My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on October 23, 2007

I can’t think of a bigger topic that excites the small car diesel crowd (VW) than have a new Honda diesel, especially one with great mileage and a little zip. Honda’s head powertrain engineer, Kenichi Nagahiro revealed to AutoCar (according to LeftLaneNews) that a diesel-powered Civic Type-R will improve on the current 140 horsepower version by working with the 2.2L CTDi engine used in the diesel Accord … overseas of course. (but the promise of a U.S. Honda diesel has been hinted) According to the engineers, the 2.2L CTDi to be used in the Type-R Civic will be able to produce 180 horsepower and 315 ft-lb of torque.

Category: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 22, 2007

The parents of Lt. Michael Murphy received the highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, two year after the death of their son from President Bush on Monday. His sacrifice for his team and nation are second to none and well deserve the highest recognition. I’ve written previously about the Navy SEAL team chronicled in the book “Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell, and the great sacrifice that was made in the defense of out country.

A brief history: Lt. Murphy was part of a Navy SEAL team conducting a reconnaissance mission on June 28, 2005. Besides himself, the four man team consisted of Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class (SEAL) Danny Dietz, Sonar Technician 2nd Class (SEAL) Matthew Axelson and Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (SEAL) Marcus Luttrell. The four SEALs were hunting a terrorist called Ahmad Shah who grew up in the adjacent mountains to where they were inserted. As the SEALs worked under cover, they came across a young man tending his animals and debated whether to eliminate the risk (kill) or allow him to return to his village and continue to try to move toward their target. Their decision would cost 3 of the SEALs their lives as well as an extraction chopper that went down with and additional 16 men as word quickly spread of American solder in the 10,000-foot peaks of Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush. The anti-coalition militia closed in on the four SEALs and a fierce firefight erupted. The enemy had the SEALs outnumbered, knew the terrain and forced the four into a ravine.

Each man suffered injury as they scrabble to avoid being trapped and a firefight ensued. The four SEALs were pinned with little hope of succeeding against a well armed militia of 75+ men. Lt. Murphy is credited with risking his own life to save the lives of his teammates in attempting to contact with headquarters by moving to an exposed position to transmit a call to get help for his men; he became an open target. According to Marcus Luttrell, Murphy used his cell phone to contact the SOF Quick Reaction Force at Bagram Air Base to request support and extraction team. He was shot in the back, completed the call and continued to fire at the enemy while trying to return to his cover position.

According to SOA accounts the Reaction Force responded immediately and “an MH-47 Chinook helicopter, with eight additional SEALs and eight Army Night Stalkers aboard, was sent is as part of an extraction mission to pull out the four embattled SEALs. The MH-47 was escorted by heavily-armored, Army attack helicopters. Entering a hot combat zone, attack helicopters are used initially to neutralize the enemy and make it safer for the lightly-armored, personnel-transport helicopter to insert.

The heavy weight of the attack helicopters slowed the formation’s advance prompting the MH-47 to outrun their armored escort. They knew the tremendous risk going into an active enemy area in daylight, without their attack support, and without the cover of night. Risk would, of course, be minimized if they put the helicopter down in a safe zone. But knowing that their warrior brothers were shot, surrounded and severely wounded, the rescue team opted to directly enter the oncoming battle in hopes of landing on brutally hazardous terrain.

As the Chinook raced to the battle, a rocket-propelled grenade struck the helicopter, killing all 16 men aboard.”

Meanwhile the four SEALs, Murphy, Luttrell, Dietz and Axelson held on and continued to fight until they were out of ammunition. The two hour gun battle killed an estimated 35 Taliban fighters and eventually Murphy, Axelson and Dietz. Luttrell was knocked unconscious by a rocket propelled grenade which tossed him over a ridge. He was able to regain his consciousness and escape on hands and knees; he was dehydrated, had a bullet wound in one leg and shrapnel in the other. Three of his vertebrae were cracked and he was too weak to contact the rescue helicopters. Eventually he traveled seven miles and evaded the enemy.

The next day a group of locals took him in and hid him from the Taliban who were looking for him. A Marine outpost was notified and on July 2, 2005 the U.S. forces sent troops in to bring him home. The loss of so many SEALs in one day is noted as “the single largest loss of life for Naval Special Warfare since World War II.”

For Lt. Murphy’s heroism, President Bush thanked Dan and Maureen Murphy and their son John, and presented them with their son’s Medal of Honor.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 21, 2007

You would think after 25 years of marriage that I would learn that women are rarely impressed with ‘tech gadgets’ for Sweetest Day gifts? Perhaps I’m a slow learner in replacing my wife’s old Palm Treo 600 with a new Palm Centro, but I did … to a mixed response. She was glad for a new phone, but made it clear that it wasn’t the kind of intimate ‘thought’ that she was expecting from a husband that should know better.
🙂

With that aside, I’ve played with the new ‘small’ smartphone a couple of days now and have found it really impressed me. First, the Sprint promo price of $99 with a 2 year contract extension make the Centro the best buy going … in my opinion. The phone quality seems better than average and it has most of the features that are part of the larger Treo line of Palm phones. The phone comes loaded with a good selection of Palm software to start, as well as the very functional touch screen operating system.

The smaller keypad will take some getting use to as will the small display, but it is clear and very sharp. Those in the ’40+ something’ age group may want to consider using a pair of reading glasses. That said, its not as bad as I expected once I started using it. The keys are easy to use with a finger nail … and not really any slower than my current thumb-tip keyboard on my Treo 700p. The phone has the same 1280×1024 camera with video clip capability as the other premium Palm phones and include a much better speaker. (much better) The speaker makes the Centro into an excellent pocket radio capable of playing streaming internet station or an MP3 collection with the pTunes software. Of course it can also be used with headphones or an adapter that can be played through your car or home audio system as well as run in the background while working with other features.

Phone quality is very good and the EVDO high speed data service seems as fast as, if not faster, than my Treo 700p. There is plenty of internal memory but also a micro-SD slot and removable battery. If you are looking to own your first smartphone, and appreciate the Palm OS, I have no problem endorsing the new Palm Centro … its an excellent value.

Category: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 19, 2007

I’m a long time Apple Macintosh computer user and am currently running the Tiger OS 10.4.10 on my desktop, although am running Microsoft Vista on my notebook. It is interesting to see what the creative folks at Apple are bring to the table next … no doubt it will continue to be a blend of “form and function.” The current change coming in about a week is an operating system release called Leopard. For any computer owner, an OS update is often a time to worry; it means learning a new interface and unfortunately the frustrating glitches when working with existing software. My question is whether or not to take the early leap and install Leopard?

Over lunch today I watched Apple’s web-based Leopard presentation and was impressed with a couple of items. The most important addition being something called “Time Machine” which makes backing up your computer easy and restoring something even easier. This feature, in my opinion, would be the number one reason to upgrade. (it uses a large low cost generic external harddrive to archive your entire computer) The second thing that impressed me was the improvements to the impressive video conferencing software packaged with the Apple OS called IChatAV. The improvements that I thought were attractive were in the productivity area; for example when partnering on a document, project or presentation. The ease of being able to talk and share all kinds of documents, videos and presentations immediately and ‘live’ to actually working on a document located on the desktop of your coworkers computer was nice. Its certainly a great feature that would be helpful in finalizing a presentation or document between parties located a distance away. The video chat component also had some cool enhancements … like allowing you to replace the background of your chat window with something other than your surroundings. (a kind of like ‘green screening’ … the demo looked near perfect)

Finally the challenge of ‘doing the upgrade’ looks to have been simplified. According to the presentation, it a few clicks and the walk away; in about and hours your Tiger OS mac will restart in Leopard with all your programs and data. Sounds good … but is it worth the $129?

Category: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 18, 2007

According to Leftlane news, Audi will bring a 3.0L TDI clean diesel to the U.S. market in 2008. The first vehicle will be the Q7 and then the all new A4. No time frame was announced, just 2008.

Output for the 3.0L TDI V6 is rated at 240 horsepower and 406 lb-ft of torque. Despite all that power, Audi claims the new engine is 35% more efficient than a comparable gasoline engine and can get up to 40 mpg highway. The engine is also clean enough to earn it certification in all 50 states.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 17, 2007

Fellow Sonex Aircraft builder Don Gum flew his AeroVee powered Waiex (V-Tail version of the original Sonex) successfully on October 14th. I would like to extend my congratulations to Don who lives north of me in Beavercreek, Ohio. Making a successful first flight in his beautiful tri-gear experimental airplane is indeed a grand accomplishment … one that I hope to eventually duplicate. Nice job Don. (larger photo)

Category: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 16, 2007

Subaru was ahead of the game featuring all-wheel drivetrain which offered safe, practical and reliable cars which had performance all in a small sized passenger vehicle. Their boxer engine design has proven durable and the utilitarian Forester and Outback came out well before other manufacturers decided to produce ‘car based’ cross-over SUVs. Unfortunately they have lagged behind in improving engine efficiency and desirable design — the ant-eating Trebeca – need I say more?

In the last few years though, Subaru engineers have been working with Toyota to develop hybrid technology and at the same time worked on their new boxer turbo diesel powerplant. An article in LeftLaneNews has also mentioned that diesel is moving past the hybrid development and that they plan on getting a diesel car to the market next year … in Europe. Unfortunately, the article also hints that “the U.S. market could have to wait until 2012 to get the new diesels.”
🙁

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 16, 2007

As the 2007 baseball season inches toward a close, the Cleveland Indians move one step closer to becoming the American League champions by topping the Boston Red Sox 4 run to 2 in game 3. This was the first game against the Red Sox at Jacobs Field for the Cleveland fans which no doubt gave a tremendous boost to the players.

Although veteran Kenny Lofton is a fan favorite, particularly considering his 2 run homer put Cleveland up 2-0 in the second inning, Brady Sizemore has the specialty fans … known as “Bradys’ Ladies.’
🙂
Nevertheless, the real credit tonight goes to Jake Westbrook who’s impressive pitching quieted the Red Sox bats. He was able to control the game generating 11 ground balls out until being relieved in the 7th by fast ball pitching rookie Jensen Lewis. I think its “TRIBE TIME!”

Category: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 15, 2007

Although my experimental airplane project is still moving slow, most of the parts are now ready to be put together this winter. The assembly process requires me to fit an engine mount to the fuselage, therefore I need to select a powerplant for that to happen. I had thought the U.S. dollar would strengthen against the Australian dollar so that I could import a new Jabiru 3300, but that hasn’t happened; instead, this past week, I purchased a 4 cylinder Aerovee 2180cc engine for my Sonex project. It has an early serial number, so I will have an engine expert look things over.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on October 14, 2007

If you are married and enjoy a little ill-placed humor, you’ll enjoy this Toyota RAV 4 commercial below. If you don’t laugh at it … I’m sure you’ll at least smile? Actually I don’t know how long it has been out although I noticed it was posted to YouTube in 2006, but I never noticed it on television. It most likely caught my interest over at Autoblog only because my wife drives a RAV 4 … which she continues to brag ‘optimistically’ about. She has had a positive experience with ti as its a well used 1997 model at about 200,000 miles. About the only thing mechanically wrong is that it uses oil, which is particularly noticeable on startup. Don’t get me started on the cosmetic list since it would be easy to mention was doesn’t need to be repaired or replaced!

Category: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tags: