Humor

[Unregistered]

I thought the gang here would appreciate this:

(stolen, of course)

An airline pilots view

We gotta get rid of turbines, they are ruining aviation. We need to go back to big round engines. Anybody can start a turbine, you just need to move a switch from "OFF" to "START," and then remember to move it back to "ON" after a while. My PC is harder to start. Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. On some planes, the pilots are not even allowed to do it.

Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a small lady-like poot and start whining louder.

Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho f..t or two, more clicks, a lot of smoke and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It's a guy thing. When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead.

Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan: Useful, but hardly
exciting. Turbines don't break often enough, leading to aircrew boredom,
complacency and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it's going to blow at any minute. This helps concentrate the mind. Turbines don't have enough control levers to keep a pilot's attention. There's nothing to fiddle with during the flight.

Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman lanterns. Round engines smell like God intended flying machines to smell.

[wardog]

as someone who flies a round engine - I can appreciate that. and although I'm not a guy, I got a good laugh.

[Randy Haskin]

A fighter pilot's view:

The minute a piston engine can take my combat airplane, with all kinds of ferocious ordnance hanging underneath, and push me over the Mach when I park the throttle in the northwest quadrant, I'll support switching out "suck-squeeze-bang-blow" for round motors and Hamilton Standards.

Airline guys might not feel manly enough with turbofans hanging under their wings, but when I light off 7 stages of afterburner in my jet, seems like there's chest-thumping a-plenty in my neighborhood. Maybe it's the airplane those fans are hanging on which is boring, and not the motors that are powering it?

Airline guys might be lulled into boredom with reliability of a kerosene-burner, but when I'm dodging SAMs, AAA, and shoving laser-guided death down the throat of the enemy, my life's exciting enough without having to worry about if my engine's going to sh*t the bed in the next few minutes as I flog it for everything it's worth. I prefer to have my mind concentrating on how lethal I can be to someone else, and not how lethal my airplane might be to me!

Perhaps starting the engine isn't exciting enough for you guys...that sucks when that's the most exciting thing your airplane does, eh? I'll try to keep that in mind when I'm watching my HUD and target pod video of things I made blow up!

[Unregistered]

Zoomies

Hey fighter guy--

When you can shut three engines down and still keep it airborne, THEN I'll be impressed.

Now shut up while I go in the back and take a nap. I have some per diem to 'earn'.

[Race 29]

Honestly, I think there's enough room in the sky for both engines. I'm old enough to remember a few military airplanes with radials flying over my house when I was a kid, and looking up every time. Now, when I hear the jets, I still look up! I lived in Alaska awhile back, where radials are alive and working everyday. It's amaizing the feelings you get back when you hear that sound again after so many years.

There's and old story from Vietnam about an F-4 pilot who flies up to an EC-121 Connie while both were coming back from seperate missions. The F-4 pilot pulls up next to the Connie and performs a perfect roll, then tells the pilot of the Connie "Let's see you do that"! The Connie pilot says "hang on a minutes" After a short amount of time, the F-4 pilot say's "I'm still waiting"! The Connie pilot says "I just got up, streatched my legs, used the bathroom, and got a cup of coffee. Let's see you do that"!

Sorry Randy, I couldn't resist!

Race 29