General > General Technical Chat

why is the US not Metric

<< < (141/291) > >>

vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on December 03, 2019, 12:05:30 am ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 02, 2019, 07:46:44 pm ---For every one of these Americans you have met, there are 20 people in Asia slaving away so these wonderful Americans can collect their disability and unemployment and their prescription benzos and opioids. [...]

--- End quote ---

Who do you think is happier...  a hard working person, or an obese person rotting in front of a 60 inch TV on schedule II drugs issued by the medical-industrial complex?

My heart felt sympathy goes to the latter, frankly...

--- End quote ---

I would like to be one of the latter, but unfortunately, fate decreed that, in retirement, I be the semi-able bodied member of the household for most of each day.

I liked most of my jobs, but happy?------Nah!
Most were good, but some were nightmarish, mostly due to moronic management.
That said, by retirement I was pretty much burnt out.








tooki:

--- Quote from: boffin on December 02, 2019, 05:15:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on November 27, 2019, 01:59:39 am ---Our biggest export is air travel planes, which the fasteners and the ATC are imperial.

--- End quote ---

No, they're not.  Since the 80s, the FMS systems in Boeing aircraft use kg of fuel, not lbs. (see ACA143)
Plenty has switched over, and more is going.

The fact that the US refuses to switch is pure stubbornness

--- End quote ---
And changing from lbs to kg in aviation is something where Canada provided the perfect example of the hazards of switching systems: the Gimli Glider, the very flight number you mention.

For those who don’t know, the Gimli Glider was an incident with an Air Canada 767 whose fuel management system computer was broken, meaning that fuel management had to be done manually. (This is standard procedure, as fuel management automation is not mandatory equipment.) As it happens, this was right after Canada switched aviation fuel from lbs to kg, and while the ground crew executed the conversion algorithm correctly (from volume to weight or vice versa, I forget), they’d chosen the wrong formula for the units in question. So even though everyone double-checked the math, nobody realized it was the wrong formula entirely. The result was that the 767 ran out of fuel mid-flight.

ATC helped them locate an alternate airport, ultimately the Gimli air force base. To line up, they had to make a maneuver that is uncommon on airliners, a side slip, but luckily, the pilot was an experienced glider pilot and was highly experienced in conducting it, and he was able to line up perfectly. Unbeknownst to ATC and the pilots, Gimli had been retired as an airfield, and its runway was in use for drag racing or something. Like, in use at that very moment. Since a jet without engines makes little noise, people didn’t notice it coming in until the 767 was about to land on top of them. Whole families fled the runway, which had had a concrete jersey wall installed down the middle. As it turns out, the jersey wall proved invaluable in helping the 767 slow down. In the end, the only injury was a broken ankle from the emergency egress, and the plane was able to take off after being refueled, with only minor damage to the nose, and continued to fly for another 20-odd years until it was retired a few years ago.

Note to self, order one of those keychains made from a piece of the Gimli Glider’s fuselage.


So yeah, had there been no change from lbs/gal to kg/l, it wouldn’t have happened. The fuel management computer didn’t care. But the manual method did.


And as has been repeated before, not only are the aircraft built with tons of American threads, but air traffic control, etc are nearly universally non-metric.

Tepe:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on December 02, 2019, 03:50:39 pm ---I was in Sweden when they switched...  I remember the city buses had the doors "boarded up" on the one side, and new doors installed on the other...

--- End quote ---
Even today, the on and off ramps on some of the highways bear witness to the change: their lengths are opposite of what would be expected.

SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: vk6zgo on December 03, 2019, 01:33:19 am ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on December 03, 2019, 12:05:30 am ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 02, 2019, 07:46:44 pm ---For every one of these Americans you have met, there are 20 people in Asia slaving away so these wonderful Americans can collect their disability and unemployment and their prescription benzos and opioids. [...]

--- End quote ---

Who do you think is happier...  a hard working person, or an obese person rotting in front of a 60 inch TV on schedule II drugs issued by the medical-industrial complex?

My heart felt sympathy goes to the latter, frankly...

--- End quote ---

I would like to be one of the latter, but unfortunately, fate decreed that, in retirement, I be the semi-able bodied member of the household for most of each day.

I liked most of my jobs, but happy?------Nah!
Most were good, but some were nightmarish, mostly due to moronic management.
That said, by retirement I was pretty much burnt out.

--- End quote ---

Getting older definitely sucks - until you consider the alternative...  Look on the bright side, you don't appear to live in a cold country!

Moronic management is something we have all had to deal with in our careers?  -  Enlightened management is something you probably only read about in business textbooks, rather than people you run into very often in the real world!

Interestingly, early retirement is linked with early death...   https://www.bmj.com/content/331/7523/995

"[...] Conclusions:  [...]  Mortality was higher in employees who retired at 55 than in those who continued working. [...]"

- Best regards.

syau:

--- Quote from: boffin on December 02, 2019, 05:15:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on November 27, 2019, 01:59:39 am ---Our biggest export is air travel planes, which the fasteners and the ATC are imperial.

--- End quote ---

No, they're not.  Since the 80s, the FMS systems in Boeing aircraft use kg of fuel, not lbs. (see ACA143)
Plenty has switched over, and more is going.

The fact that the US refuses to switch is pure stubbornness

--- End quote ---

Runway length still show in feet (except China & Russia) and so as decision height  :-DD

Engine oil still sell in US QT, the only notice metric system is fuel uplift which most place us kg instead of lbs.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod