Adjusting Headlamps for Driving in Europe

LostKiwi

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Just been researching the aircraft carrier thing.. it appears that early aircraft had an engine torque induced port steering effect and it was that determined the placement of the island. The Japanese built two aircraft carriers with the island on the left - Hiryu and Akagi which were designed that way in order to work with other carriers as a left/right pair.

Interestingly rotary wing aircraft the pilot sits on the right but fixed wing aircraft they're on the left.
 

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Just been researching the aircraft carrier thing.. it appears that early aircraft had an engine torque induced port steering effect and it was that determined the placement of the island. The Japanese built two aircraft carriers with the island on the left - Hiryu and Akagi which were designed that way in order to work with other carriers as a left/right pair.

Interestingly rotary wing aircraft the pilot sits on the right but fixed wing aircraft they're on the left.

The torque steering issue cropped up twice. Firstly during WW1 with rotary engines, where the prop. was fixed to the engine and the whole assembly rotated on a fixed axle mounted on the firewall. Secondly late in WW2 when increasing engine power created a corkscrew slipstream effect, when engine power hit around 2500hp. Overpowered fighters like the F2G Super Corsair added a small, fixed vertical stabiliser permanently set to oppose the angle of the propwash. NB engine torque issues are dependent on direction of rotation, which is a fairly trivial thing to fix (most manufacturers produced handed engines in any case for the multi engines market).

Neither of these issues affected HIRYU and AKAGI in their mirror image configurations. They were purely an experiment in carrier operations in trying to fly off the maximum number of aircraft in the smallest time. The Japanese also came up with such things as the triple decked carrier (!) and the hybrid battleship- carrier, both of which worked as well as you'd imagine.
 
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LostKiwi

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Torque effect is present in all single propellor aircraft (it's known as P-factor) and not just rotary piston aircraft or massively powerful aircraft like the Super Corsair.
 

Craiglxviii

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Torque effect is present in all single propellor aircraft (it's known as P-factor) and not just rotary piston aircraft or massively powerful aircraft like the Super Corsair.

I know, but it's only those two types that see it as a real problem. The Sopwith Camel as an example was notoriously on the edge of its flight envelope due to the huge torque effects of the Bentley and Clegert rotaries. It took until the Gamecock came along in the late 20s to replace the Camel's maneuvreability with an aircraft that could do so and be safe to fly.

The P-47 with its R-2800 had an impressive roll rate one way and an incredible one the other- it could change direction faster than an Fw-190 when the water injection was used along with a starboard snap roll. Otherwise it was big and heavy enough to counteract the propwash.

Most fighter aircraft of the period required significant rudder to allow for straight takeoff runs. The P-40 was notorious for it as was the Spitfire and Bf.109 due to narrow track undercarriage. It was quite easy to ground loop any of them on takeoff without sufficient bootfuls of rudder.

The F2G really was the epitome though. It had an R-4360 engine at around 3750hp takeoff power, set in an airframe designed to be the smallest that could wrap around an R-2800 engine of 2500hp.
 

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Oh and how can one forget the miles, yards, inches, MPG. The f*****g MPG! Why can't people be normal and do it in l/100 like most of europe yet again???
Ironically the mile is a Roman measurement from mille or 1000 strides of a legionaire, must have had long strides though as a mile is 1760 yards, you do the maths.
 
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towat

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Do you know why that is?

Predominantly right-handedness means that the natural instinct for helmsmen to avoid an oncoming anything, or obstacle, is to put the right hand down. It's a weird thing, we see the same in pilots. This is why aircraft carriers have the island on the right side, if a pilot is pulling a bolter the instinct is to bank right. If the island is to the left (only one carrier was built this way, Japanese) this resulted in many aircraft smashing their tail booms off and crashing... so keep right/ turn demonstrably to starboard in emergency is the rule at sea.
Interestingly the origin of port and starboard comes from the Vikings they had their rudder or "steerboard" on the right side of their ships so when in port had to tie up on the left, not sure how relevant that is though?
 

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Ironically the mile is a Roman measurement from mille or 1000 strides of a legionaire, must have had long strides though as a mile is 1760 yards, you do the maths.

Depends which mile you want John. Statute or nautical, which is 2000 yards or 60nm per degree of longitude at the equator...
 

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Interestingly the origin of port and starboard comes from the Vikings they had their rudder or "steerboard" on the right side of their ships so when in port had to tie up on the left, not sure how relevant that is though?

I don't know but it's an interesting point. I'd heard about the steering oar before. "Port" also used to be called "larboard" as well.
 

LostKiwi

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And of course the easy way to remember which is which is "There's no red port left in the bottle".
 

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And of course the easy way to remember which is which is "There's no red port left in the bottle".

Only Empire/ Commonwealth used Red/ Green designations IIRC. Pretty sure the Cousins don't.
 

LostKiwi

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On boats it's an international standard for navigation lights on a vessel.
Where it gets confusing is the UK/Europe use red navigation markers in the opposite way to the US. Going into a Europe port red to red is the rule. For the US it's red to green.

Simple way to remember for Europe is "Red to red, home to bed". This also applies to rivers/canals. Going upstream is red to red as 'home' is deemed to be upstream.

Apparently the Americans reversed it during the American war of Independence (where they perfected the art of making salt tea) in order to cause any British ships to wreck themselves on harbour approaches.
 

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So we drive on the right side of the road, which is the left side, while the rest of the world drive on the wrong side, which is the right side, all seems pretty reasonable.
 

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So we drive on the right side of the road, which is the left side, while the rest of the world drive on the wrong side, which is the right side, all seems pretty reasonable.

You're just wrong. Yet again I have to deal woth the bulls**t UK standard when I go driving abroad, low pound value, because people on the news who got interviewed said they voted out of europe, but when asked they did not have a single reason etc etc
 

LostKiwi

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You're just wrong. Yet again I have to deal woth the bulls**t UK standard when I go driving abroad, low pound value, because people on the news who got interviewed said they voted out of europe, but when asked they did not have a single reason etc etc

Erm...what has Brexit got to do with driving left or right side of the road (I voted remain BTW).
 

Craiglxviii

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You're just wrong. Yet again I have to deal woth the bulls**t UK standard when I go driving abroad, low pound value, because people on the news who got interviewed said they voted out of europe, but when asked they did not have a single reason etc etc

None of the above is wrong, and lose the Welsh- sized chip on your shoulder, there's a good chap.
 

Craiglxviii

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Apart from Apache.

Or Cobra. Or Rooivalk. Or Tiger. Or Hind...

But there are no more attack helis being made anymore and for good reason ()
 

Craiglxviii

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On boats it's an international standard for navigation lights on a vessel.
Where it gets confusing is the UK/Europe use red navigation markers in the opposite way to the US. Going into a Europe port red to red is the rule. For the US it's red to green.

Simple way to remember for Europe is "Red to red, home to bed". This also applies to rivers/canals. Going upstream is red to red as 'home' is deemed to be upstream.

Apparently the Americans reversed it during the American war of Independence (where they perfected the art of making salt tea) in order to cause any British ships to wreck themselves on harbour approaches.

That's interesting. I know they don't use red/ green lookout designations like we do, and my only sailing experience there was day boating on lakes so no navy lights running...
 

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Or Cobra. Or Rooivalk. Or Tiger. Or Hind...

But there are no more attack helis being made anymore and for good reason ()

Viper - replaces Super Cobra - Ok not a all new design but a significant upgrade.

Also - Night Hunter for the Ruskies.

Just two i can think of off the top of my head.
 

Craiglxviii

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Viper - replaces Super Cobra - Ok not a all new design but a significant upgrade.

Also - Night Hunter for the Ruskies.

Just two i can think of off the top of my head.

The Russians DO have an odd mindset but they have a different conops for their attack helis.

The big thing at near peer level is that the airspace below 12000' is pretty much closed off over the modern battlefield due to increasingly advanced MANPADS and battlefield gun/ missile systems. As in, it's plain lethal now. Doesn't matter whether fixed or rotary wing; the US A-10 force in Germany in the 80s was restricted to short range weapons, which required low altitude. The expected force casualties were 50%/ sortie...

So pretty much after Vietnam for the US, and GRANBY for us, everyone ditched low altitude and went to 15k, which means that FW have increasing advantages over rotary. It also means that an F-16 can do the job as well as an A-10 hence the move to kill off the Hog.

This concept is directly behind the development of BRIMSTONE, it can be used standoff in large quantities from med alt for relatively low cost (and low risk to the launch platform), vs. close range, low enough for light AA and small arms and hossifers pistols, and high risk to the launch platform.
 

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