Re: formation flyover for Indianapolis 500

On May 23, 1:37 pm, "George Z. Bush" <georgezb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
tankfixer wrote:
In article <5irZj.116$1S1...@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
georgezb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
tankfixer wrote:
In article <xdqZj.44$kH6...@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
georgezb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
tankfixer wrote:
In article <JvcZj.3$1S...@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
georgezb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
says...
Paul Hirose wrote:
The Indianapolis Star has an article on some of the people behind
the
scenes who make sure the Indy 500 happens according to plan. One is
Rear Adm. Mark T. Emerson, who will be on the ground with a radio,
working to get an F/A-18 / F-16 formation overhead just as Julianne
Hough hits the last note of the national anthem. "We can't be early
or
we'll drown out the singer. If we're more than five seconds late,
then
national TV will get bored and cut to something else."

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080520/SPORTS010...

In these days of expensive fuel, aviation and otherwise, I can't help
but
wonder if stuff like that is a luxury we ought to be doing without.
I
wouldn't be inclined to raise the point in connection with air shows,
which
is an appropriate milieu for showing what military aviation is
capable
of
doing IMHO, but burning up a resource that's become so expensive in
order
to
punctuate a ceremony starting an automobile race in which dozens of
race
cars burn up more scarce fuel going round and round watched by tens
of
thousands of fans who burned up and wasted countless thousands of
gallons
of
that liquid resource just so's they could watch the race cars burning
up
their allocations of the stuff doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Lets do away with the following sporting events at the same time
baseball/basketball/football/soccer/golf

Not wishing to belabor the obvious, but which of those sports require
the
participants to burn up fuel in order to participate? Last time I
looked,
none of them required a player to turn on an ignition switch in order
to
do
his thing on the field of play. So, let's NOT do away with any of
those
sporting events. The teams and/or players aren't burning up gas while
in
the process of playing their games.

The aircrew are going to have to log flying time for training what
does
it hurt if they practice time over target on a sporting event ?

Point taken except for the fact that during most of our careers in the
military, going out to fly training flights on Sunday afternoons was
hardly
what anyone ever called routine flight scheduling. Let's face
it.....if
you
want to be honest about it, the primary purpose of a formation flight
over a
stadium on a Sunday afternoon might be a lot of things, but training
was
rarely one of them.

Maybe it never occurred to you, but the people flying those birds have
wives
and kids who enjoy having Daddy around on weekends as do most of the
rest
of
us. Anyway, you might think that flyovers at sporting events are
training
events, but I think that PR would be a lot more accurate a description
of
what they're doing. That's not to say that there isn't a legitimate
time
and place for that kind of thing, but I'm not at all sure that burning
up
expensive fuel that's in short supply fills that bill.

The millions of specators do.

You undoubtedly have polled them since the price of gas has risen to
about
$4 per gallon, so I'm sure that you can speak for them. So, if you say
so,
who am I to argue?

Who is saying they get a choice ?
Didn't you propose doing away with one sport due to it's use of fuel ?

No I didn't......I was just wondering if it wasn't a luxury we could do
without. I made no such proposal.....you just assumed that I had and you
know what happens when you make unwarranted assumptions.



And as a side note Indy 500 car's don't use gasoline....

They wind up rubber bands? Jet fighters don't use gasoline either, so
what's the point? Whatever they use initially comes out of that barrel
of
crude oil that's now at all time record price levels.

Indy cars run on methanol

I didn't know that.....learn something new every day. I wonder why some
auto engine manufacturer somewhere hasn't developed a version of the race
car engine that might be usable commercially. I should think that the first
one on the market with one would make a huge haul with it. Is it because
the potential supply of methanol is limited?

George Z.
George Z.

No, it is marketing. Methanol is highly corrosive to many fuel system
components and it takes more money to convert a car's fuel system to
methanol than ethanol. So passenger car mfgs have elected to make
cars that run on ethanol. So IRL is using publicity of being green
and using ethanol, relating to E85 passenger cars. Race car fuel
systems generally were already using methanol resistant components
(though people using methanol generally drain fuel out if car will sit
for extended period). Biggest problem is that methanol attacks
aluminum :-(

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Car weights over at the FIA
    ... run minimum fuel to qualify and then as much as they want in the race. ... and fill up the cars just before the race. ... Even with refuelling, ...
    (rec.autos.sport.f1)
  • Re: Qualifying is still crap
    ... cars circling to burn off fuel is a drag. ... Race fuel qualifying is the only that makes sense, ... higher race fuel load, there's nothing he can do about a lighter car. ...
    (rec.autos.sport.f1)
  • Re: Nitro
    ... if you run it on top fuel? ... Only the funny cars and dragsters were using that. ... What you do is running a mix of Methanol and Nitromethane(Glycerine? ...
    (rec.autos.makers.vw.aircooled)
  • Re: Safety Car nonsense will continue
    ... their cars run with low fuel. ... Because choosing your race fuel for final qualifying isn't ... If BMW had pitted when NH had 3 laps of fuel left then there ... All SC rules are an interference in the normal running of a race. ...
    (rec.autos.sport.f1)
  • Re: Qualifying is still crap
    ... cars circling to burn off fuel is a drag. ... Race fuel qualifying is the only that makes sense, ... higher race fuel load, there's nothing he can do about a lighter car. ...
    (rec.autos.sport.f1)