Path: ...!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: rbowman <bowman@montana.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?
Date: 27 Dec 2024 05:53:02 GMT
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On Thu, 26 Dec 2024 22:41:34 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:


>    About 25 years ago, a smart guy I knew decided he wanted to fly
>    helicopters. He described it as somewhat like trying to balance on a
>    big rubber ball. About the third or fourth lesson he CRASHED the
>    thing while trying to hover just ten feet off the ground. All
>    survived OK, but that was the END of the lessons

That was John's technique. I don't know if he ever had a teacher or if he 
got his hands on a heli and was trying to figure it out. afaik he never 
crashed but he would try to hover until he got disgusted. 

That's a popular technique. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Rhinebeck_Aerodrome

It wasn't part of the airshow but the Bleriot did fly. It used wing 
warping for control. I asked him how he learned to fly it. 'You start out 
taxiing, and get faster and faster..'  That didn't work for one of my 
neighbors. He built an ultralight and I would see him taxiing up and down 
the pasture. I don't think it was planned but one day he got off the 
ground. He probably panicked and tried the u-turn maneuver that seldom 
works well. He could have crossed the river and landed on the ranch on the 
other side.

>    Today, it IS possible to build a 'stable' helicopter or, even easier,
>    a stable multi-motor drone. Saw a larger drone - intended for ag work
>    - that was about 4x6 feet in size - auto-hover a few feet above the
>    ground ON A WINDY DAY - and barely vary position or altitude by an
>    inch or two. You could walk up and kinda shove the thing and it'd
>    spring right back to where it was supposed to be.

I've got a couple of cheap drones. One is joystick controlled like an R.C 
plane with no intelligence. It's a handful. The other is a Tello. DJI 
doesn't make them any more but it's a lot more sophisticated. It uses a 
down-facing camera to maintain position and is controlled by a phone app.

https://www.thedronegirl.com/2018/05/08/dji-tello-drone-review/

"However, the drone does not succeed in windy conditions — not even in 
mildly windy or breezy conditions. I made the mistake of flying Tello on 
the roof of my San Francisco apartment — do not try this!! It almost blew 
away!"

That's the understatement of the year. 

>    I think the F-16 was the first performance aircraft where humans
>    didn't ACTUALLY fly them - it was all "smart" fly-by-wire. Humans
>    could not cope with the changing aerodynamics at all possible speeds
>    and attitudes and such, so the computer did the real work,
>    'translating' the pilots inputs. It worked.
>    TODAY it'd be relatively CHEAP and maybe even better.

I remember reading about it in the IEEE journal. A plane that's so 
unstable a human can't fly it didn't sound like a good idea. They also had 
a write up on the TOW missile. That didn't sound like a great idea either. 
They never did work out a fire-and-forget version.  

>    The C150/152 is great 'general purpose' craft. Again very stable but
>    feels more 'airplane' than the Cub and is notably faster. Flaps and
>    engine power down you COULD fly them at a bit under 40knots though it
>    was wobbly. Extra plus, they're intended for students - which means
>    robust construction. As such I never saw the 'weight' as a negative -
>    more as an insurance policy.

I flew a 150 I was thinking about buying. The owner had decorated it with 
a Snoopy motif. Later I flew a 152 once. I learned on a Lark, Rockwell's 
version of a 172. There were two of them, both elderly. One added a twist 
to the final -- pumping up the brakes if you expected to make a graceful 
landing.

When I went to Ft. Wayne the rentals were Tomahawks. The FBO had died and 
his wife was trying to keep the business together so they weren't in great 
shape either. The gullwing door latch broke on one night flight. There was 
no danger but it got a bit noisy. Then there was the cross country to 
Kalamazoo. Nothing like having to get the FBO to jump start your plane. 

To top it off the instructor was a young woman building hours towards her 
commercial ticket. Odd choice of careers since as far as I could tell she 
was scared of flying. Or maybe it was a more cautious approach than an ag 
pilot. His advice if you were going down in the woods was to visualize the 
tree tops as a landing strip. Try not to kill yourself climbing down from 
the tree. That wasn't theoretical since he'd parked his Thrush in some 
strange places. He'd inherited the business from his father, who was also 
a ag pilot. Living up to the statistics, he was killed in a motorcycle 
crash not a plane wreck.
> 
>    Never liked newer Pipers - can't see a damned thing with that wing
>    under you. Also knew a guy who worked on one of their lines ... and
>    NOPE, did NOT want a plane he helped bang together

The company I worked for bought the old Thurston factory in Maine, 
conveniently located on an airstrip for our amusement. One day there was 
the classic low wing trying to land on a high wing. Luckily both survived.

>    As for George Jetsons' flying around in 'cars' ...
>    I can foresee disasters aplenty even WITH nominal automatic route
>    control. Humans don't even navigate 2-D very well ......

Too many variable. My boss at that company learned to fly, bought a plane, 
and shortened his commute time to meetings in the Boston area. One day he 
headed off to a meeting in Kennebunk, about 16 miles. Then the fog rolled 
in from the ocean. He found his way back, landed the plane, kissed the 
ground, and put the plane up for sale. A Lincoln Town Car wasn't so bad 
after all for commuting.