My college car was a '66 mustang with a 200 straight 6 and 1 barrel carburetor. If it was less than zero and the car had been sitting for more than 8 hours, it was a 50/50 proposition of getting it started.

The reasons were plentiful. The carb had poor fuel distribution. The battery turned the engine over at a crawl. and the points ignition spark was weak. As such if it was below zero, I tapped the gas three times and said a little prayer and cracked the throttle and turned it over. If it tried to fire you kept it turning over. If it didn't, you gave it one more tap and tried again.

If it didn't fire by the second try, there probably wasn't enough battery for a third. I have to say we have it so much better with fuel injection, modern starters and ignitions!

Talk about freezing a deer in its tracks. Those lights would fry one...

I would suggest reading the Wiki article on flight 427 crash closely as it is very interesting and worth a standalone article. Also, I hope this summary of mine is accurate. I will summarize but defer to the article for any details incorrectly reported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427

The Boeing 737 flipped over and crashed on final approach to Pittsburgh and on a perfect day. It all happened in a matter of seconds. This is a link. The flight recorder and investigation could find no cause and the official conclusion blamed the crew (sound familiar?).

But then a similar 737 crash in Charlotte occurred in final approach and they realized something might be up with the rudder control system. A new crash led them to realize that potentially there was a hydraulic control problem that resulted in it the control command to the rudder control valve being reversed and left became full right.

This I would describe created deep concern with the pilot community as there was an unexplained fault in the 737 resulting in loss of aircraft.

Then they had a breakthrough in that in a similar approach a 737 had the rudder reverse but the crew managed to land the plane. The aircraft was impounded and the valve removed for analysis. However after 100's of thousands a cycles of bench testing in the lab. There was nothing unique about the valve that they could find. it would not reverse.

Finally, a test engineer had an eureka moment and realized they were failing to duplicate the conditions of the failure. The control valve was in a non-conditioned compartment and exposed to minus 30f conditions and would be idle during a smooth flight. But in landing, when first used it would be hit by 140f. hydraulic fluid and undergo thermal stress. When they simulated those conditions the valve reversed almost the first time as I recall reading.

The Wiki article explains it best. Investigators later discovered that the recovered accident rudder power control unit was much more sensitive to bench-tests than other new such units. The exact mechanism of the failure involved the servo valve, which remains dormant and cold for much of the flight at high altitude, seizing after being injected with hot hydraulic fluid that has been in continuous action throughout the plane. This specific condition occurred in fewer than 1% of the lab tests but explained the rudder malfunction that caused Flight 427 to crash. The jam left no trace of evidence after it occurred and a Boeing engineer later found that a jam under this controlled condition could also lead to the slide moving in the opposite direction than that commanded. In light of this, Boeing felt that the test results were not real-world and not applicable due to the extremes under which the valve was tested.[13][11] Boeing stated that the rudder reversal was more likely psychological, likening it to examples when a human panics and intends to step on the brake during an automotive accident, but accidentally presses on the gas pedal instead while under duress.[14][11] The FAA's official position was that there was not enough evidence for probable cause of rudder system failure.[15]

After the longest accident investigation in NTSB history — lasting more than four and a half years — the NTSB released its final report on March 24, 1999.[1][16] The NTSB concluded that the accident was due to mechanical failure: The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the USAir Flight 427 accident was a loss of control of the airplane resulting from the movement of the rudder surface to its blowdown limit. The rudder surface most likely deflected in a direction opposite to that commanded by the pilots as a result of a jam of the main rudder power control unit servo valve secondary slide to the servo valve housing offset from its neutral position and overtravel of the primary slide.[1]

Boeing agreed to redesign the rudder control system with a redundant backup and paid for the retrofit of the entire worldwide 737 fleet.[20] As one of the NTSB's main recommendations, airlines were required to add four additional channels of information — pilot rudder pedal commands — into flight data recorders, with which the FAA gave airlines until August 2001 to comply.[21] In 2016, former investigator John Cox stated that time so far has proven the NTSB correct in their findings due to the absence of a rudder reversal incident since Boeing's redesign.[22]

I got to tour the Getzen/Edwards plant at Elkhorn Wi while picking up my new trombone. The plant produces Trombones and Trumpets. If you are ever in the neighborhood, I encourage you to schedule a visit to sample their horns and see the plant. These instruments are very much hand crafted.

She assembles all trombone slides

Tapered dies for various tubing

As I recall, what they do is rough bend tubing bends and then use these wooden dies with hydraulically driven balls to expand the bends to final diameter.

All of these instruments start from a roll of brass.

The character and alloy of the brass I suspect are trade secrets.

There are two ways to form a trombone bell. One is to make a ring and then roll it out over a die. This is the easier method, however the metal gets thinner and thinner as the diameter gets larger which affects the performance of the bell. Getzen makes both types.

Edwards/Getzen does it the hard way, by forming it from flat sheet, brazing it into a tube and rolling and forming into a bell. Here are some of the patterns they use for bells.

Then a craftsman hammers it into a tube with a seam that can be brazed.

Once the bell is assembled, it is formed over a rotary mandrel.

Assembled bell sections awaiting buffing and lacquering.

Buffing and final assembly.

Completed bells ready for shipment.

There were two appreciations that I had. First was the sheer amount of high quality hand labor needed to build one of these instruments.

The second was the almost infinite number of ways they can color the sound. Degrees of freedom range from the metal, taper, flame tempering, tube radius, resonant mass etc.

Here is their website, https://www.edwards-instruments.com/

What is this FP that you mention?....

Me (far left) my brother and my college buddies take off from Iowa and head to Grand Tetons at the end of summer school to go back packing.

We rode in Dick's brand new Citation which was one of the first ones built, and Bob's Fairmont wagon.

We drove all night out and back. We didn't spend (have) money for hotels...... Oh to be young and careless.

Reprinted from slide taken with my Honeywell Pentax. Basically everybody but Joe (2nd from right) and I are retired.

This is my '07 Si which I have had since new. The first Si Sedan delivered in town. It's 13 years old, 110,000 miles and drives like new. I have a hankering for something new but I don't really know what to do.

It is a really good town car. And I am presently driving maybe 8000 miles a year till the bug is over. I am not going to wear it out. And from the undersides I am not going to rust it out.

The problem is the new Si doesn't trip my trigger as it is too much the same. I also like my present 8000 rpm rev limit and the car is very spacious with the long windshield. My wife's 16 Civic just ain't the same.

Also, if I buy something, it will probably be in the RDX, ILX or the rumored Acura Small Hatch S range. It's not guaranteed any of those will have a stick, and I am not sure how I feel after 40 years of driving stick's giving that up.

Man, is this a dilemma. I guess it is going to take something really compelling (Probably by Honda) to move.

That is what happened with my 93 Si. At 14 years of ownership, the Si Sedan came out which I bought sight unseen and the first guy that came to look at my 93 bought it. It will probably happen that way again.

It's a 70's sedan. Its a boat. Literally a boat. You fire it up, step on the gas, the engine noise goes up and shortly later you notice you are moving. Just like a boat. You turn the wheel, and it leans a lot and shortly later you notice it is turning. Its a boat. You drive it and shortly later you notice that a quarter tank is gone. Its a boat.

About the only thing you can praise a 70's sedan is you can carry five friends in the car and 4 more in the trunk. Also unlike a boat, it's impossible to capsize a 70's sedan.

One last comment, unfortunately for Ted Kennedy, an Olds Delmont 88 is not a boat......

Brief update report from the shop by cousin Anthony.

Joys of living in a bachelor pad. Putting together a new cylinder head for the Camry. In my bedroom.

For those in the know, setting valve clearances in a bucket-shim setup is a daunting task. The process has tables and math involved. Yuck.

I probably should have checked lash at least once in 236k miles. But, I knew the adjustment procedure is a PITA.

This is my backpack pretty much as it was after our last backpacking trip to Glacier National Park in 1980.

I was a boy scout in the '60's but this pack was probably acquired in '76 and I used it when my buddy Joe and I went to Europe in the summer of '76.

I recall only using it on two backpack trips. Rocky Mountain in '79 and Glacier in '80. It has followed me since then, holding whatever I would need for when I would go backpacking again.

So I pulled it out and this is what I found. Still liquid suntan lotion. Size 32 jeans (38 today), some very nice tent stakes, Candles, matches and paraffin. Colorado/Montana map (what is GPS?), Tissue, toothbrush and still good toothpaste, Asthma pills, cough medicine, and pain pills. (Grandfather was a doctor) and a surprising amount of silverwear plus a can opener for our Dinty Moore Beed Stew. (Backpacking stew is heavy).

In the side pocket are our playing cards (we all played Euchre) a $1 bill that looks like it went through the laundry and my ISU cup.

Everything is in the basement ready in case I have to hit the hills!

@ramblinrover I was thinking you were talking about the rail crash. Never mind.

@veearrrsix Techtonics, right?

@ttyymmnn Outstanding! I knew it looked like a quality plane...

@racinbob This is what it reminded me of but it is obviously not it. There's one heck of a prop on that racer.

@ttyymmnn Great Resolution isn't it..... Do you happen to know what this is? The cowling looks like a float plane racer but I can't recall the name.

@ttyymmnn Ok, any chance you can figure out if this one is still around? https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A000005.PIC/viewer

@ttyymmnn Imagine the huge effort invested in a "plan B"

@ttyymmnn You know your planes,,,

For TTYYMMNN Guess the plane
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A200705.12.2822.104.CS/viewer
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/search/catch_all_fields_mt%3A(airplane)?page=2

Want to kill a couple of hours, take a look at these local Pittsburgh press photos;
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/search/catch_all_fields_mt%3A(Slantis)

https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A000061.PIC