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'Muppet planes' on drawing board (Enviro-friendly aircraft get look from Boeing)
Arizona Daily Star - Seattle Times ^ | Dominic Gates

Posted on 06/06/2006 7:13:58 PM PDT by SandRat

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To: UNGN

You keep on talking about twenty year old cars in order to compare them with twenty year old airplanes. But the fact of the matter is most cars on the road are five years old or less, so it really doesn't make a lot of sense to talk about the state of the art, circa 1985.

In any case, I was not talking about the automobiles of 20 years ago. I was talking about the mobile sources of 10 years from now. In 10 years, everything with a tailpipe is going to be regulated except aircraft. This is going to make aircraft emmissions really stand out as the last remaining area for improvement.

Eventually pollution controls are going to come down the pike for aircraft. What form they will take is anybody's guess at this point. I really don't see how conventional pollution controls can be applied to modern jet aircraft engines. Some other form of propulsion may become necessary.


41 posted on 06/07/2006 3:06:22 AM PDT by jebeier (RICE '08)
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To: SandRat

So, where's the Animal? or the Miss Piggy? how bout the Great Gonzo, or the Dr. Floyd Pepper?


42 posted on 06/07/2006 3:12:22 AM PDT by ovrtaxt (My donation to the GOP went here instead: http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/index.php)
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To: Doe Eyes
Is there any condition that your "sound economic practice" could support this?

sound economics is a bit more thoughtful than just "what's cheapeast today." Perhaps that's how you'd make decisions if it were your responsibility, and that's why you think everyone else would do so, too.

mercifully, there are checks and balance on folly.

43 posted on 06/07/2006 4:40:44 AM PDT by the invisib1e hand ("....and the sun is eclipsed by the moon!" -- (Pink Floyd). But not for long!)
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To: dalereed
Just reusing designs that have been around a long time.

Sometimes old ideas need a re-look since new technology can make them work. The basic idea of the B2's shape is very old.

44 posted on 06/07/2006 6:42:08 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: donmeaker
The Kermit cruizer has a canard to screw up the air, so the main wing will have higher drag at cruise.

I like the Kermit because it reminds me of this:

It also can, at high pitchup rates, stall both canard and main wing.

I thought one of the main advantages of the forward-swept wing was that it was hard to stall the wing tips.

45 posted on 06/07/2006 6:51:16 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: Jotmo
So we continue to pollute more so people who buy houses around airports and still hear the crickets chirp.

I understand the sentiment. I know of one airport in the middle of a suburb where 100% of the homes surrounding it were built years after the airport was established.

OTOH, less noise is always good. Maybe Boeing should talk to the Navy to see how they get their screws so quiet. Water, air, it's all just fluid dynamics.

46 posted on 06/07/2006 6:56:12 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: SandRat

Will they biodegrade at 40000 feet?


47 posted on 06/07/2006 7:09:28 AM PDT by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: the invisib1e hand; Doe Eyes
What wanton presumption you exercise to make such a remark! How would you know what I'm "content" to do?

Perhaps Doe Eyes, like I, merely took your statement at face value, and came to the obvious conclusion.....

However, if you'd care to modify your comment into something with actual intellectual content, I'd be happy to revise my opinion.

48 posted on 06/07/2006 7:29:34 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: r9etb
I would say rather that you interpreted my remarks according very limited, colloquial definitions of the terms.

I believe that half the burden of clear communication belongs to the hearer. Somewhere along the line someone apparently convinced you two that "sound economic principles" were defined by apparent immediate price advantage only (arbitrage), completely devoid of accountability to moral ramifications. And that may be what passes these days for "economics." But it is not a true definition.

49 posted on 06/07/2006 12:12:33 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand ("....and the sun is eclipsed by the moon!" -- (Pink Floyd). But not for long!)
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To: antiRepublicrat
Maybe Boeing should talk to the Navy to see how they get their screws so quiet. Water, air, it's all just fluid dynamics.

If you're content with a plane that goes less than 20 knots, you can make it as quiet as you like.


50 posted on 06/07/2006 12:19:38 PM PDT by SlowBoat407 (Truth is the new lie.)
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To: the invisib1e hand
And yet, for all of your large words, you've still failed to say precisely what is wrong with Boeing looking at ways to produce more fuel-efficient, quieter, "greener" airplanes.

As far as your comment that "half the burden of clear communication belongs to the hearer," that presupposes that the speaker is making sense in the first place. Let's put that to the test.

You're attempting to transform your silly original comment (post #7) into a serious-sounding economic argument; however, if you look at the overwhelming positive response that met the introduction of Boeing's more fuel-efficient 787, it would seem that you haven't got any point at all -- there is, in fact, a long-term economic advantage to fuel efficiency.

Your attempt to invoke "accountability to moral ramifications" is meaningless, since you haven't bothered to tell us precisely what the adverse moral impacts of fuel efficiency, quietness, or overall aviation "greenness" really are. One is left to speculate that your criterion is no more complicated than that you simply and unthinkingly hate the idea of "green."

51 posted on 06/07/2006 12:30:54 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: r9etb
And yet, for all of your large words, you've still failed to say precisely what is wrong with Boeing looking at ways to produce more fuel-efficient, quieter, "greener" airplanes.

I stopped reading here. I'm going to do be really generous and reply by pointing out that nohwere, ever, did I say anything about Boeing and its planes. I certainly implied the very opposite of what you have attributed to me --read: what you have imagined that I believe.

OK, one more favor: if you can identify what I did -- quite explicity -- take issue with, I will refrain from concluding that you answering imaginary posts.

52 posted on 06/07/2006 2:08:48 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand
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To: the invisib1e hand

There's nothing wrong with making planes that are more fuel efficient and/ or less noisy. There is a kernel of truth to environmentalism, we do make polution and making less is a good thing. The problem with modern environmentalists is they take it too far and get addicted to programs that don't work, but there are reasonable things reasonable corporations and people can do to make our stay on this planet less damaging and handover a nicer place to future generations.


53 posted on 06/07/2006 2:16:19 PM PDT by discostu (get on your feet and do the funky Alphonzo)
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To: the invisib1e hand
I'm going to do be really generous and reply by pointing out that nohwere, ever, did I say anything about Boeing and its planes. I certainly implied the very opposite of what you have attributed to me --read: what you have imagined that I believe.

Which is a rather abject confession that you're gabbling on about ... well, something ... that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Thanks for clarifying.

54 posted on 06/07/2006 2:27:03 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: r9etb
You are now free to go yank someone else's chain.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1644699/posts?page=7#7

55 posted on 06/07/2006 3:12:24 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand
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To: the invisib1e hand

A link back to your original idiocy .... how quaint.


56 posted on 06/07/2006 4:36:17 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: r9etb
I leave you with this thought:

If a soiled shirt is placed in the opening of a vessel containing grains of wheat, the reaction of the leaven in the shirt with fumes from the wheat will, after approximately twenty-one days, transform the wheat into mice.

Les oevres de Jean-Baptiste Van Helmont, French trans. Jean Le Conte (Lyon, 1671), Part I, Ch. XVI, "On the Necessity of Leavens in Transformations," pp. 103-109

57 posted on 06/07/2006 5:10:56 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand
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To: dalereed

Yeah, the "props" on the Fozzie were a hot ticket on one of their concept planes a few years ago - they were killed by the apparently unresolveable issue of excessive noise.

Cute names though. ;)


58 posted on 06/07/2006 5:14:48 PM PDT by RobRoy
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To: Paleo Conservative

Fozzle's my bet. We're already nearly there, with all the bypass in modern engines. The first couple or three blade sets are nothing more than glorified propellers.


59 posted on 06/09/2006 2:00:16 PM PDT by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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To: Jotmo

The loudest plane on earth is the Tu-95. In some ways, ahead of its time.


60 posted on 06/09/2006 2:02:17 PM PDT by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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