Bully Pulpit

Both readers of this blog know that this is my bully pulpit - as it should be. After all, it is my blog. That being said, I hope that some of the things that I write about strike a chord with someone, provoke a thoughtful response, or even move someone to action.

That happens to me on a regular basis when I read articles and blogs. For example, just this week I was reading America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution by Angelo M. Codevilla. He makes a lot of well taken points about how the US is run by a class of self aggrandized wonks whose interests are so hostile to the rest of us that they run the risk of causing open revolution.

It is well worth reading, but I want to point out one fact he mentioned. There were 117,000 school districts in America (and hence school boards) in 1940 for 132 million Americans. Today there are a mere 15,000 school districts and school boards for 310 million Americans. That works out to 1 school district for every 1,128 Americans in 1940 and 1 school district to every 20,667 Americans in 2010, or about 18 times less representation today than in 1940. (By the way, these facts were so astounding that I had to check them out. I found this graph on the web here in a study by Christopher Berry of Harvard University.)


No wonder school districts are so unresponsive to parents and taxpayers. I'm sure this was the intended consequence of the architects of this massive consolidation.

As Mr. Codevilla says, "America has been imposed on enough". I agree.

Fremont Island

Here are some pictures of Fremont Island, in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. I took a flight out there last Saturday. The weather was very clear, but there was a strong southwesterly flow coming off the lake, which made for some interesting flying on the leeward side of the island.























I also saw the evaporation ponds just north of the island and the UP Railroad causeway. You can see all the different colors created as the salty water evaporates. I believe this is the location of Western Zirconium, a company that extracts minerals from the lake.

Ivory Soap

Well, add this to the list of things that look cool when you microwave them. Ivory soap. My son and his friend did this one the other day and said it looked totally cool. The following pictures show the results.

Carol Ann Garratt

Pilot CarolAnn Garratt spoke at the EAA Chapter 58 meeting last Thursday about her 2008, record-setting, around-the-world flight in a Mooney, M-20J. See here. The purpose of the flight was to raise awareness and money for ALS - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig's disease. Carol's mother was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 76 and died of the disease

CarolAnn and co-pilot, Carol Foy accomplished this flight in 8 1/2 days. They departed from Orlando, Florida, then flew to San Diego California, Hawaii, Guam, Thailand, Oman, Djibouti, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde Islands, then back to Orlando.

The money CarolAnn raises goes to scientists doing research exclusively on ALS. They have a drug that has shown promise in laboratory mice with the ALS gene and hope to have the drug in human clinical trials soon.

After the presentation, I asked Carol why it seemed that virtually no progress on the disease has occurred in spite of the 70 years that have passed since Lou Gehrig retired from baseball. Her answer was that too few people are afflicted with the disease for Big Pharma to care about. I think that is a possible and plausible reason.

But sometimes I wonder if there is something more at work here. Have we simply reached the limits of genius. We all have to die eventually from something. Or maybe we have formulated the problem in such a way that there can be no clear answer to our research. I hope not, for the sake of ALS sufferers, but why so little progress? It leaves me wondering.

Synchronous Belts

When I started this blog, I promised myself that I would share some of the tidbits of wisdom that I have learned over the years about alternative aircraft engines. Synchronous power transmission belts are one of those bits of wisdom.

Here is a synchronous belt from my 1999 Camry. It ran the camshaft and the water pump. That was until the pump bearings failed, causing the pump sprocket to fatigue and release a piece of the sprocket, which destroyed one of the teeth on the belt, which caused the belt to jump the cam sprocket, making the engine lose timing, stranding the driver. What you see here is $600 later.



As you can see the belt was very durable. Some evidence of fraying can be seen on the side of the belt where the sprocket shed a piece of itself, but the belt did not break. These types of belts are a real leap in power transmission, as they have taken over many applications were chains and gears previously ruled.

That being said, I have come to believe that these types of belts have, at best, a niche of a niche in the world of experimental aviation. Let me explain. I was fascinated by these belts and even started an unsuccessful business trying to develop and sell reduction drives for experimental aircraft based on these belts and automotive-sourced gears.

Do they work? Yes. Can they be the basis of a successful business? No. I forgot one of the cardinal rules of everything - KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

A reduction drive (re-drive) adds weight, complexity, and reduces reliability. Three things you don't want in an aircraft or aircraft engine.

Take a look at the most successful alternative aircraft engines out there - VW and Corvair. Sure there are lots of others out there, but you can count their installed base on the fingers of one or two hands, while VW and Corvair based conversions number in the thousands.

There is a reason for that. It took me a long time to learn even though it isn't rocket science. VW and Corvair engines look a lot like most piston aircraft engines. They are air cooled and horizontally opposed, just like Lycomings and Continentals. They were made by the millions and there is a healthy supply of aftermarket parts, like pistons, cylinders, cams, etc. And, they are direct drive.

Thus, the VW and Corvair conversions hit the sweet spot of price, availability, simplicity and reliability. Also, they are ideally sized for Light Sport aircraft. I think they will continue to be successful in their market. (Which will never be more than thousands, but that's a topic for another blog.)

Oh, by the way, I have seen the magazine articles about the guy with an RV-6 and a Chevy V-6 and the one about the Corvette LS1 in some slick composite airframe, both with re-drives, belted or geared. But how many installations are there? Most are one-off installations. And I guarantee that the owner would have spent less time and money and spent more time in the air with a more reliable engine, if he would have just installed a big bore Lycoming or Continental, instead of engineering a complete installation from a $7,000 Corvette crate engine even if the Lyc or Cont cost $60,000! Some people just like to be different.

More Good Advice

My Question to Dr. North: How do you keep a positive attitude?

His Answer:

Because the world is vastly better than 50 years ago.

Computers/productivity: big increase.

No Soviet Union.

No Communist threat anywhere.

Home school movement is growing.

Anti-FED movement is widespread.

Government is not trusted.

Government is clearly going bust.

Web is huge.

Newspapers are dying.

TV networks are dying.

It's a terrific time to be alive.