Sound Quality Vs. Measurements

Status
Not open for further replies.
I got scared once regardig any plane. That was in March 1969 when I was to travel from Lomdon to New York to visit my aunt and uncle. I was to fly with PanAm, and while waiting on Heathrow, I saw our plane. It was the very first 747 in public service, christened by Mrs Nixon. Unfortunately, the bottle hit something or other in the nose of the plane, so it had to be repaired before it could fly again. Now, that didn't inspire condifence, so on the way back, just in case, I flew with TWA and ended up in another 747. But it was a good flight back to old Blighty, and, would you believe it, I was greeted by the sun on Heathrow. Imagine that, sun in England in earyl April, who would have thought.

I say this because I picked up the habit of ALWAYS havng a brolly in my bag over my shoulder, which I do to his day. Guess why. Naturally, I bought my current brolly in London in 1984 and got a lifetime warranty on it. Never even so much as hiccuped. That was in the day when things were actually made in UK, not China.
 
But seriously, the only one time I was REALLY scared about any plane was when I got off a BEA Hawker-Siddley Trident, which flew me from London to Cologne in Jube 1969, to meet my parents who flew in from Ankara about an hour before me. The fear hit me after I was on the ground, safe and in one piece.

While making the approach to the Cologne airports, about 25-30 meters still off the ground, the left wing suddenly veered downwards and juts missed the ground I bet by no more than a metre or two. It happened so fast I didn't have the time to think, and since we landed a few seconds later, I didn't think much of it. At least, not until I saw my crew exiting the plane, and I swear I could not tell where the captain's whiter than white shirt stopped and his nec began, they were both equally a whiter shade of pale. On the outside, he was composed, but it was obvious he had just gone through extreme stress. I approached him later and asked what happened, and he said, you know, that was the deadliest ty of air pocket there can be, small enough to go undetected, but large enough to flip an incoming plane. I have experienced some tough landings before, but that before was a bullet riddled Lancaster, with two engines off line. Still, as an air force machine, it was a lot strurdier than these new passenger jets. If the wind merely touched the ground, we wouldn't be talking about now - or ever.

That's when I felt my legs to be weak because only then did I fully comprehend just how close a call that was. But, my Trident didn't let me down, obviously, it automatically corrected the angle and all went well. All is well which ends without one being scraped off the tarmac. :D That would be some really bad mojo. :D
 
A plane that impressed me when I was very young was a Fokker Friendship, turboprop. Local airlines used these a lot back then, to the country towns - and what was spectacular was the acceleration on take off! This was real, seat pushing you hard in the back, a sense of raw grunt power at work - and it made more impact than any car ever has ... conventional passenger jets just feel like lumbering dinosaurs on take off ...
 
Last edited:
I flew in a Fokker F-28 ? in Denmark a few years back.
The taxying to the main runway was crazy fast pinning me against the fuselage on cornering.
The fun part was takeoff.
The props were feathered, motors run up to speed and then dial in the pitch on the props.
The thing took off like a drag car, pinning one to the back of the seat....seriously impressive sustained acceleration.
Next excitement was the rotation and initial dry climb.
Some impressive engineering, including the under carriage strength.
Yes, big jets are like lumbering whales in comparison.

Dan.
 
Last edited:
787 gets into the air very quickly with little drama. Fokker and HS 146 were used via Lille and Oostende airports ( are the ex Congo 707's still there ? ). The 146 was not as good as the Trident, like the Fokker one could smell jet fuel in the cabin ). How odd for a small aircraft to have four engines. The engine had a good history in itself.

British Aerospace 146 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hawker Siddeley Trident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


A forgotten turboprob. Some say they might make a comeback as for city hopping they can save fuel. When 200 miles it will not change flight times much. Our local airport Kidlington runs to Jersey. Ideal for that and ideal range. I went from Prague to Ukraine border in a Bombardier recently. I hated it. It hurt the ears. When I asked what the aircraft was the crew said " You are OK it's not Soviet ". They knew without being asked what I was thinking. Mostly like a Hovercraft. I love those, they were mostly quieter.The airport an ex Soviet era one that looked not unlike the Kidlington of 1960 I knew as a boy. Kidlington serves F1 racing teams so is a bit posh now. The town was in Slovakia, I forget the exact name. It was a work related thing. Loved the food. Italy meets Yorkshire is what I would call it. The staff realised it and came get me when something new was made. My boss exspected a big bill. None was offered. They just liked that I liked it.

Bristol Britannia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OB speakers are almost OK. I haven't done anything to them. I think I just know what they do right and what is source problems. Seeing how stupidly simply they are they have reasonable sound. I have been asked to build some chip form power amps to drive a motor. I might try some of thoes to go semi active. The big Quad 303 has come to a halt as work is getting delayed. Mostly not me, I have to be ready at a moments notice to finish stuff. Semi-retired means about 20 hours work that takes 50 hours. I am a sort of perfectionist. Truth is I take my time as I need to. Someone with a brain could do it faster.
 
My first flight on the Fokker was in July 1964, from Ankara to the Black Sea costal town of Trabzon. Turkish Airlines (THY) used them a lot for local lines, as did many others at the time. My last flight with it was in 1990, from the capital of Slovenia Ljubljanja back home to Belgrade. Frankly, I don't miss them at all.

My fisr experience in the sky jump was in February 1964, flying from Belgrade to Athens, in a French made Caravelle, which started the whole engines-in-the-tail gig. That was some jump, let me tell you. OK, I was 10.5 years old at the time, so very impressionable. From Athens, to Istanbule, to Ankara, we (mum and I) flew with the ill fated deHavilland Comet, the world's first passenger jet which had a hard start before they discovered what caused metal fatigue and the subsequent disintegration of the plane and of course solved the problem. BEA again, of course. Actually, most of the Comets were replaced wit the Trident.

Just as the Fokkers were replaced by similar concept ATRs.
 
Last edited:
On the Comet, I was much inpressed by British ingenuity in solving the problem. How do you observe and measure airplane behaviour in flight? You build a special swimming pool, immerse the plain in the water and put equivalent stress as if in flight by pressurizing the water. Bloody clever!

They shot the whole thing on film, I saw it all being done, including the appearenece of first cracks due to metal fatigue.

But why be surprised, those were mostly the same boffins who came up with the idea od skipping bombs in 1942 and bombed those German dams to kingdom come. Where the F. has all that British ingenuity gone to? China?
 
Everyone is losing it! Our car industry, which had been so vigorous since WWII, has given itself the death sentence, only a few more years and the last plant will close down. Fortunately, we have plenty of bright types who understand how to make cars work better, so the design centres for the majors will remain, to ship our expertise over to Asia, etc, for assembly into the final product. Of course, that's the end of the parts industry locally - lots of people feeling very glum ...
 
Member
Joined 2014
Paid Member
The thing took off like a drag car, pinning one to the back of the seat....seriously impressive sustained acceleration.
Next excitement was the rotation and initial dry climb.
Some impressive engineering, including the under carriage strength.
Yes, big jets are like lumbering whales in comparison.

Dan.

Funny how the lumbering whales have about twice the climb rate of the little turboprops. Can't find the numbers but the acceleration on the ground is probably higher as well, since the rotation speed is around 180mph
 
Funny how the lumbering whales have about twice the climb rate of the little turboprops. Can't find the numbers but the acceleration on the ground is probably higher as well, since the rotation speed is around 180mph
The initial acceleration as the props bite is higher I reckon.
The acceleration and initial climb last for longer in the big jets.

Dan.
 
Everyone is losing it! Our car industry, which had been so vigorous since WWII, has given itself the death sentence, only a few more years and the last plant will close down. Fortunately, we have plenty of bright types who understand how to make cars work better, so the design centres for the majors will remain, to ship our expertise over to Asia, etc, for assembly into the final product. Of course, that's the end of the parts industry locally - lots of people feeling very glum ...

New Zealand and Australia had "a vigirous" car industry? I had no idea. To me, the Big Yanks always made more or less copies of their European and American models, with a few cosmetic modifications in Oz.

Chevrolet Cruze is a recent example (I drive one). In all things but name, its is a German Opel in drag. German engine, German electrnics, German mechanics, assembled in 5 countries in the world for the entire world. The only difference I spotted from the German Auto, Motor und Sport 2014 catalog is tha Aussies have the priviledge to drive it in its easily best edition. In Europe, it's available with a 1.6 124 bhp naturally aspirated in-line 4 pot and 140 bhp 1.4 litre in line with 4 pots and a turbo chanrger. In Australia, that becomes a 1.p four pot turbo engine, delivering 170 bhp. I only wish I could have bought that one. Mine has a 1.8 čiztre 4 pot nrmal engine delivering 142 bhp, but with a torque of 170 Nm, whereas the Oz model delivers 240 Nm, 41.2% more.

Now the entire Chevrolet division is leaving Europe altogether. It is a sign of defeat, no doubt, because they could not find a proper niche for Chevrolet branded vehicles which was competing with their own Opel company. The price di9fference between an Opel Astra and Cruze, which are essentially the same car, was well over €5.000 when I was in the market. So Chevrolet prices started killing Opel, but did not take up as much as GM expected, Chevrolets are still rare in Europe.
 
The initial acceleration as the props bite is higher I reckon.
The acceleration and initial climb last for longer in the big jets.

Dan.

Dan, smaller and lighter has less inertia and will initially be faster than big and heavy.

My little Yugo weighs 820 kilos on its own, or about 940 with me inside, and 142 bhp. A VW Golf GTI has a 2 litre turbo engine delivering 220 bhp worst case, but it weighs in at 1361 kilos, or 1481 kilos with me inside. I'll slip away from him, and any BMW with an engine maller than 3 litres, at any traffic light any day.

Of course, they will catch up with me and by around 100 km/h they will overtake me and that will be that. But in a 0-200 km/h race, I will lose every time once we hit about 100 km/h because they have engines with much greater torque spread over a much larger area, and I can't compete with that.
 
Opel always made very comfortable and reliable cars, but also very sluggish cars. Almost as bad as Peugeot. In the same class, they comfortably sit on the last place in any race of German made cars.

On occasion, they demonstrate they can do fast as well, in their OPC series, and they do make it (usually), but unfortunately at prices which are normally 35-40% higher than the competitors' offerings (e.g. in Germany, a VW Golf GTi costs around €28k and its Opel equivalent, Astra OPC costs around €35k). You will probably know thase models as Vauxhall VRX models.
 
Member
Joined 2014
Paid Member
0-30 is mostly about gears, tyres and how much of an idiot you are off the lights. The fact that you get away from them is more a reflection of your driving style.

I used to have a lotus7 replica. 600kg with me in and 170HP. Limited slip diff. Needed to use 2nd for a quick getaway which was handy as could hit 100kmh in that gear. But actually more fun to let people get ahead before obliterating them. But I was young and stupid then. Traffic light GPs just prove you are compensating for something.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.