Electric cars are pretty limited in range and speed, and the batteries are expensive. But still, for as much as I drive during the week, having one would make sense. If I charged it with off peak power, I could get a deal that would definitely reduce my commuting costs and also definitely reduce oil consumption as well as serve to level the utility's peak-to-average load factor.
But that would mean building one. I'm not that motivated, really.
Why are electric cars not for sale? Better yet, why are true hybrid cars-true hybrid in the sense they can be operated off pure electric power, with a mechanically separate engine-generator section (which would make a dandy household standby generator, too) and electric driveline?
Conspiracy?
I don't think so. Rather, it comes down to the fact that electric-or even hybrid-cars are a potentially disruptive technology , and corporations hate disruptive technology. They will never put out anything they perceive as potentially disruptive, whether it is or not, no matter how their own engineering staffs prod and pull them. Engineers don't make the decision.
It's always new entrants to the business who bring in the disruptive technology. And there hasn't been a new car manufacturer in America, or elsewhere in the Western world, in a long time.
Friday, October 12, 2007
A&P schools: Sucker Bet 101
Want to get a license as an aircraft mechanic? Either do it by getting a job at an eligible shop or factory and working the 30 months, or at least, go to a community college program. Don't be suckered into the high dollar commercial schools.
There is not as much demand for A&P mechanics as you think. What is in demand are people with specific types of experience-and the pay is usually not that great. Not as compared with other fields. When the romance of wrenching on airplanes wears off, people tend to leave the field for better pay and less hassle.
The exception was the people with good union jobs at major airlines-but that's going away.
So don't be fooled by schools wanting large sums of money for a license that is worthless outside aviation.
There is not as much demand for A&P mechanics as you think. What is in demand are people with specific types of experience-and the pay is usually not that great. Not as compared with other fields. When the romance of wrenching on airplanes wears off, people tend to leave the field for better pay and less hassle.
The exception was the people with good union jobs at major airlines-but that's going away.
So don't be fooled by schools wanting large sums of money for a license that is worthless outside aviation.
Synthetic oil: the myth and the reality
Thirty years ago, companies started selling synthetic oils and lubricants for automotive and other reciprocating engine uses. They now comprise a moderately large segment of the market, and are available form specialist vendors-Amsoil, Klotz, Bel-Ray-and the biggies alike.
More nonsense has been written about these products than accurate information and before blindly paying for them you should know a little about their history, their advantages and their disadvantages.
Synthetic oils were first widely used in aircraft turbine engines. Because of the chemistry available then, those oils were esters of a non-compatible type to petroleum oils and to the rubber seals and hoses they used. The aircraft industry was able to completely switch over entire systems to those materials, just as they were able to switch hydraulic systems-every seal, bladder, O-ring and flexible hose-from petroleum to phosphate ester (Skydrol) based fluids.
Those synthetic oils were used because they could handle the temperature extremes of turbine engine operation better than regular oils, which would gel and freeze at the cold temperatures in high altitude subsonic flight and coke inside the engine at high temperature low altitude and ground operation, supersonic cruise regimes, and-the big problem-on shutdown when the bearings would "heat soak". But for all the zoomy high tech aura of jet engines, they did not abuse the oil in ways piston engines do. They don't foul the oil with combustion products because the bearings are not in contact with combustion products. There are no piston rings on bore walls to shear it, no cam lobes to provide extreme pressure to the lubricating film (nor to need that level of EP adhesion), no blowby and soot and raw fuel. There's very little air in the system, even.
Putting synthetic oils in piston engines meant, first, using a different chemistry compatible, more or less, with existing oils. It did provide much better oil consistency at temperature extremes, which was a huge benefit for Arctic operations, and in racing, where teams could run smaller oil coolers. And of course, being expensive and associated with aircraft, it had a lot of snob appeal and cachet. That was the real motivation of the mass purveyors of the stuff, such as Al Amatuzzio of AMSoil.
Synthetic oils, today, have improved a little for piston engine use since then, but not a lot. They still have the same advantages and the same disadvantages.
Disadvantages?
Yes. For one thing, they are only partly compatible with petroleum oils and, more importantly, with seals and gaskets that have been used extensively with synthetic oils. There is no doubt that when switching engines over the likelihood of seal and gasket failure is quite high. The longer the engine has been operated since overhaul, the higher the risk. Anyone who says otherwise is not being straight with you.
Another problem is that synthetics do a lousy job of holding contaminants in suspension. If you doubt that, ask the synthetic oil people why they don't sell an approved AD aircraft piston engine oil. They did. It worked fine in the small Lycoming and Continentals operated on 80/87 or mogas-but the bigger flat engines suffered damage because the large amounts of tetraethyl lead in 100 octane avgas formed a paste and plugged oil passages. I know A&P mechanics who use synthetic car oils in their A and C series Continentals they fly on mogas. But they'd be the first to say they don't recommend anyone else do so.
Extended drain intervals? Yes, you can, if you use a system with a bypass filter in addition to the stock full flow one, and have the oil tested. It's not cost effective for private users to do that-the oil analysis is more than an oil change.
Bypass filters, in conjunction with the stock one, do do a lot of good. But you don't need synthetic oils for that. Several are available, but my favorite-IF you change it regularly-is the time tested toilet paper Franz filter.
More nonsense has been written about these products than accurate information and before blindly paying for them you should know a little about their history, their advantages and their disadvantages.
Synthetic oils were first widely used in aircraft turbine engines. Because of the chemistry available then, those oils were esters of a non-compatible type to petroleum oils and to the rubber seals and hoses they used. The aircraft industry was able to completely switch over entire systems to those materials, just as they were able to switch hydraulic systems-every seal, bladder, O-ring and flexible hose-from petroleum to phosphate ester (Skydrol) based fluids.
Those synthetic oils were used because they could handle the temperature extremes of turbine engine operation better than regular oils, which would gel and freeze at the cold temperatures in high altitude subsonic flight and coke inside the engine at high temperature low altitude and ground operation, supersonic cruise regimes, and-the big problem-on shutdown when the bearings would "heat soak". But for all the zoomy high tech aura of jet engines, they did not abuse the oil in ways piston engines do. They don't foul the oil with combustion products because the bearings are not in contact with combustion products. There are no piston rings on bore walls to shear it, no cam lobes to provide extreme pressure to the lubricating film (nor to need that level of EP adhesion), no blowby and soot and raw fuel. There's very little air in the system, even.
Putting synthetic oils in piston engines meant, first, using a different chemistry compatible, more or less, with existing oils. It did provide much better oil consistency at temperature extremes, which was a huge benefit for Arctic operations, and in racing, where teams could run smaller oil coolers. And of course, being expensive and associated with aircraft, it had a lot of snob appeal and cachet. That was the real motivation of the mass purveyors of the stuff, such as Al Amatuzzio of AMSoil.
Synthetic oils, today, have improved a little for piston engine use since then, but not a lot. They still have the same advantages and the same disadvantages.
Disadvantages?
Yes. For one thing, they are only partly compatible with petroleum oils and, more importantly, with seals and gaskets that have been used extensively with synthetic oils. There is no doubt that when switching engines over the likelihood of seal and gasket failure is quite high. The longer the engine has been operated since overhaul, the higher the risk. Anyone who says otherwise is not being straight with you.
Another problem is that synthetics do a lousy job of holding contaminants in suspension. If you doubt that, ask the synthetic oil people why they don't sell an approved AD aircraft piston engine oil. They did. It worked fine in the small Lycoming and Continentals operated on 80/87 or mogas-but the bigger flat engines suffered damage because the large amounts of tetraethyl lead in 100 octane avgas formed a paste and plugged oil passages. I know A&P mechanics who use synthetic car oils in their A and C series Continentals they fly on mogas. But they'd be the first to say they don't recommend anyone else do so.
Extended drain intervals? Yes, you can, if you use a system with a bypass filter in addition to the stock full flow one, and have the oil tested. It's not cost effective for private users to do that-the oil analysis is more than an oil change.
Bypass filters, in conjunction with the stock one, do do a lot of good. But you don't need synthetic oils for that. Several are available, but my favorite-IF you change it regularly-is the time tested toilet paper Franz filter.
Multilevel marketing: a disaster that should be outlawed
It's true a few people have made money on MLM, but almost invariably they are either the founders or people who have found a profitable sideline they have somehow injected into the mix, such as my sister, who made a paltry hundred grand or so in several years, or the notorious Dexter Yager , who has made something like a hundred million. A few others have built huge "downlines" but most of those have not only worked incredibly hard themselves but have been able to "tune out" the fact that most of their downline has failed at "The Business", losing years of their lives and often everything they owned chasing a dream based on quixtar...I mean, quicksand!
MLM does not work. It can't.
The Vandruffs are Christian fundamentalists, a group I have little in common with, but apparently they are at least both sincere and have some basic honesty-qualities not found in a good portion, at least, of the MLMers who are all vocal believers in public but whose behavior has usually been pretty reprobate.
I used to be a child. I also used to be a libertarian (but I repeat myself). When, as the Good Book says, I was a libertarian, I used to speak like a libty, reason like a libty, and generally make a pompous pain in the fundament of myself as libtys do. Somehow, I grew out of that nonsense. The libertarian position regarding MLM is that it is just another kind of business that violates no moral principles.
But then, they say that of prostitution, drug dealing, usury, and other things no sane society puts up with much too.
MLM should be made illegal. I'm not talking about Avon or Fuller Brush or Tupperware or womyn-only dildo vendors. They're not MLM: there's no dealers-selling-dealerships. I mean Amway/Quixtar/Alticor and the hundreds of imitators they've spawned. Outlaw the business model itself, lock, stock and barrel. Outlaw it for the same reason we outlaw narcotics: because it proves disastrous for enough people to have access to it that the harm in enforcing the laws against it is outweighed by the harm in its availability. A business that 95% of people fail at is not a tenable business.
MLM does not work. It can't.
The Vandruffs are Christian fundamentalists, a group I have little in common with, but apparently they are at least both sincere and have some basic honesty-qualities not found in a good portion, at least, of the MLMers who are all vocal believers in public but whose behavior has usually been pretty reprobate.
I used to be a child. I also used to be a libertarian (but I repeat myself). When, as the Good Book says, I was a libertarian, I used to speak like a libty, reason like a libty, and generally make a pompous pain in the fundament of myself as libtys do. Somehow, I grew out of that nonsense. The libertarian position regarding MLM is that it is just another kind of business that violates no moral principles.
But then, they say that of prostitution, drug dealing, usury, and other things no sane society puts up with much too.
MLM should be made illegal. I'm not talking about Avon or Fuller Brush or Tupperware or womyn-only dildo vendors. They're not MLM: there's no dealers-selling-dealerships. I mean Amway/Quixtar/Alticor and the hundreds of imitators they've spawned. Outlaw the business model itself, lock, stock and barrel. Outlaw it for the same reason we outlaw narcotics: because it proves disastrous for enough people to have access to it that the harm in enforcing the laws against it is outweighed by the harm in its availability. A business that 95% of people fail at is not a tenable business.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
BMW: the mediocre driving machine
My wild sister Sally* drives BMW, or she doesn't drive.
She's been that way since college. As soon as she could get out from under Mom and Dad, she decided she wanted one, and it set her to work to buy one. I can't fault her for that.
She cut back her class load in her second semester to-don't laugh-sell multilevel marketing products. The reason she made a lot of money where 99% percent of people don't, was that she understood the scam for what it was, almost instinctively, and she had no intention of actually selling either the product itself (at which you can make a little profit, but not very much, and only with a lot of work and rejection-like any other ass-busting sales job) or The Plan (which is a sucker bet.) Instead she set to doing what "the big pins"-MLMese for "the big swinging dicks"-were doing and she did it right under their noses. She hired a couple of software geeks to write an application that would automate a database of contacts, and a second linked one to keep track of inventory, sales tax, and a couple of things called 'points volume' and 'business volume'. Under the rules, she could only sell this through the organization if she got permission from the MLM company. She figured they were not going to let her do that, so she started a shell company and made me the head. Instead, she offered her services as a consultant, which did not come under the agreement, and sold basically one product.
Mine.
Hers.
In a year, she had made enough money to pay her tuition for all four years and buy a off-lease BMW.
Being a car nut, I had some familiarity with BMW. My father called them, and still does, "Bowel Movement Watery". I thought they were overpriced and unnecessarily overengineered but okay driving cars, expensive to maintain. I still do.
When Sally finally graduated, she went overseas for six months. I had use of her then current BMW, a 5 series. It was okay-not great, okay. Better than stock American cars but not particularly fun, and not particularly an attention getter-at least not the kind of attention I wanted.
I just don't think BMW is worth the money. Not to buy, not to maintain.
Sal really likes the tool kit. She thinks it's great that they come with a tool kit, unlike American or Japanese cars. What I can't get across to her is that the tools are a joke. For what a BMW costs, you should get a full set of Snap-Ons, not a plastic tray of cheap spanners, reversible screwdrivers and stamped sheet steel plug wrenches.
Of course, she doesn't do any work on her cars, so she thinks these tools are impressive.
Nevertheless, the key here is that she can afford to drive BMWs and to have them worked on. I can't. I couldn't if I wanted to. So who's smarter?
She's been that way since college. As soon as she could get out from under Mom and Dad, she decided she wanted one, and it set her to work to buy one. I can't fault her for that.
She cut back her class load in her second semester to-don't laugh-sell multilevel marketing products. The reason she made a lot of money where 99% percent of people don't, was that she understood the scam for what it was, almost instinctively, and she had no intention of actually selling either the product itself (at which you can make a little profit, but not very much, and only with a lot of work and rejection-like any other ass-busting sales job) or The Plan (which is a sucker bet.) Instead she set to doing what "the big pins"-MLMese for "the big swinging dicks"-were doing and she did it right under their noses. She hired a couple of software geeks to write an application that would automate a database of contacts, and a second linked one to keep track of inventory, sales tax, and a couple of things called 'points volume' and 'business volume'. Under the rules, she could only sell this through the organization if she got permission from the MLM company. She figured they were not going to let her do that, so she started a shell company and made me the head. Instead, she offered her services as a consultant, which did not come under the agreement, and sold basically one product.
Mine.
Hers.
In a year, she had made enough money to pay her tuition for all four years and buy a off-lease BMW.
Being a car nut, I had some familiarity with BMW. My father called them, and still does, "Bowel Movement Watery". I thought they were overpriced and unnecessarily overengineered but okay driving cars, expensive to maintain. I still do.
When Sally finally graduated, she went overseas for six months. I had use of her then current BMW, a 5 series. It was okay-not great, okay. Better than stock American cars but not particularly fun, and not particularly an attention getter-at least not the kind of attention I wanted.
I just don't think BMW is worth the money. Not to buy, not to maintain.
Sal really likes the tool kit. She thinks it's great that they come with a tool kit, unlike American or Japanese cars. What I can't get across to her is that the tools are a joke. For what a BMW costs, you should get a full set of Snap-Ons, not a plastic tray of cheap spanners, reversible screwdrivers and stamped sheet steel plug wrenches.
Of course, she doesn't do any work on her cars, so she thinks these tools are impressive.
Nevertheless, the key here is that she can afford to drive BMWs and to have them worked on. I can't. I couldn't if I wanted to. So who's smarter?
Business giveth and business taketh away.
I'm convinced the trend of the future, if corporations can get away with it, is going to be to own their products through their life cycle and destroy them when their official life is over.
It is not a new thing. Mainframe computers, up until the industry was pretty well consolidated in the 1970s, were often leased only, and when they came back they were destroyed. That's why there are no surviving Sperry Rand UNIVAC systems from the tube or early solid state era-meaning no one can read the steel tapes from the 1956 presidential election or the mag tapes from the 1960 one. Cessna Aircraft built a helicopter in the 1960s, and when it had some problems Cessna's engineers under Drunkie Dwight Wallace couldn't fix them they simply bought them all back. They couldn't make every customer return them, by law, but they had the type certificate repealed, so no one could fly them anymore-at least not in the United States. Xerox was notorious for theoretically offering its copiers for outright sale but then invariably coming up with some bizarre reason why the machine couldn't be delivered, or refusing to sell the one already delivered.
All car buffs know about Chrysler's Turbine Car program and curse Chrysler for destroying them. That's why when General Motors offered the EV1 for lease only I knew what the lessees found out the hard way, and which GM employees denied to me until they were blue in the face up until the day it happenned-that GM had no intention of allowing any of the EV-1 cars out of its clutches ever.
Personally, I had no great desire to own an EV-1 as a car, per se. But I very much would have liked to have one as a collectible. What bothers me about GM's behavior is the lying. They sat there and lied to me, and everyone else, and for that, I'd like to see them taught a lesson.
Which is why I'm hoping for a big bloody labor fight between Ford and the UAW, despite the recent blather on Bloomberg that negotiations should go smoothly. Toyota would be likely to buy Ford, or a good chunk thereof, at the right price, and if badly enough hurt for cash flow the price could be very right. With Toyota lean management and a propensity to build plants in what used to be The South, ToyotaFord would probably pound the hell out of GM.
Another reason I'm looking for a big labor fight is that the potential loss of a lot of UAW jobs all of a sudden would put political pressure on globalism-it would make it a much more explicit campaign issue. Anything that fans the nascent fires of nationalism is a good thing between now and the election next year.
So far, the de-industrialization of the United States has been totally absent as a campaign issue-the only thing even touching on it is the immigration issue, where working class America has made its displeasure well known, but to little avail as corporate money speaks very loudly and money is what wins elections.
It is not a new thing. Mainframe computers, up until the industry was pretty well consolidated in the 1970s, were often leased only, and when they came back they were destroyed. That's why there are no surviving Sperry Rand UNIVAC systems from the tube or early solid state era-meaning no one can read the steel tapes from the 1956 presidential election or the mag tapes from the 1960 one. Cessna Aircraft built a helicopter in the 1960s, and when it had some problems Cessna's engineers under Drunkie Dwight Wallace couldn't fix them they simply bought them all back. They couldn't make every customer return them, by law, but they had the type certificate repealed, so no one could fly them anymore-at least not in the United States. Xerox was notorious for theoretically offering its copiers for outright sale but then invariably coming up with some bizarre reason why the machine couldn't be delivered, or refusing to sell the one already delivered.
All car buffs know about Chrysler's Turbine Car program and curse Chrysler for destroying them. That's why when General Motors offered the EV1 for lease only I knew what the lessees found out the hard way, and which GM employees denied to me until they were blue in the face up until the day it happenned-that GM had no intention of allowing any of the EV-1 cars out of its clutches ever.
Personally, I had no great desire to own an EV-1 as a car, per se. But I very much would have liked to have one as a collectible. What bothers me about GM's behavior is the lying. They sat there and lied to me, and everyone else, and for that, I'd like to see them taught a lesson.
Which is why I'm hoping for a big bloody labor fight between Ford and the UAW, despite the recent blather on Bloomberg that negotiations should go smoothly. Toyota would be likely to buy Ford, or a good chunk thereof, at the right price, and if badly enough hurt for cash flow the price could be very right. With Toyota lean management and a propensity to build plants in what used to be The South, ToyotaFord would probably pound the hell out of GM.
Another reason I'm looking for a big labor fight is that the potential loss of a lot of UAW jobs all of a sudden would put political pressure on globalism-it would make it a much more explicit campaign issue. Anything that fans the nascent fires of nationalism is a good thing between now and the election next year.
So far, the de-industrialization of the United States has been totally absent as a campaign issue-the only thing even touching on it is the immigration issue, where working class America has made its displeasure well known, but to little avail as corporate money speaks very loudly and money is what wins elections.
Six Does Not Go Into Eight.
Not evenly.
"Three deuces"-three two barrel carburetors-works great on some engines:those with, say, six or twelve cylinders. On an eight cylinder engine, it just does not work very well. But never try to tell any of the muscle car boys that. They have no concept of physics, but they know three deuces was the hot setup way back when, and that settles that.
Of course, nowadays it's an otiose argument, because everyone has fuel injection. Even on old cars, most that are not stone stock show cars have some kind of electronic fuel injection. I've seen GM TBI setups cobbled onto International Harvester Scouts and slant six Mopars even. But still, the three deuces myth lives.
It didn't work very well then, except at wide open throttle. Back then that was all they cared about-the stoplight my-dick-is-bigger duel. They didn't care about part throttle economy and they didn't care that the throttle response was uneven and that if they weren't running a lot of raw gas out the tailpipe, they would eat valves under sustained high power operation. There was little high power sustained operation unless you lived in Nevada or Montana, or were pulling a trailer up hills, and then all bets were off anyway without closed loop electronic control or a manual method of leaning and EGT probes, like a flight engineer on a DC-7 over the ocean.
But now we do have closed loop electronic control, and a good thing too. I can't imagine running a carburetor anymore, and that's why the carbs on my project are going on eBay before I get my final setup done. I want to make sure I don't punk out and do the easy thing. I'm tired of pissing with carbs.
"Three deuces"-three two barrel carburetors-works great on some engines:those with, say, six or twelve cylinders. On an eight cylinder engine, it just does not work very well. But never try to tell any of the muscle car boys that. They have no concept of physics, but they know three deuces was the hot setup way back when, and that settles that.
Of course, nowadays it's an otiose argument, because everyone has fuel injection. Even on old cars, most that are not stone stock show cars have some kind of electronic fuel injection. I've seen GM TBI setups cobbled onto International Harvester Scouts and slant six Mopars even. But still, the three deuces myth lives.
It didn't work very well then, except at wide open throttle. Back then that was all they cared about-the stoplight my-dick-is-bigger duel. They didn't care about part throttle economy and they didn't care that the throttle response was uneven and that if they weren't running a lot of raw gas out the tailpipe, they would eat valves under sustained high power operation. There was little high power sustained operation unless you lived in Nevada or Montana, or were pulling a trailer up hills, and then all bets were off anyway without closed loop electronic control or a manual method of leaning and EGT probes, like a flight engineer on a DC-7 over the ocean.
But now we do have closed loop electronic control, and a good thing too. I can't imagine running a carburetor anymore, and that's why the carbs on my project are going on eBay before I get my final setup done. I want to make sure I don't punk out and do the easy thing. I'm tired of pissing with carbs.
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