Planes, Trains & Automobiles Thread Split

Sobering information Marin.
Haven't flown commercial for quite awhile.
Don't miss it.

Okay the thread has been split from it's previous location.

Marin said:

You'll have to explain your question.

PS- I just sat in the 2015 Mustang at the dealer. The interior is every bit as well designed as the exterior. Six speed manual, 5.0 litre V-8 (same engine core as in my pickup), big touch screen to control the car's functions, very, very well done. If we were in the market for a new car that wasn't an Aston Martin, this would be the one.

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I think it's a sharp looking vehicle. Speaking of Aston Martin, you can certainly see their influence in some of the newer Fords.

And, reading up on the new 'Stang, this old dog learned something new - flat plane crankshafts. I know they are old news and I've probably seen them before, just never realized that what I was looking at was significantly different and why it is different.

manyboats said:

Sobering information Marin.
Haven't flown commercial for quite awhile.
Don't miss it.

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Yeah, well, we fly them all the time, domestically and internationally. We have our list of airlines to use and airlines to avoid (based on maintenance and flight crew practices) but in the end all you can do is figure that it's out of our hands and if our number is up, it's up.

The alternative is to live safe and in fear and not do the things that, to us, make life-- personal and work--- worth living.

If you think about it, you can scare yourself enough with what might happen to never take your boat away from the dock.

That's the problem with growing older and more experienced. You learn the consequences of things. When one is young, one hasn't been exposed to the consequences of this, that, or the other.

When I was in my later 20s, I in Hawaii and a good friend who still today teaches at Virginia Tech in southwestern Virginia decided it would be cool to take a six-week road trip to the Yukon. Simple, right?

I shipped my Land Rover to Oakland, he drove his jeep and 17' canoe out from Virginia and met me at SFO airport, we drove across the bay, collected my Land Rover, drove in convoy to Seattle, left his Jeep with the onoy people I knew there, put the canoe on the Land Rover, drove to the Yukon, had all sorts of adventures there driving hideous 4wd roads, fishing, camping, exploring, brought ourselves and the Land Rover back south on the BC ferry from Prince Rupert, then backk to the Seattle area, he got his Jeep and drove hom, I drove to Oakland stopping in the hills of northern California at a Land Rover specialist to do some repairs, drove to Oakland, gave the Land Rover to Matson Navigation, somehow got myself to SFO airport, flew home, collected the Land Rover when it came in, and went back to work.

We had all sorts of challenges from bad points on the Land Rover (my fault) that stopped us dead on Highway 1 in the Fraser River canyon while we troubleshot and made repairs with the semis blowing by a few feet away, to getting stuck in terrible mud and having to rescue ourselves by winching the Land Rover back a total of three miles in a driving rain, to having our camp invaded by a brown bear while we were in it, to all sorts of things.

We dealt with them as they came up, and while we were worried at times and scared sh*tlless at times and not sure how we were going to solve the problem at times, we always managed to come up with a solution.

Today, I don't think either one of us would take on that same trip simply because we now know all the things that can go wrong and the sometimes tremendous effort it takes to overcome the challenges, and how scary it can be at times, and we just don't want to have to deal with all that stuff.

So there are more drawbacks to getting old than just the physical ones.

It's one reason my wife and I have always had the attitude that we should do things as soon as we could rather than "let's wait and do that after I retire." So we started going to Europe and running canal boats even though we could barely afford it at the time, and we started flying floatplanes into BC and SE Alaska as soon as we could even though we couldn't really affort it at the time, and we bought a cruising boat at a time when a lot of people might have said it was the wrong time to do it in our lives, and so on.

And we've never regretted any of it. We're not done yet: we have a new boating projet in Europe and have other trips on water and in the air that are on the schedule and a bunch of other things. But we have never regretted taking the financial chances we did when we did.

I should perhaps add that we never finance our fun or our toys. So at least none of the things we've done have represented a debt that we carried forward.

My mom put off a lot of things she wanted to do until she retired, and then she never did them and regretted it the rest of her life. My wife and I don't want to end up the same way.

As someone who flies every week (two commercial and one charter), I would love to have had the chance to fly in a Zeppelin. Now that's flying in class.

Art said:

I am gullible - You pullen my leg?

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Absolutely not! It really happened, on July 4, 1968.

The way the contest worked: you got one half of a Sunny Dollar with each fillup. If you got both halves of a $10 one, for instance, you won $10. After a while I had collected the commonly available half of every denomination, including the Camaro Instant Winner, without winning a thing. Then I got the rare half of that one (approx 1 in a million, they said).

My old roomate was with me, and we looked at the two halves in disbelief. Asked the pump jockey if it was for real. He called to check, and came back to say yes indeed. The prize was a fairly standard $3,000 Camaro - V8, automatic transmission, etc. I added $800 more and ordered up the SS 396.

RCook said:

Absolutely not! It really happened, on July 4, 1968.

The way the contest worked: you got one half of a Sunny Dollar with each fillup. If you got both halves of a $10 one, for instance, you won $10. After a while I had collected the commonly available half of every denomination, including the Camaro Instant Winner, without winning a thing. Then I got the rare half of that one (approx 1 in a million, they said).

My old roomate was with me, and we looked at the two halves in disbelief. Asked the pump jockey if it was for real. He called to check, and came back to say yes indeed. The prize was a fairly standard $3,000 Camaro - V8, automatic transmission, etc. I added $800 more and ordered up the SS 396.

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Hot **** - Congrats! Smart move ordering the $800 power package. Still got it? Worth some real $$$ if in good condition. - Cheers! Art

ranger42c said:

From that angle, looks to me pretty much like a Honda, Lexus, Nissan, Hyundai, Infiniti, Audi, Chevy, Kia, Mercedes, Chrysler, BMW... etc.... of the same general class...

Boring.

Used to be one could tell the brand without having to look at the badge. Nowadays, the grill work might give it away, but otherwise the lines for 90-95% of the offerings all seem to look pretty much the same, to me.

-Chris

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Conrad said:

Actually it does look vaguely like my boring Honda.

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Marin said:

No, in person it doesn't look anything like a Honda, which truly does have boring styling. Normally I pay zero attention to the cars on the road these days other than not to hit them. The lines of 90 percent of what's on the road today are totally uninspired. I understand the reason for this and from the car companies' perspective it makes total sense.

The current model cars that are not uncommon where I live that immediately stand out to me even at a distance are Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins, and Teslas. Everything else is a non entity. BMWS look like Toyotas look like Hondas look like Kias and so on. That's why I was so surprised that I was so impressed by the new Mustang.

So kudos to whoever drew the lines. In my opinion, he or she has an exceptional feel for aesthetics. Too bad the Hondas and GMs and BMWs of the world don't have designers like this.

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FWIW, I didn't really even mean my first comment as a criticism, just that everything looks so much alike these days I've pretty much lost interest.

I suspect if we lined up all the 2-door coupes (or whatever they're called these days), all the 4-door sedans, most of the small "crossover" SUVs... and then viewed the line from the aft quarters... the sheer line from A pillar to "transom" would pretty much be all of a oneness. A few odds and ends here and there -- maybe a spoiler or whatever -- but otherwise, A = B = C and so on.

That said... given design constraints that have to deal with passenger/cargo space versus the aerodynamics problem relative to fuel economy... I'm not at all surprised. There's only so much the designer can do with the coefficient of drag...

-Chris

In 1970, after having ridden my Triumph motorcycle around some of Europe, I put it and myself on the 'Himalaya,' an Edwardian P&O Liner (the bike was weighed and went as excess baggage) leaving from Southampton. I was in steerage, shared a bunk room with 3 other men whom I never saw. If you opened the wrong door you could see the engine hammering away. We went to Cherbourg, Lisbon, Barbados, Curaçao, Balboa, Panama City, Acapulco, Los Angeles, San Francisco and I got off in Vancouver. Longest and best party I have ever attended, 26 days. My Aussie friends, lovely ladies I had met on the boat, we're going to Sydney on a further 45 day jaunt. The boat would continue around to Southampton again and just keep going...

That was the way to travel. I still think about that voyage and would kill to repeat it. Cruise ships, rubbish.