Strictly an opinion but as the DC3 is obsolete, 3% ain't bad. My first commercial flight was on a DC3 from Bryan/College Station to Houston while attending Allen Academy in about 1950. My aunt, now living in Houston, was the stewardess on this flight. The cadets referred to the military school as Sing-Sing on the Brazos. And yes, I was an incorrigible young man. Other than the obvious, I'm guessing that the 3% is due to the plane being slow, expensive to maintain and possibly not too fuel efficient.
Geezer _____ From: George Nincehelser [mailto:geo...@nincehelser.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:12 AM To: texascavers@texascavers.com Cc: Bill Walden; Fritz Holt; Stefan Creaser; David Locklear Subject: Re: [Texascavers] OT - future of automobiles >From the figures I've seen, there are only around 3% of them still in (limited) service. And some of those are around 70 years old! Do they even let commerical pilots that old fly? George On 12/10/07, Don Cooper <wavyca...@gmail.com> wrote: Bill, DC3's are not pressurized. Thus, they don't have the stress factor of being inflated and deflated like a balloon every time they fly. That is one reason so many are still around today. -WaV On Dec 10, 2007 5:08 PM, Bill Walden <wdwal...@hughes.net> wrote: Gee, how many DC3's are still flying! The DeLorian was stainless steel. There was a version of the Jaguar XK150 that was aluminum. I recall that my college roommate's older brother had one. The body was cast aluminum! I believe those aluminum bodied Jags to be rare. George Nincehelser wrote: > A big drawback of aluminum is its metal fatigue characteristics. You > pretty much have to expect that it's eventually going to fail, but you > really don't know when. > > What I find really disturbing is that aluminum is used for airplanes. > The only reason they aren't falling out of the air more often is they > put a time limit on how long you can use the parts. > > Just another reason I don't like to fly. > > George > > > On 12/10/07, *Fritz Holt* < fh...@townandcountryins.com <mailto:fh...@townandcountryins.com> > <mailto:fh...@townandcountryins.com>> wrote: > > I wonder why Ford or GM hasn't started making car bodies and more > other > parts from aluminum. I would believe that we (U S residents and > visitors) throw away more aluminum cans than the rest of the world > combined. > For whatever reason, I have heard that some large aluminum corporation > ceased their recycling operations in the recent past. Could producing > new aluminum really be more cost efficient than recycling? The only > automobile body made of aluminum that I can recall was a limited > run of > DeLorians which are now collectibles demanding big prices. I > assume that > Mr. DeLorian's personal problems led to the demise of the company. > These > cars were hailed as really high tech automobiles. I would like to hear > from an informed source as to why no aluminum auto bodies with the > manufacturer's quest for better gas mileage which would be aided > greatly > by weight reduction. For an interesting read, Google Delorian and the > auto and its founder, John Z. DeLorian pops up. > Fritz > > -----Original Message----- > From: Stefan Creaser [mailto:stefan.crea...@arm.com > <mailto: stefan.crea...@arm.com <mailto:stefan.crea...@arm.com> >] > Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 1:10 PM > To: David Locklear; Texas Cavers > Subject: RE: [Texascavers] OT - future of automobiles > > David, > > There are many cars out there that don't use a whole lot of steel in > their construction. For instance, the Mazda RX-8 I have has many > panels > made of plastic**. Some high-end sports cars have even more made from > Carbon Fibre; however, that tells us that's it's quite expensive to > produce. > > One problem this also has to overcome is that there are a lot of cars > out there that have (unnecessarily) a lot of steel in them and those > will have to be eliminated first before we can have more lightweight > ones out there. Consider what would happen when a large steel car > hits a > smaller, composite, car? > > Not quite a tri-cycle... > http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/486/ > > > There is also a production motorcycle that is partially enclosed, > but I > can't remember what it is so I can't find any pictures! > > Cheers, > Stefan > > (** Not that it makes it particularly fuel-efficient, the rotary > engine > sees to that). > > -----Original Message----- > From: David Locklear [mailto: dlocklea...@gmail.com > <mailto: dlocklea...@gmail.com <mailto:dlocklea...@gmail.com> > ] > > We are going to have to give up using steel in automobiles if we are > going to achieve high mpg figures. And even aluminum is probably > to heavy for the frame. > > I imagine somebody has already built a recumbant "tri-cycle" with > lightweight > parts, a motor and 2 seats. But I haven't seen that yet. > > http://www.voidstar.com/bff/images/am1_sm.jpg > > http://www.voidstar.com/bff/images/stv1sm.jpg > > http://www.voidstar.com/bff/images/recpedsm.jpg > > David Locklear > > -- > IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email and any attachments are > confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the intended > recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not > disclose the > contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or > copy > the information in any medium. Thank you. > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com <http://texascavers.com/> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > <mailto:texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > > For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > <mailto: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com> > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com <http://texascavers.com/> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > <mailto: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com <mailto:texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com> > > For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > <mailto: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com <http://texascavers.com/> To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
