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1

General Discussion Area / Re: Boiler boffins.

« on: Today at 07:29:07 »

And yet 60% of homes in Norway have them, and year ok year they don't all freeze to death...

I think it's far more likely that we in the UK don't have the expertise to size, install and configure them correctly (yet).

.. but they build houses properly, have actually invested in their energy infrastructure since the 1960s, have an abundance of renewables and don't put daft green subsidies on their electricity bills, I'm guessing.

Being Scandinavian, they probably supplement it with lots of wood burning, too.

2

General Discussion Area / Re: Boiler boffins.

« on: Yesterday at 17:27:46 »

If it's not igniting at all it's not the photocell. More likely the ht transformer, fuel solenoid or pump.

3

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 20 November 2025, 23:29:06 »

NTSB preliminary report is out. 

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA26MA024.aspx

Wow. That series of still images is quite chilling.

4

General Discussion Area / Re: What has P*ssed you off today?

« on: 19 November 2025, 21:35:34 »

A month before the MOT is due my XE has fallen out with one of its TPWS sensors.

Just one?

Might be worth swapping wheels around to prove it to the sensor or the initiators.  Most likely the sensor.  I've yet to have a sensor fail mind, but I think the battery life is quoted as 7 years.  I've bought a couple of packs of 4 from egay in the past, paid around £40 for 4 both times if memory serves, but I bought them when I didn't need them, so could wait for discounts...

Yep, just one, and I have a feeling it's the wheel that has an aftermarket sensor, as I bought a spare wheel and pattern sensor shortly after I got the car. I do need to rotate the tyres anyway, so will find out if it moves with the wheel then. I suspect the recent morning frosts have been its last straw.

When I asked about a sensor for my full size alloy spare, I was told only four can be programmed in. It stands to reason that a fifth sensor in the boot would confuse matters. Mine's a Vauxhall/peugeot thingy, which do not have batteries, so yours may be different.

Yes, the Jag ones have batteries in, and the car figures out what sensor is on what wheel with no need to program them.

5

General Discussion Area / Re: What has P*ssed you off today?

« on: 19 November 2025, 19:12:13 »

A month before the MOT is due my XE has fallen out with one of its TPWS sensors.

Just one?

Might be worth swapping wheels around to prove it to the sensor or the initiators.  Most likely the sensor.  I've yet to have a sensor fail mind, but I think the battery life is quoted as 7 years.  I've bought a couple of packs of 4 from egay in the past, paid around £40 for 4 both times if memory serves, but I bought them when I didn't need them, so could wait for discounts...

Yep, just one, and I have a feeling it's the wheel that has an aftermarket sensor, as I bought a spare wheel and pattern sensor shortly after I got the car. I do need to rotate the tyres anyway, so will find out if it moves with the wheel then. I suspect the recent morning frosts have been its last straw.

6

General Discussion Area / Re: What has P*ssed you off today?

« on: 18 November 2025, 20:29:53 »

A month before the MOT is due my XE has fallen out with one of its TPWS sensors.

7

General Discussion Area / Re: What has P*ssed you off today?

« on: 17 November 2025, 23:56:34 »

I dont know how you do it.
Ive had one puncture in the last 20 years ! 

I was gonna say similar, but i don't want to jinx it. 

In my case, working up the road from a Suez "waste transfer site" does it, with every pikey in town driving past shedding things off the side of an overweight Transit Tipper with a bit of OSB ratchet strapped each side so they can overload it even more. 

8

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 11 November 2025, 21:44:22 »

No.3 would be the engine on the starboard wing. They are counted from port to starboard.

I think the cowling of the departed no.1 engine ended up the other side of the runway so quite possible it killed no.3.

However, one of the videos shows no. 2 at the back spitting out sparks just after rotation. It quite possibly ingested fire from the burning port wing at that point.

9

General Discussion Area / Re: Uninsured driving

« on: 10 November 2025, 18:50:22 »

......
but the cop cars I have seen are unmarked and all you get to see is the blue lights hidden behind the grills when they start to flash with the headlights when they are in pursuit.

Unless you have Target Blu Eye fitted (TETRA Comms detection), and then you'd know they were there from half a mile away. 

One thing I did learn on my patronisation course is the sort of distances their gear works over.  Not sure half a mile would be enough 

My last set of points were picked up at just under 700m, as I came over the brow of a hill


And, yes, I am a reformed character, and I was officially doing less than 70mph on a rural dual carriageway.  Its just I refuse point blank to obey HS2's stupid road speed limits they have whilst they spend 4 years to build a single bridge.  There is no need for the speed restriction, as, lets face it, they are definately "working out of sight", just not anywhere near the bloody unfinished bridge.

Ahh! The invisible builders again! The same ones who are Pi$$ing about for years at the M25/A3 junction.

10

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 06 November 2025, 23:31:57 »

All slats and spoilers do is change the shape of the wing as required to maximise lift/reduce drag at any given airspeed. Note that drag is not the opposite of lift.

You say that as if they are insignificant. The significant thing they do is to reduce the stall speed of the wing so that the aircraft can operate at the lower airspeeds used during approach and the initial climb.That can come at a significant cost in terms of drag too with some configurations, but that is actually an advantage on approach, because you need to be able to shed energy and the engines are kept at a higher thrust setting and can respond faster if a go-around is initiated.

11

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 06 November 2025, 18:35:42 »

The two things they needed they didn't have... Airspeed and altitude. The wings will always provide lift as long as there is air flowing over it. Removing thrust on one side causes a loss of airspeed over that wing. Less airspeed equals less lift. Likewise the yaw induced by the loss of balanced thrust further slows the unpowered wing causing more loss of lift. As the wing drops the aircraft will always roll to that side. Once the left wing touched the lift from the working wing finished the roll.

Yes, but all of these effects of asymmetric thrust are possible to counter with control inputs until the wing stalls, which didn't happen in this incident, judging by the footage I've seen, but did, almost instantly, for AA191 due to slat retraction below the clean stalling speed. I'd say the crew in this case did a great job of keeping the aircraft flying to the crash site. Sadly, it didn't help them or the souls on the ground.

12

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 06 November 2025, 15:14:57 »

This has happened before on a DC10

Do you mean This one?

If so you'd hope that the lesson of not fu£king about with the manufacturer's maintenance procedures had been well learned! 

The only similarities are aerodynamic consequence. Erase that engine and it's thrust and the resultant roll is swift and catastrophic and will happen every single time.

Incidentally, not many operators own any and fleet utilisation is pretty low...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McDonnell_Douglas_MD-11_operators

The main issue with AA191's loss of control was retraction of the slats on the port wing and the consequent asymmetric stall due to hydraulic damage, an issue that was countered by an AD in response to the crash investigation.

There's no roll I can see on the videos of this crash, at least not until the port wing contacts something solid on the ground and the airframe cartwheels.

Aerodynamically, it's an engine failure, so possible to counter with control inputs assuming you still have a working system by which to make them.

Add a load of fire and a second engine failure and there is, of course, no hope.

13

General Discussion Area / Re: BBC bias

« on: 06 November 2025, 14:46:51 »

I see they are frothing over today because one of their presenters used the expression "pregnant women" instead of "pregnant people".

14

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 06 November 2025, 08:45:26 »

One problem with the Trijet configuration is that No. 2's intake is prone to ingesting disturbed air / debris if anything happens to 1 & 3, especially after rotation when the wing is working hard.

With that amount of fire, engine thrust might have been moot, however. I wonder if there would have been enough left of the wing structure for it to remain controllable for a go-around even if it had climbed away.

Thoughts of the AF Concorde crash come to mind.

15

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 06 November 2025, 08:11:03 »

It would take quite a bird strike to rip an engine off its pylon and dump it by the runway, but it's not impossible that one started the whole chain of events, I suppose.