What My Wife Puts Up With........

I

imp

Senior Member
She is visiting her MOM in Indiana, so I am lurching about on my own. We have a nice resort Hotel/Casino 3 miles from the house, so I ran over there to eat breakfast. Got to thinking, while waiting for my eggs & sausage, how impressive it is to sit in a 747 Jetliner, and experience it's take-off. Guesstimating, it uses about 6,000 feet of runway to reach "pivot" speed, doing so in certainly less than a minute, maybe closer to half a minute, so using those figures, and knowing it's 4 engines generate around 200,000 lbs. of thrust, I roughed out the HORSEPOWER expended to achieve such a feat.

Care to guess how many horses would have to be hitched to the plane, assuming they could run fast enough, to get it airborne?

Hint: It's a LOT of horses! imp

Edit: Hoping to accumulate some guesses, meanwhile, I'll try to come up with the amount of FUEL burned to achieve liftoff.
 

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Ah, but my mind is awhirl without it! So much more vivid! Imagination run wild!

36 years, now. She watches TV a lot........ imp
 

imp said:
Ah, but my mind is awhirl without it! So much more vivid! Imagination run wild!

36 years, now. She watches TV a lot........ imp
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It's a lot longer than that since we abandoned the fps system. We're fully metric now. No more horses pulling aeroplanes off the tarmac. :grin:
 
It was bandied-about here, on and off, for decades. We have now reached the point where thanks to "globalization" those crafts requiring knowledge of, and tools suitable for, metric fasteners, have pretty much caught up with it.

I hope you don't really want me to re-state the dang thing in metrics! Newton-Meters, indeed! imp
 
imp said:
It was bandied-about here, on and off, for decades. We have now reached the point where thanks to "globalization" those crafts requiring knowledge of, and tools suitable for, metric fasteners, have pretty much caught up with it.

I hope you don't really want me to re-state the dang thing in metrics! Newton-Meters, indeed! imp
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Why not? When I was at Uni we had to do exercises/problems requiring us to convert units between cgs, fps and MKS. I grew to loathe horse power conversions. All this without a calculator or slide rule.
 
Hobby Pursuits

AZ Jim said:
Imp, since you joined us it has occurred, you need a hobby.
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Jim, my hobbies have produced the following items, among many others. Having an engineering background, perhaps you might like to discuss them? imp




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4-wheel drive Mustang


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1/8 scale live steam locomotive





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4-wheel drive 1959 Ranchero


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automated oil seal molding machine under construction



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top=loader 4-speed with adaptor to accommodate transfer case, used in 4X4 Mustang


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top-loader 4-speed adaptor to allow use of electric overdrive
 
AZ Jim said:
Wow! I'm impressed. Makes me jealous. All I've done is take up space.
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Your post, though maybe intended in jest, or simply off-handedly referring to my OP, OFFENDED ME. Even as a lowly, 2nd. class Member here, I reserve the right to be offended. Thus, I responded in kind. No whining, or sniveling, just evidence to rebuke your inference that I have no hobbies! What do you think of that?? imp
 
Well, I try to bring to light thoughts about how things work in our lives. It's almost as though most folks take it all for granted. Hardly anyone seems to appreciate anymore the hardships and set-backs that were overcome in getting us to where we are today, able to move about quickly, comfortable in our homes, plenty of foodstuffs and other supplies universally-distributed throughout our great country (and Canada's, too!).

Reason I started this OP, was I marvel at the stupendous amount of energy poured forth in throwing a big plane into the air! I thought others might find it amazing, too. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe everyone is consumed with savoring their own little circle of existence.

Maybe I ought not to even bother. imp
 
imp said:
Well, I try to bring to light thoughts about how things work in our lives. It's almost as though most folks take it all for granted. Hardly anyone seems to appreciate anymore the hardships and set-backs that were overcome in getting us to where we are today, able to move about quickly, comfortable in our homes, plenty of foodstuffs and other supplies universally-distributed throughout our great country (and Canada's, too!).

Reason I started this OP, was I marvel at the stupendous amount of energy poured forth in throwing a big plane into the air! I thought others might find it amazing, too. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe everyone is consumed with savoring their own little circle of existence.

Maybe I ought not to even bother. imp
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Man, relax, you are taking it far too seriously.
 
Jim, you miss the point. After all this cocky-mandering, not a single response addressed the THREAD! As though all heads are buried.

I got a bus to catch. imp
 
Ask not, expect not. Giving myself good advice (for a change). imp
 
There's a lot more to it than a simple formula for converting thrust to horsepower. I knew a propulsion engineer at Boeing some years back and he could do these calculations in his head. I think he had simple equations that he would use to get "ballpark numbers." I flew Boeing 757's and 767's for United. On the 767-300, we had two GE engines that put out about 60,000 pounds of thrust, depending on how fully we were accelerated. You mentioned about reaching "pivot" speed, but did you actually mean V1 speed before rotation would occur? In other words, we would have to figure out our takeoff speed by putting in weights of passengers, baggage, fuel and the plane itself, along with other items like wind. We would punch these numbers into the on-board computer system called a CMS or Computer Management System and that would give us our takeoff speed. For example; if our t/o speed was 195 m.p.h. the pilot not flying the plane would do a verbal count up saying, "150, 160, 170, 180, 195, V1" and then "ROTATE." At that point, the pilot flying would pull back on the column, yoke or whatever you prefer to call it and then use the elevators to begin the climb. Generally, I would hand fly the aircraft to 15,000 feet and then let the AP (Autopilot) do the work. Normally, I would step climb by going to 15,000 ft., then up to 25,000 ft. and finally our cruising altitude of maybe 37,000 ft. while all the time gaining speed. Of course, if we had traffic in the area, I would just do a climb.
 

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