Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 3]

[walm]

MarshPhantom said:

droopsnoot said:

SpeckledJim said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

kowalski655 said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

How many aircraft are in the air on average at any given moment. If there were a worldwide security threat, and all flights had to be cancelled, commercial, cargo, crop sprayers, the whole caboodle, is there enough room on the ground to park them all?

On This Mornin,err,thius morning,they showed FlightRadar24.com as showing about 8000 in the air ,but I guess thats commercial stufff,probably as many private ones if not more.
If they all HAD to land they could just park them on the runways

If you parked them on runways the last ones to be grounded wouldn't have anywhere to land. And when the crisis was over you'd need clear runways for them to take off again. So that's a non starter.

If it's a real 'just deal with it' emergency there's loads and loads of space on the aprons and taxiways around a big airport. And you can park planes quite space-efficiently if you absolutely have to.

Didn't this come up around the 1999/2000 changeover where the Y2k panic made people consider grounding all aircraft? I seem to recall tales of there being insufficient room to park everything back then, but it does seem hard to imagine given sufficient planning time and creative parking.

Wasn't it post 9/11 this problem came up with all the cancelled flights at the time.

There's a big difference between parking temporarily (e.g. post 9/11) when you want to get back up and running ASAP (when being near an airbridge and terminal is important) and parking more permanently when you know you might not ever get back in the air.
The Mojave desert isn't full yet!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Air_and_Space...

[droopsnoot]

walm said:

The Mojave desert isn't full yet!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Air_and_Space...

OT, but I'd love to go round a few of those places, or the plane graveyards you see on the C4 ident (if that's not the same place). Only trouble is, I'd want to bring at least one of them home, and it wouldn't go in the shed.

[Willy Nilly]

if you had a compressor with a 1 cubic meter tank on it, then weighed it at sea level empty, how much more would the tank weigh when the compressor tripped out at say 10 bar?

[Ayahuasca]

Willy Nilly said:

if you had a compressor with a 1 cubic meter tank on it, then weighed it at sea level empty, how much more would the tank weigh when the compressor tripped out at say 10 bar?

At sea level the air in the 'empty' tank would weigh about 1.225 kg.

With ten times as much air inside it would weigh 12.25 kg.

I think.

[Ayahuasca]

As an aside I read somewhere (maybe on here) that the air inside the structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs more than the tower itself. Possibly bks but there you are.

[Hugo a Gogo]

if you made a hollow cylinder to fit over the Eiffel Tower, the air in that hollow cylinder would be heavier

big wide base, y'see

[Ayahuasca]

Do submarines have anchors?

[FiF]

Ayahuasca said:

Do submarines have anchors?

Yes.

[Miocene]

Why do we say 'bunny rabbit' and 'pussy cat'. I known the first word in each case is the informal version of the name, seems weird to say both and elongate the names.

[popeyewhite]

Miocene said:

Why do we say 'bunny rabbit' and 'pussy cat'. I known the first word in each case is the informal version of the name, seems weird to say both and elongate the names.

Very odd. Can't see the point. I mean my girlfriend plays with her pussy in front of me whenever I ask, the cat never seems to mind.

[Johnspex]

Miocene said:

Why do we say 'bunny rabbit' and 'pussy cat'. I known the first word in each case is the informal version of the name, seems weird to say both and elongate the names.

In a similar vein, when did Mum/Mummy & Dad/Daddy take over from Mother and Father.
I always think of these things in TV historical terms. For instance, you can't imagine a young Sherlock Holmes (the proper one, not the current nonsense) calling his parents Mum and Dad.

[schmunk]

Johnspex said:

In a similar vein, when did Mum/Mummy & Dad/Daddy take over from Mother and Father.
I always think of these things in TV historical terms. For instance, you can't imagine a young Sherlock Holmes (the proper one, not the current nonsense) calling his parents Mum and Dad.

Mama and Papa, I'll warrant.

[Ayahuasca]

FiF said:

Ayahuasca said:

Do submarines have anchors?

Yes.

Where is the anchor stowed / how deployed on say an Astute or Vanguard class sub ?

[Jimmy Recard]

Hugo a Gogo said:

if you made a hollow cylinder to fit over the Eiffel Tower, the air in that hollow cylinder would be heavier

big wide base, y'see

That makes sense. That's an interesting fact.

It's something I've really never considered

[FiF]

Ayahuasca said:

FiF said:

Ayahuasca said:

Do submarines have anchors?

Yes.

Where is the anchor stowed / how deployed on say an Astute or Vanguard class sub ?

On the Astute the anchor chain locker is in the bow. There's a cutaway diagram available if you google it. Astute Submarine cutaway in images, item 85.

You might care to recall that Astute returned from one of the sea trials due to problem with the deployment of the anchor chain.

[WD39]

FiF said:

Ayahuasca said:

Do submarines have anchors?

Yes.

When I was a deck hand on a submarine, there's many a time that I let the anchor go.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Miocene said:

Why do we say 'bunny rabbit' and 'pussy cat'. I known the first word in each case is the informal version of the name, seems weird to say both and elongate the names.

Why is www an abbreviation of world wide web? 9 syllables instead of 3.

[budfox]

Voyager 1 carried a gold disc which included, among other things, greeting from the people of planet Earth spoken in 55 languages:

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/greetings.h...

Why? Wouldn't that just confuse Johnny Alien?

[mybrainhurts]

Why don't women eat baked beans?

[Impasse]

mybrainhurts said:

Why don't women eat baked beans?

They can't unscrew the lid.