bfilarsky

Don't forget about Little Rock National Airport in Arkansas. The FAA designator for the airport is LIT, making the ICAO designator...... KLIT

Get a job doing something else that makes a decent living, then fly for fun on your own dime. Flying will just turn into a job anyways, and you won't make enough to pay for your ramen noodles.

I did it the other way around. Pilot first, skydiving second. A parachute is no more or less a wing than the metal things sticking out the sides of an airplane. So yes, the dynamics are all in the same ballpark.

.3-.4? Not bad! I saw that in a Caravan with the -114A (725 ESHP) to 13k on a warm day with 10-12 jumpers on board - and that's time above 40 kias!

Haven't really flown 182's in jump operations, so no numbers from experience. But it depends on dz elevation and temperature of the day. And yes, any normally aspirated piston engine (ie, your 182) is going to lose power as it climbs. Yes, 6-8k is where it really starts to become noticeable. I'm going to guess 25-30 minute loads. Just a guess, though.

Mammoth Mountain, CA! I've been to a few of the resorts at Tahoe, and they have nothing on Mammoth! Amazing views and amazing terrain.

Stone Ruination IPA gets my vote!

Yes, absolutely. Depends on the stall speed, of the aircraft. 30 MPH would be enough for quite a few stol planes lightly loaded. I've been in a Cherokee in strong winds (50 knots) up at altitude (against them, unfortunately), and just for fun slowed it down as much as I could. Got a ground speed of 0 on the GPS.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Mike, but wouldn't the STC process for a new, bigger engine include testing (including dive testing) at the higher altitudes the engine is capable of? After which, you have the potential to incur new limitations not applicable to the original aircraft.

Ditto. That's my favorite beer. Luckily, I live about 45 minutes from the Brewery, too! I was just there last night!

Relatively useless tidbit here - that rule only applies if the jumpers are paying for the ride. I can legally rent an airplane (as long as I pay for it, not the jumpers) and fly the jumpers as far as I want before I drop them. The reason for the rule is to close a loophole in air charter operations. The FAA wants anybody doing air charter to be under Part 135, which is much more strict than Part 91. They do not allow commercial operations to be conducted under Part 91, except for a very explicit list of activities, like skydiving, banner towing, flight instruction, crop dusting, etc. In order to close a loophole where someone could conceivably charge to fly someone from San Diego to Davis, but let them jump and hence be under part 91, they put that rule in. However, that whole section only comes in to play for commercial operations. If it is not a commercial operation (jumper isn't paying) then it is legal to drop as far as you want from takeoff.

Ya he sure is. Glad to hear he'll recover well.

Any word on his condition?

And even then, I'll echo the comments above - One pass, then turn and burn!

And Belgian Draft, brush up on Frames of reference. I know it hasn't been talked about in a couple pages, but the video I posted of the cart on the treadmill IS proof that this works - the physics are exactly the same with moving ground, still air, as they are with still ground, moving air. Just like the physics of a wind tunnel are the same as the physics of flight.

Absolutely - the net energy exchange has to extract energy from the air, as that is where the energy for the vehicle comes from. I was referring to propulsive efficiency, where higher mass flow rates give better efficiency.

One more time: THE WHEELS POWER THE PROP, AND NOT VICE VERSA. The force generated by the spinning prop is applied to the vehicle as thrust against the prop's mounting pylon. That thrust moves the vehicle. I understand that is what they are claiming, but you cannot use the wheels to power the prop to push the vehicle to spin the wheels to power the prop to push the vehicle to spin the wheels..... There has to be energy coming into the system from somewhere. As long as the vehicle feels an apparent wind against the prop it can work...to an extent. But as soon as the vehicle and the wind are at the same speed in the same direction, there IS no apparent wind...from ANY direction... and all source of energy is lost. Any stored in the system as momentum is quickly lost through friction and drag. Yes, that's the point - there is no apparent wind from any direction, yet they have ground speed. This delta is where the energy comes from.

Someone gets it!

How so? Power in>Power out. I explained it farther up. I think you are neglecting Newton's 3rd Law. What of the energy imparted to the airstream by the prop? I already addressed that on the last page: That's why they're using a huge prop: large prop = High Mass Flow Rate. High Mass Flow rate means putting less kinetic energy into the air to get the same momentum.

How so? Power in>Power out. I explained it farther up.

You are absolutely correct. You cannot generate 300 units of energy at the wheels, and transform it into 450 units of energy at the prop. You are capturing 4500 units of energy per second at the wheels, and putting 2250 units of energy per second back into the system through the propeller. The numbers 300 and 450 are units of FORCE, not energy. This is very important, and the two can not be confused. Think about a lever (we'll assume its perfect just for simplicity). If you have a 5 to 1 mechanical advantage lever, then the force exerted by the lever will be 5 times the input force. However, the distance that force travels will be 5 times less than the input force. Since Work = Force X distance, The input work equals the output work. Of course in the real world, the output work will be slightly less than the input due to losses. So - we know that an input force can be multiplied, and the output force higher than the input force. However, the output work can not be higher than the input. With these things in mind, read through my last post again, and note that I only used half the work input into the system, yet was still able to increase force. If this machine were perpetual motion, this would hold true all the time. It does not - only when the relative wind is moving slower than the ground (ie there is wind, which provides an energy source).

OK, I thought about this quite a bit today, and finally got the physics a bit more narrowed down in my head. First off, the power output from the propeller must be less than the power input to the wheels. I think everyone can agree on that. You have losses from friction, drag, and the energy the propeller imparts into the air in the form of kinetic energy. Power is the rate at which work is done. So more work must go into the wheels per time than comes out of the propeller per time. Work is Force X Distance. Second equation on this page, if you're in doubt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_%28physics%29 Therefore, Power is Force X Speed. Second equation on this page if you're still in doubt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(physics)#Mechanical_power And THAT, is exactly why this machine works. Take a snapshot of the vehicle at the point where it is traveling directly downwind, with a 10 m/s wind speed and a 15 m/s vehicle speed, giving it a headwind of 5 m/s. Since the wheels are turning, and being turned by the machine as it travels, they are receiving power at a rate of vehicle ground speed * force to turn wheels. Let say this force is 300 Newtons. That means the power input into the wheels is 300N * 15 m/s = 4500 N*M/Sec (Watts) Now because of the tailwind, the velocity at the propeller is only 5 m/s. Being generous to the naysayers, we'll assume a 50% efficiency - we'll say that only 50% of the power input to the wheels is actually put back into the machine via the propeller. If this is the case, we have 2250 Watts of Power delivered to the vehicle. Using our previous formula of speed * force = power, we can also say that force = power/speed. Hence, 2250/5 = 450 N. So, we have 450 Newtons of thrust being exerted by the propeller onto the vehicle. Combing those two forces, we get a net 150 N forward thrust on the vehicle (implying acceleration), despite going faster than the wind around it, and therefore actually have a headwind component. This explains why the machine is NOT perpetual motion. It does need that wind to make it move. If the wind speed is 0, then the speed in reference to the propeller will be equal to the speed in reference to the ground, meaning the force at the propeller will simply be the force input to the wheels minus losses, giving a net loss in energy and a deceleration. Hope that clears things up finally?

So how does the one on the treadmill work?

So how do sailboats go upwind (not directly), faster than the wind? It was a comparison made to show the absurdity of the idea. They are trying to build a "free energy machine". For about the 20th time, no they aren't. They only way this thing works is with wind. Wind=energy. Haven't you ever seen a windmill? Are those free energy machines? Yes I know they have relative wind, but relative wind doesn't affect the energy available, it just makes it harder to capture. Check out their website. http://www.fasterthanthewind.org/2010/05/we-done-good.html A San Jose State University Project. Last time I checked, Universities weren't in the field of perpetual motion, as most have physics departments.