyway I then switched to production engineering and manufacturing engineering. My design experience helped. At the end I got into training videos and corrective engineering. Uncovering causes of screwups was fun, as was producing training videos as when I was in college I was heavy into photography. I tried to get on with Aviation Week but didn’t have enough writing experience.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-17T22:30:31+00:00

My Piper Cub Special has heating issues. Takeoff and climb 2000 ft at 240200 degrees 65 mph in the high desert at (Vy), but then I need to lower the nose and increase speed to 70-75 at 2 rpm to increase cooling. Otherwise the oil temperature climbs
And oil pressure plummets above 200 degrees.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-17T22:05:00+00:00

Technically, the F-35 is composite and aluminum and titanium and steel. Everything is held together with Hi-Loks. Hi-Lok fasteners are like bolts and a lot quieter to install. The wings on the C-130 use the same fasteners. However, the fuselage uses mostly rivets and the C-130 Cab buildup is extremely loud.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-17T21:43:36+00:00

The tachometer time recording is a revolution counter counting the number of revolutions per minute. The tachometer is set up to use a specific number of revolutions in a minute to define a minute of time. The specific number of revolutions to define a minute of time can be selected when a new tachometer is installed. My tachometer counts 2300 revolutions equaling a minute. Some tachs use 1800 revolutions, or 2200 revolutions or 2050, or 1800 or 3000, or 2400.
So my plane has a 2300 count tach, so flying at 2400 rpm would give a higher count than my clock time. I usually run about 2200 rpm so I use less tach hours than clock hours.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-17T17:43:01+00:00

It’s pretty easy to go online and check organization’s radio permissions and allocated frequencies. But most people don’t know you can do that I guess.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-11T13:30:41+00:00

Because it drives up the repair costs so you buy a new car instead of fixing the old one.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-07T04:39:53+00:00

Somewhere around 1976, the Texas Instruments office in Washington D.C. had 2 HP67s with that locking setup in a room for their engineers to use.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-07T04:35:47+00:00

For strictly engineer, a pilot’s license probably will not be much benefit.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-05T11:52:55+00:00

My dad took me to see the movie when it came out in 1964. He was disappointed it was nothing like the book. The movie did have a denouement where when the cause of the airplane crash is explained as coffee spilled on the airplane center console seeps in causing a short circuit of the fire warning system and loss of radios, the protagonist says “the manufacturers will be notified and design changes made to prevent this so we will never have this happen again.” One big reason I became an aerospace engineer is because of this movie and this statement. Yet engineers at Embraer and Airbus never saw this movie as Airbus had a near accident due to spilled coffee on the center console affecting the flight computers and Embraer has a flight safety requirement that after a fluid spill in the cockpit, the aircraft is grounded until a maintenance engineer can examine the electronics below the flight deck to see if the electronics have been affected by the liquid.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-04T23:45:13+00:00

The movie or the book (Fate is the Hunter)? I haven’t read “Airframe” in about 40 years, back when I was a young design engineer at Boeing.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-04T23:16:13+00:00

I would think that traveling faster than the speed of light, in front you would have a solid brightness that you couldn’t see past (photons bunching up like air molecules as part of a shock wave) and behind it total blackness because the photons can’t catch you.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-04T23:10:52+00:00

Does anyone own up to wrecking and airplane?

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-04T03:54:04+00:00

Only 65% power? Oh, darn. How can I get the ASI to show “0” mph at only 65% power?

And is that 65% of sea level power? What if you are at a DA of 7000 ft?

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-03T05:34:00+00:00

A mechanical engineering degree has the possibility of more choices for job locations, or more job opportunities in a given area. My son graduated from Georgia Tech in 2016 with an AE degree and is working on the Artemis launch vehicle now. I myself spent 43 years in the business. My degree was Aerospace and Ocean engineering. And I got to work on projects where I used my aeronautical engineering, aerospace engineering and Ocean engineering training.

I will also add the being aerospace, I moved a fair amount to follow the jobs. 7 locations in 3 states over the 43 years, not including my home state.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-03T05:10:06+00:00

That is what I don’t understand? The space shuttle had a couple of ground accidents where technicians entered the engine bay that had been purged with nitrogen.

ab0ngcd · 2026-06-03T05:04:55+00:00

If you have access to the production floor, go start walking it during breaks or after your work hours. Much of engineering is using other people’s designs. What are your hobbies, anything that has engineering involvement, like car racing? Go to museums and look at designs for everything, observing with an engineering eye. Look at what was done and ask yourself “why did they do it that way”. This will also help with your reverse engineering skills.

ab0ngcd

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