Model Airplanes

1. 
   

   Listen

   Story audio
   

   2min 22sec

The P-47 Razorback fighter plane in Erik Hokuf’s shed is in terrible shape.

Missions over the South Pacific during World War II wore the hefty plane out by 1944. It was decommissioned by the U.S. Government and abandoned in Papua New Guinea, a rotting marker of old conflicts.

What’s left rests in pieces in Hokuf’s shop. He owns AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, a company that rebuilds WWII airplanes.

The Razorback spent the better part of the last century in the jungle, but Hokuf says it will fly again. When it does, he says it will be perfect, just as it rolled off the assembly line, down to one-seven-hundredth of an inch.

“We’ll replicate every piece,” he said. “Even the flaws. That’s the dream.”

That level of perfection is possible thanks to a new piece of machinery the shop just bought called a HandySCAN from Creaform, a Canada-based manufacturer.

Some 3,000 pieces of the Razorback will have to be replaced. The dimensional nuts and bolts are easy to buy in bulk. But many are more complicated. Only a few dozen P-47s are still flying, fewer still of the early Razorback model.

The puzzle is

Article source: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/11/11/wwii-plane-bemidji

China’s grown tired of being a low-tech manufacturer of things that other people design. So it’s throwing money and resources at an industrial upgrade.

On Tuesday, the government proudly announced one of the fruits of that effort: The country’s first indigenously-designed passenger jet, the 90-seat ARJ21, will be delivered to state-owned Chengdu Airlines by year’s end. There’s just one problem. Of the roughly 350 additional ARJ21s on order, almost all are slated for another Chinese state-owned airline or leasing company. International airlines don’t appear terribly interested.

It’s hard to blame them. After 13 years of development, and probably billions in costs (the development costs have never been disclosed), the ARJ21 remains heavier, slower, and less fuel-efficient than its competition. Even worse, it won’t be certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority, meaning it can only fly in China and the handful of South American, Asian, and African countries that recognize Chinese safety-certification standards. (Chinese state media has trumpeted the purchase of three aircraft by the Republic of the Congo.) Last fall one leading analyst concluded: “We do not consider the ARJ21 to be a viable commercial project.”

That’s not what China envisioned when the plane was conceived in 2002. The ARJ21 was supposed to compete in the market for passenger jets with fewer than 100 seats — currently dominated by Embraer and Bombardier — and to jumpstart an aircraft manufacturing sector that would eventually challenge Boeing and Airbus. Passenger growth numbers provided incentive. Boeing expects China will

Article source: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-12/china-s-new-jet-shows-wrong-way-to-take-off

I THINK I WENT out too fast. But that’s okay. I can’t go back. Just look forward. The data says this is sustainable. I believe that. God, this doesn’t seem sustainable. That point of horrendous pain that everyone talks about is right here.

The hour is the ultimate threshold effort. There have been volumes of journal articles written about what that actually means, but for the purposes of this article, it is the point in one’s power profile where there is a rapid rise in lactate. This break point, caused by an imbalance between production and clearance in the blood, is often the number bandied around as the power you can hold for an hour.

Neal Henderson, an associate trainer with BMC Racing, coaches Rohan Dennis and worked closely with the Australian before his record-setting effort in January. His training advice was very simple: “If we are trying to simulate a reuptake, instead of plugging the system and going over, we stay just under, near that maximum clearance rate. So doing your efforts specific to the hour right at 90 percent of threshold is going to be better than at or above threshold, because you can recover from it more quickly and you can progressively build the volume of training there.”

Once you know what power you can sustain for an hour, you can determine the speed you should expect to go (see page 29). If you know your speed, you can determine your gearing. The

Article source: http://velonews.competitor.com/amateur-hour

I’ve loved every Jumper who ever lived in Chattanooga. I knew the fathers and I knew the sons because they were all involved and excelled in sports. I remember Cal Jumper quite well from when he played football at Baylor and later had a great career as an athlete at Vanderbilt. I also remember one other day real well when somebody rushed to my door and told me Cal, who became a Marine Corps pilot after Vandy, had been killed in a tragic accident while training in Japan.

It took eight long hours until we finally learned it was instead “almost.” I wrote a story back then about the two planes colliding in mid-air but Cal never would say much. Not long ago he got in touch with me to say he had finally beaten the demons and gotten it down on paper.

This is what Col. Cal Jumper USMC (Retired) shared with me on Veteran’s Day in his own words:.

* * *

Dear Reader: Almost 22 years ago I ejected from an F/A-18A Hornet aircraft about 145 miles southeast of Okinawa, Japan.  While there had been higher ejections from other aircraft, at the time it was the highest successful ejection from an F-18 at approximately 37,000 feet.  I have been hesitant to write this story because one of my Wingmen didn’t make it home.  He has a family and friends that still miss him dearly.  Time does not lessen the loss. 

I wrote it for

Article source: http://www.chattanoogan.com/2015/11/15/312604/Roy-Exum-Cal-Jumper-Recalls-The-Day.aspx