Walking behind a bendy-bus parked on a slight slope t'other day, I noticed that it was leaking diesel, and a fair amount of it too, which was heading off down the hill.
Strolled up to the front of the bus, where the driver was enjoying a cigarette, and mentioned it to him. Driver goes to back of bus, looks at the diesel on the ground, sticks his cigarette in his mouth and gets down on his stomach to wriggle under the bus for a look-see.
I know diesel isn't technically supposed to burn from a naked flame, but I did get out of the blast range pretty quickly!
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With diesel it doesnt combust explosively like petrol, but it can spark quickly!!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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There are some pretty daft people out there. When I worked in a garage a bloke came in with a 1995 Volvo 440 turbo diesel, which wouldn't start. It had never been serviced in its entire life, so finally at 100,000 miles the cambelt snapped (surprised it lasted this long). When I was explaining this to the owner he was having none of it as he was adamant that diesel engines don't have pistons, and that he was going to get another opinion.
He came back a day later feeling very sheepish when he'd found out that its spark plugs diesels don't have.
I'll always remember that.
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"..he was adamant that diesel engines don't have pistons"
His one might not have, after encountering the valves.
Suggesting a confusion with a wankel may have led to further misunderstandings.
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"..he was adamant that diesel engines don't have pistons"
When I was about 13 I wrote an essay telling how submarines were a danger to fishing because they could snag nets and sink boats. The teacher proceeded to humiliate me in front of the class because "everyone knows that nuclear-powered submarines don?t need propellors - they?re nuclear powered".
I never had quite the same respect for authority after that. It was a grammar school too.
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Like the notion that aircraft con-trails are from the jet engines, and that piston-engined aircraft don't produce them. A journalist this time.
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Erm - contrails are from jet engines. The water vapour in the exhaust condenses (geddit?) leaving the visible trail.
You also get aerodynamic contrails from the wings, which are slightly different. As the air moves past the wing it creates a low pressure area. The lower pressure causes the air to cool and reach saturation point. This particular type of contrail is disrupted the wake from the wings and doesn't last long.
The only contrail visible from the ground is an exhaust contrail.
I imagine a piston engined aircraft could also produce one, but I doubt it would form a "line" in the sky, and even more that you could see even it out the window, let along from the ground.
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"You also get aerodynamic contrails from the wings, which are slightly different. As the air moves past the wing it creates a low pressure area. The lower pressure causes the air to cool and reach saturation point. This particular type of contrail is disrupted the wake from the wings and doesn't last long."
the only aerodynamic ones that are visible and last are the "wing tip vortices" where the high pressure air escapes up and over the wing tip and mixes in a spiral with the low pressure air. Even these are defeated with wing tip "flick ups" on newer jets.
so yes - contrails in the sky visible from the ground are jet vapours.
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so yes - contrails in the sky visible from the ground are jet vapours.
These days almost certainly, but big piston engines contrail as well. Look at wartime archive film.
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Even these are defeated with wing tip "flickups" on newer jets.
Why are they called "canards"?
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Even these are defeated with wing tip "flick >> ups" on newer jets. >> Why are they called "canards"?
They aren't. A canard (French for duck) is a small wing sprouting out of the fuselage in front of the main wing. The first time I remember seeing them was on the ill fated TU144 "Concordski", though in this case they were additionally unusual in only being "deployed" at low speed. See www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/tu144/pics0...l
A more recent example is on the Rutan design shown here: 142.26.194.131/aerodynamics1/Appendix/Aircraft/Can...m
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>>>I imagine a piston engined aircraft could also produce one, but I doubt it would form a "line" in the sky, and even more that you could see even it out the window, let along from the ground.
I'm sure I've seen wartime photos of Flying Fortresses, Liberators etc at high altitude producing contrails.
Cheers, SS
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You have.
Any engine producing a large enough volume of exhaust gas has the capability of forming a vapour trail if the atmospheric conditions are right.
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There were several teenagers who seemed to have been competing for this award on tonight's traffic cops. I can't believe today's young people are so cretinous as to not realise wet roads increase braking distance! Once stupid girl ended up off the road after she braked for a corner and discovered brakes didn't work as well in the damp. Her friend promptly dropped her car into a ditch while turning it round in someone's driveway! Two lads were doing their best to take themselves out of the gene pool by over turning their cars or landing them in canals. No wonder young people make up a third of all road fatalities. I don't know what proportion of licences they hold or what mileage they do but it is ridiculous that they can pass their driving test and not realise they have to drive according to the prevailing conditions!
I know I was a bit ropey when I first passed my test but at least I had the sense to realise I was still learning and the real learning started when I was driving on my own without an instructor to offer advice and get me out of trouble. I also knew that in the wet the car doesn't stop or corner as well.....
teabelly
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What about the woman with her Mk1 Ford Fiesta & the many visits to the garage anyone????????
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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This could be a running thread.
M6 Sunday afternoon passed large 4*4 towing horsebox. Occupied by a pony and a standing child (female, early teens).
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Yesterday morning on the A50 between Stoke and Uttoxeter there was a pair of lads riding 50cc scooters at 30mph abreast of each other.
Certainly braver than myself.
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Around this way they prefer three abreast, preferably on NSL single carriageway. It helps if one of the scooters is past its sell-by date and one of the others is a 125. That way the "clever" one on the 125 can lean across, place his hand on his friend's back and give him a bit of a push.
What's most amusing is when you get to the roundabout at the end of the road and point out how stoopid they were before driving off, they think they can catch you in a 170bhp car? Even if they did, [evil terminator mod mode] I'd love to see what they'd do to me, I really would.[/evil terminator mod mode]
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Piston engined aircraft definitely produce co-trails as anyone who lived through the war as a kid can tell you.
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Piston engined aircraft definitely produce co-trails as anyone who lived through the war as a kid can tell you.
As do F1 cars as the air passes over the spoiler.
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I would like to nominate my youngest brother for an honorary Darwin Award (honorary because he is still alive). Posting in HF's Astra Replacement thread, I mentioned the car my dad had owned until kid bro wrote it off (by rolling it while driving in the Wicklow mountains), and thought the story worth sharing here.
By dumb luck, the car just managed to stop before tumbling down a steep incline. I believe the word "ravine" would not be out of place here. Cause of accident - sheer stupidity (he lost it going round a well-signed sharp bend). In spite of the car rolling through 360 degrees, intellectus minimus walked away unscathed.
That's not the basis for the Darwin Award (hon.) though.
For some bizarre reason, he'd left a pair of scissors lying on the passenger seat - not just small nail clipper scissors either, but the proper large office scissors with sharp and pointy four-inch blades. They ended up embedded in the B-pillar behind his head. How he wasn't partly decapitated, I'll never know. At the time, I suggested to him that he only avoided injury because the scissors entered his head via the ear, and of course encountered zero resistance beyond that point. Can't think why he didn't agree ...
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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Andy, you are priceless!
Don't know if you have been away as long as me but for heaven's sake keep coming back! Your posts are a tonic.
Take care, as always,
HF
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Nomination for topless drivers (of either sex!). The burn you'll get from a seatbelt on bare skin does not bear thinking of.
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Not half as bad as coming off a motorbike/scooter in trainers, shirt sleeves and shorts! I can feel the pain just seeing people riding like this.
Steve.
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Glowplug - I agree entirely.
I have pleaded with Brits I have seen on holiday in Spain or Greece who do this to see sense.Even seen girls in bikinis on the back.
I saw one guy in plaster and covered in gravel rash having an interesting discussion in Corfu over a very damaged small Honda.
Stupid , Stupid , Stupid.......
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The A50 again, last Saturday morning. Some stupid berk in a blue K reg astra who was either drunk/drugged/ yapping on his phone or arguing with his passengers from the motorway junction all the way to Meir (several miles) I followed him in which time he drove at 50 in a 70 in the outside lane holding up a large 4x4. He weaved back into the left lane and stayed there. Barely managed to make it onto the large roundabout by the Britannia and then drove oblivious to his surrounds taking both hands off the wheel at some points as he was gesticulating and trying to change gear at the same time. Someone nearly drove into the side of him at one of the slip roads and he showed zero reaction. I was so glad when he got off at Meir. I was thinking of honking my annoyance at such cretinous behaviour but I knew a policeman would appear from nowhere and get me in trouble so I just sat further away and wished for him to take himself out of the gene pool....
Again on the A50 on the Sunday afternoon while there was another cycle race. I'd count all the cyclists who think it is wise to cycle along the a50 in anyway shape or form! I also saw a lexus nearly get pushed into the barrier as it was overtaking a lorry when the lorry arrived behind a cyclist and pulled straight out. The lexus swerved into the dirt and there were a few pant filling moments for the driver I'd imagine. If I were organising the race I'd make sure either all the cyclists were escorted with some flashing lights so people can see well in advance of where they are or insist everyone sits in the right hand lane; as otherwise someone is going to get flattened and my money is on the cyclist being the most vulnerable.
teabelly
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I loved the story - I think it was in one of the books of Heroic Failures - about the council workmen who turned up in their lorry to put up a fence round a park.
This they did diligently all day, all round the park, without a break or a gate. Their faces as they proudly surveyed their handiwork, then looked at the fence, then at the lorry, were a study.
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It was an old folks home. One of the old Dears inside said afterwards that they were wondering how they would drive the lorry out, but did not want to interfere.
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I would like to put myself forward for the award from an incident in my youth.
I had a Suzuki ZR50SL 2-stroke Moped (custom styling that even then looked a bit ropy but when your 16 and mobile for the first time anything feels cool).
A regular thing to keep it as quick as possible (i.e: trying to get it to reach 31mph rather than just 30.......) was de-coking the cylinder head and cleaning the exhaust out. I had read that taking the exhaust of and rinsing it through with a mixture of petrol and parafin did the job. Not having any parafin I put put a pint or so of petrol into the exhaust when taken off the bike and duly rinsed it through by turning the exhaust one way and the another.
I think I read that to get rid of the fuel you had to set fire to it which I did. So I am holding the exhaust which is effectivly one long tube with a tight bend at one end coming back on itself where it joins the engine and I am holding the long bit upright with a small fire being at the curled up end near my feet.
After what seemed like 10 minutes and being frustrated I thought that maybe the best way to speed things up would be blowing down the big pipe to increase the flow of petrol into the flames.
Can anyone see what's coming?
Sure enough the petrol is blown up into the flames and a big fireball leaps from the bottom of the pipe straight to my face and head setting my hair on fire.
I run round like a headless chicken with my mate in complete fits of hysterics and the stupidest thing he has ever seen in his life. Luckily I excaped without serious injury but I had to cut most of my hair off as it had melted into big clumps on my head.
Apart from taking the radiator cap off an overheating engine and getting plastered in boiling antifreeze a few years later (major acid and heat burns meaning big hospital visit and multiple scars to face and body - all gone now after 17 years thank god), I have been pretty much accident free.........
Ho hum, you live and learn!
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