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Plane Simple Truth
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Sep 17, 2008 01:34 PM
from the read-all-about-it dept.
from the read-all-about-it dept.
brothke writes "In the TV show House, M.D., a premise that protagonist Dr. Greg House holds dear is that people are liars and stupid. Real life is often not far from House's observation. At the general public level, people are
often misled by their lack of common sense, their deficiency in understanding statistics and basic science, and therefore fall victim to the lies of the myriad
charlatans that claim to have something that fixes everything. A piece I wrote on that issue, New York
News Radio — The voice of bad science, details that.
While it is too broad to call the authors of Fuel efficiency of commercial aircraft: An overview of historical and future trends liars; their mediocre research created the scenario that far too many took their research as
reality. Known as the Peeters report, after lead author P.M. Peeters, the authors of Plane Simple Truth refute the wide-spread belief that the fuel efficiency gains in the commercial aviation sector are erroneous, which is the
principle theme of the Peeters report." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.
The aviation industry is often an
environmental pariah, with environmentalists crying foul at the industry. But it is only a pariah due to flawed
data that negatively influences the public debate, and this book attempts to set the record straight. Plane Simple Truth is an articulate and extremely well-written and researched
rebuttal to the Peeters report, and other flawed studies.
The Peeters report flies in the face of reality, in which gains in jet engine efficiency over the last 40 years have been astounding. Contrast those gains with the popular Cadillac Escalade and similar SUV's whose mileage per gallon is often measured in single digits, and whose efficiencies have gone in the opposite direction.
The authors wrote Plane Simple Truth as they felt that never in recent history has an industry been so maligned and the public so misled by so much falsehood and distortion. With the Peeters report and climate activists pointing the accusing finger at the aviation industry, Plane Simple Truth is their defense.
The reality is that while the Detroit automakers were making huge gas guzzling SUV's well into 2008, companies such as Lockheed had fuel efficiency on their mind back to the 1970's. In fact, fuel efficiency has been a key factor in the aviation industry since the early days. This is based on simple economics and physics in that every pound of fuel, is a pound of payload that the airline cannot carry, which costs the airline money as fuel economy is a major driver in the industry. The bottom line is that fuel economy is absolutely critical in commercial aviation. Witness the number of aviation bankruptcies in 2008 when fuel prices soured.
Like a first-rate defense attorney, the book defends the industry against its charges. In every chapter, the authors show the errors, both intentional and those errors of omission, where incorrect reporting and research have negatively affected public opinion.
While not a book about the history of jet engines; the book details the fascinating and phenomenal improvement into the efficiency of the technology. But the underlying theme of the book is that of the environmental issues.
The book details the fundamental errors in the Peters and other environmental reports that have been often taken as the unquestionable truth. Rather than analyzing the facts like the book authors have done, the media often creates sensationalist headlines with an emphasis on short sound bites, often at the cost of scientific fact. Not only do the authors refute the Peeters report, they show in detail how important aviation is to the global economy. In fact, the aviation industry is critical to every growing economy.
The books 18 chapters cover the entire spectrum of jet emissions and their incredible development in detail. Current topics such as bio fuels and their promise, new engine technology, aerodynamic gains, green airlines and more are discussed. The book makes ample use of charts and photographs to illustrate its points.
Plane Simple Truth is a fascinating book that exposes the myriad errors of the flawed environmental studies. It is also a fascinating look at the development and history of jet engines, and the amazing progress that has come about in the last few decades. Huge strides have been made that increase power by significant amounts, while simultaneously cutting emissions. In fact, there are less environmental issues to worry about in the future due to aviation, given the significant strides that are being made.
The book makes many of its valuable points via the approach of letting charts and diagrams do the talking of often dry statistical facts. Be it fuel efficiency, less emissions, or toxic gases, the book shows that misplaced myths and the smoke and mirror games that are often used by those with an agenda, have negatively affected the public's view of aviation.
We have seen that a single bad piece of research is enough to derail an entire industry and mislead the press and politicians. Plane Simple Truthis an important book that has relevance to everyone, as there is no one that is not positively affected by the aviation industry.
While the industry still has a long way to go in other areas such as passenger satisfactions, lost luggage, air traffic control delays and much more, the engine makers have continually pushed the envelope in terms of fuel efficiency and environmental concerns, and they have done this for well over half a century. This was long before the environment was a cool topic. It was also done when jet fuel was still quite cheap.
While the book's authors are intimately involved in the airline industry and clearly pro-airline, and the book's publisher is Aerospace Technical Publications; the authors let the facts speak for themselves. While greenhouse gases and their potential negative effects are part of the public and scientific debate, the ability of modern jet-engines to minimize those effects is clear. Plane Simple Truth is a valuable book in the important debate over greenhouse gases and aviation's contribution to it.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Plane Simple Truth from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The Peeters report flies in the face of reality, in which gains in jet engine efficiency over the last 40 years have been astounding. Contrast those gains with the popular Cadillac Escalade and similar SUV's whose mileage per gallon is often measured in single digits, and whose efficiencies have gone in the opposite direction.
The authors wrote Plane Simple Truth as they felt that never in recent history has an industry been so maligned and the public so misled by so much falsehood and distortion. With the Peeters report and climate activists pointing the accusing finger at the aviation industry, Plane Simple Truth is their defense.
The reality is that while the Detroit automakers were making huge gas guzzling SUV's well into 2008, companies such as Lockheed had fuel efficiency on their mind back to the 1970's. In fact, fuel efficiency has been a key factor in the aviation industry since the early days. This is based on simple economics and physics in that every pound of fuel, is a pound of payload that the airline cannot carry, which costs the airline money as fuel economy is a major driver in the industry. The bottom line is that fuel economy is absolutely critical in commercial aviation. Witness the number of aviation bankruptcies in 2008 when fuel prices soured.
Like a first-rate defense attorney, the book defends the industry against its charges. In every chapter, the authors show the errors, both intentional and those errors of omission, where incorrect reporting and research have negatively affected public opinion.
While not a book about the history of jet engines; the book details the fascinating and phenomenal improvement into the efficiency of the technology. But the underlying theme of the book is that of the environmental issues.
The book details the fundamental errors in the Peters and other environmental reports that have been often taken as the unquestionable truth. Rather than analyzing the facts like the book authors have done, the media often creates sensationalist headlines with an emphasis on short sound bites, often at the cost of scientific fact. Not only do the authors refute the Peeters report, they show in detail how important aviation is to the global economy. In fact, the aviation industry is critical to every growing economy.
The books 18 chapters cover the entire spectrum of jet emissions and their incredible development in detail. Current topics such as bio fuels and their promise, new engine technology, aerodynamic gains, green airlines and more are discussed. The book makes ample use of charts and photographs to illustrate its points.
Plane Simple Truth is a fascinating book that exposes the myriad errors of the flawed environmental studies. It is also a fascinating look at the development and history of jet engines, and the amazing progress that has come about in the last few decades. Huge strides have been made that increase power by significant amounts, while simultaneously cutting emissions. In fact, there are less environmental issues to worry about in the future due to aviation, given the significant strides that are being made.
The book makes many of its valuable points via the approach of letting charts and diagrams do the talking of often dry statistical facts. Be it fuel efficiency, less emissions, or toxic gases, the book shows that misplaced myths and the smoke and mirror games that are often used by those with an agenda, have negatively affected the public's view of aviation.
We have seen that a single bad piece of research is enough to derail an entire industry and mislead the press and politicians. Plane Simple Truthis an important book that has relevance to everyone, as there is no one that is not positively affected by the aviation industry.
While the industry still has a long way to go in other areas such as passenger satisfactions, lost luggage, air traffic control delays and much more, the engine makers have continually pushed the envelope in terms of fuel efficiency and environmental concerns, and they have done this for well over half a century. This was long before the environment was a cool topic. It was also done when jet fuel was still quite cheap.
While the book's authors are intimately involved in the airline industry and clearly pro-airline, and the book's publisher is Aerospace Technical Publications; the authors let the facts speak for themselves. While greenhouse gases and their potential negative effects are part of the public and scientific debate, the ability of modern jet-engines to minimize those effects is clear. Plane Simple Truth is a valuable book in the important debate over greenhouse gases and aviation's contribution to it.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Plane Simple Truth from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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charlatans (Score:4, Insightful)
At the general public level, people are often misled by their lack of common sense, their deficiency in understanding statistics and basic science, and therefore fall victim to the lies of the myriad charlatans that claim to have something that fixes everything
Are you calling yourself a charlatan? You keep talking about SUVs when they have nothing whatever to do with engine efficiency.
In 1976 I bought a brand new four cylinder Chevy Vega. It was a power-poor dog with a small one barrel carburator. It was small and uncomfortable. The best mileage I measured with that car was 19 mpg.
When its fuel pump went out two years later, I bought a used 1974 Pontiac Le Mans; a big, roomy, comfortable car with a 350 cubic inch V-8 engine. Someone had milled the heads, put a four barrel carburator and a dual exhaust on it. It hauled ass when I stomped the accellerator, and as long as I kept the big back two barrells from opening I could get 19 mpg on the highway with its mandatory 55 MPH speed limit.
My current car is a Crysler Concorde with a fuel injected 28 valve V-6 engine. It's roomier and more comfortable than the Pontiac was, its braking and handling are better than any car I've owned, it's almost as fast as the Le Mans, but with its cruise control set at 55 MPH its fuel computer measures up to a 36 mpg average on a 100 mile trip. It uses little more than half the fuel of either the LeMans or the Vega. It has even better mileage than the tiny 1984 fuel injected four cylinder VW Rabbit I bought when Reagan was President.
I don't know how much more efficient plane engines are today, but automobiles are twice as efficient as they were in the '70s.
I daresay a new full sized Ford pickup truck gets better mileage than a 1975 full sized Ford of the same model.
Comparing apples to oranges is what you're doing, and it's disinginuous.
Re:charlatans (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you calling yourself a charlatan? You keep talking about SUVs when they have nothing whatever to do with engine efficiency.
You do of course realize that SUVs are regulated as light trucks rather than cars and that small trucks are regulated under the same type of philosophy as commercial vehicles. Meaning that they might conform to higher standards, but they're only required to meet a much lower standard than typical cars. And furthermore that the standard was based upon assumptions which have long since been demonstrated to be false. Had light trucks continued to be pretty much just commercial, the lower standard would have had minimal negative impact. As opposed to now when many people drive a light truck as their main conveyance.
So yes, it was a fair statement to suggest that an industry that's been fighting mandatory increases in engine efficiency for decades is different than one that has been trying to increase it over that period.
American's don't want gas guzzlers but we also don't generally want to give up power or the other things which come from a larger engine. Reductions to weight in areas that don't affect safety are far more likely to go over well than things which make a vehicle actually smaller or appear girly.
Of course as gas prices go up fuel efficiency will be more of an issue, but that doesn't let auto manufacturers off the hook for the fact that they haven't really been trying the way that they could have been during the interim.
Parent
Re:charlatans (Score:4, Insightful)
All true, but completely beside the point. Auto engine efficiency has still doubled. An SUV is basically a big car body bolted to a truck frame. Take a truck chassis and power plant form 1970 and bolt an Escalade body on it and it will get roughly half the mileage as a new Escalade.
The fact is they didn't make SUVs back then.
Parent
Re:charlatans (Score:5, Informative)
The fact is they didn't make SUVs back then.
Yes, they did. The Chevy Suburban [wikipedia.org] was first built in 1935, and the International Harvester Travelall [wikipedia.org] was built from 1953 to 1975.
Parent
Re:charlatans (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, it's easy. Just build better engines.
The problem is that Detroit would rather invest in salesmen and
advertising and figure out ways to sell more high margin doo-dads
to the driving public.
Ironically, one of the few automakers to apply this
idea to "fuel economy" also makes airplane engines.
Detroit always take the cheap and easy road and tends to
focus on the next quarter's earnings reports. They can't
even percieve their own self-interest past that point.
That's why any time the market changes you need to put
Detroit on deathwatch and then bail them out.
Consumers just don't quite have the same motivation to be efficient that any large transport company does.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Are you kidding?
Don't you realize that the engines we use in cars today are *FAR* superior to the engines of 20 years ago?
Engineers have made huge progress on the internal combustion engine. They are so much more efficient now than ever imagined.
Fuel economy is up, and environmental impact is down.
One of the problems with the advances over the last two decades, though - is that instead of having these great designs in smaller cars, they put them in big trucks and SUVs. So, in effect: making engines mor
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, it's easy. Just build better engines.
Do you have specific knowledge, or is this just deamonizing the people who actually are fixing the problem? (see also: hybrid Escalade, Chevy Volt, Ford Fiesta, etc.)
4-stroke recipricating gas engines are a very mature technology. There are still a few things we might be able to get out of them (high compression combined with direct injection, direct computer-controled valve timing, and hydrogen injection come to mind), but for the most part we've already taken the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Great. I'll just flip the "better engines" toggle on my car designing software and we'll be all set.
Seriously, you totally missed the point of the parent post. You might argue that vehicle manufactures should spend more money researching engine design improvements, but it's absurd to suggest that they aren't already putting in the most efficient engine available to them at salable prices.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not always as hard as you make it out to be, either. Small changes in shape that don't really even impact style or cost can make a huge difference. For example, SUVs are made with body-on-frame construction, not unibody. This makes it easier to churn out a couple new models every year, but makes them heavier and less safe. For another example, the Hummer H2 and Scion xB are both boxy vehicles, but the Hummer has a drag coefficient of 0.57 while the Scion has a drag coefficient of 0.35 (and I'm tal
Re:charlatans (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you calling yourself a charlatan? You keep talking about SUVs when they have nothing whatever to do with engine efficiency.
... and, oddly, neither does your post. You complain that the OP should be talking about engine efficiency, rather than vehicle efficiency, and the proceed to make an argument based on vehicle efficiency. Not only that, but your argument is severely flawed: you start with a purely anecdotal chain of three vehicles and use it to draw conclusions about the entire industry, neatly ignoring the fourth vehicle you mention at the end of your argument that doesn't fit into the chain. That's not sound, defensible logic, and were you to attempt to publish it as science, you'd be laughed out of the room.
You, sir, are doing exactly what you are accusing the OP of doing, and doing more of it.
Parent
Re:charlatans (Score:4, Insightful)
While his examples may have been anecdotal, they do correspond to what has been happening in the auto industry.
Fuel economy - at least on the emissions-test operating cycle (which produces the mileage displayed on the stickers as a side-effect) has been a design consideration ever since its display for comparison was mandated. Part of that was the CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) requirements, but more of it was comparison shopping by buyers.
The replacement of mechanical/pneumatic computation with digital engine control computers, along with improvements in materials, research into combustion, modeling of airflow and mechanical design, and decades of engineering work, have enabled major improvements in engine, powertrain, suspension, body shape, and other factors affecting fuel economy - with a cumulative effect that is drastic.
The appearance of corporate hostility to fuel economy is largely an illusion. The companies are indifferent to anything but their bottom line - but they do try to improve fuel economy in cases where it sells cars.
The issue with SUVs is an unintended consequence of regulations intended to improve fuel economy. SUVs are regulated as "trucks" and outside the CAFE computation. (Their original {and still necessary} primary use is as a utility vehicle for remote locations - such a ranches in rugged terrain. They're "SPORTS-utility" because some people used them for recreation in similar driving situations.) Tightening CAFE standards killed the station wagon. So families which needed room for kids and hauling stuff home bought them as the next least expensive alternitive. Then they got used as a commuter vehicle in lieu of buying an additional car. Once that became popular (and most SUVs weren't going off-road) the car companies advertised them to that market and retweaked the vehicle characteristics to attract a bigger share of the "mall-terrain vehicle" crowd - to the point that some models were ruined for off-road function and lost their original market.
Of course this means that the eco-wackos are pushing to apply CAFE to SUVs. Which would just push the city customers up to the NEXT bigger gas hogs - vans and urban light trucks - while wrecking things for people in rural areas who really need an SUV for its original purpose. The car companies would be happy to sell station wagons again (or some other multi-passenger, high cargo capacity vehicle) - with better fuel economy, comfier ride, better safety on freeways, and a bigger market. But the regulations would have to change the other way for that to be practical.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I wouldn't be so sure about that:
2008: Ford F150 Pickup 2WD 6 cyl, 4.2 L, Manual 5-spd, Regular
14 city
20 hwy
1985: Ford F150 Pickup 2WD 6 cyl, 4.9 L, Manual 4-spd, (FFS), Regular
15 - 17 city
20 - 22 hwy
Source: User reports at fuelecomony.gov
Smaller engine, more gears, worse economy.
So what's the bottom line? (Score:4, Interesting)
What I want to know is how much fuel does it take to travel from San Francisco to New York City by the following methods:
A modern plane
A Prius
A generic 6 cylinder sedan
An Escalade
Amtrak
Of course, the extra 4 days on the road really make me favor the plane, but I want to know how guilty I should feel.
Parent
Re:So what's the bottom line? (Score:5, Interesting)
Specifically for a Boeing 777-300ER:
Gallons/Mile: 6.077 .01665
Gallons/Passenger Mile:
MPG per passenger: 60.06
(from http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/2628781/ [airliners.net])
Amtrak reports 2005 energy use of 2,935 BTU per passenger-mile[33], or 39 passenger-miles per gallon (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#Trains [wikipedia.org])
Passenger airplanes averaged 4.8 L/100 km per passenger (49 passenger-miles per gallon) in 1998. (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#Aircraft [wikipedia.org])
Parent
Re:So what's the bottom line? (Score:4, Funny)
Wow. I need to have more kids so that my gas mileage will increase.
Parent
Re:So what's the bottom line? (Score:4, Funny)
Umm, I'm American. I don't think we have those yet.
Parent
Re:charlatans (Score:5, Funny)
My current car is a Crysler Concorde with a fuel injected 28 valve V-6 engine.
Which four cylinders get an extra valve?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Can you really have a 28 valve engine? Wouldn't it be 6 cylinders * (2 intake valves + 2 exhaust valves) = 24 valves.
Just askin'...
Re:charlatans (Score:5, Insightful)
You're pretty lucky, according to Chrylers page, the 2009 Seabring gets 30mpg highway, the Crossfire gets 25mpg highway, the 300 gets 26mpg highway, and that assumes it switchs from running on 8 cylinders down to 4 for efficiecy. There doesn't appear to be a Concorde this model year so I couldn't get a number for it from the Chrysler directly, but if you go look at some other site such as Motortrend or the like, I think its highly likely that your numbers will be shown to be absolute bullshit. According to Chrysler, thier most efficient vehical, the Seabring Sedan, with the smallest engine available (173hp) gets 30, the rest are worse, some into the teens.
According to a review http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/112_9803_chrysler_concorde_lxi_vs_pontiac_bonneville_se/data_cont.html [motortrend.com] the 2003 low end model gets 19 in the city, 28 on the highway ...
Its pretty cool that your car gets better milage than any of their current production models get.
Next time I suggest not using an inaccurate method of measurement (the cars computer) and base your information on what you actually used between fill ups and the milage you've driven. I'd also recommend not using the 100 miles you drove down out of the Rocky Mountains as your example.
Even more humorous considering that most cars don't ever actually achieve the sticker value for MPG under normal driving conditions, and rarely do so with the added consistency of cruise control.
While House is right, and most people are stupid, most Slashdotters are not that stupid.
Btw, your a horrible puppet for Chrysler, if your going to bullshit, at least get the numbers close enough they are believable.
For reference, my 2008 solstice told me it was averaging over a 100mpg for a 25 mile trip, with the airconditioner running ... I was driving down out of the mountains of North Carolina and never had my foot on the gas, great milage! My bullshit beats your bullshit.
kthnx
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Instead, why not look at the CAFE requirements, which have shown rather more modest improvements?
Car engines have made huge improvements in efficiency, but much of those gains have been lost by increasing the overall weight of cars. Compare a modern Mini to the weight of the original --
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If they're so stupid that they're doing eighty, can't tell that the car ahead is going slower and aren't paying attention to boot, it's not ME wasting the fuel.
I'm not going to waste my gasoline to save yours, especially when you obviously don't give a shit about your fuel economy or you'd be going slower.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And you're basing that on your own personal experience of three whole cars? I'm sold.
You think I've only owned three cars in the last forty years, let alone only driven three cars in the last forty years? And I haven't even driven one of the new hybrids!
Do you have any idea how bad the gas mileage was on my friend's 1968 GTO? Or my 1968 Mustang?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or visit Fuelly.com [fuelly.com] and just browse what some people are getting for fuel economy. There's a few people out there that apparently can't enter numbers properly, but it's a nice view of what people are getting in reality and not just "EPA Estimates".
Yes, my cars [fuelly.com] are on there too.
the truth is (Score:4, Funny)
2 out of 4 people you meet on the street are likely to have below average intelligence.
Re:the truth is (Score:5, Insightful)
I've found that statement to be strongly dependent on the streets you frequent.
Parent
Re:the truth is (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:the truth is (Score:4, Insightful)
But anyway, here's some startling statistics for you: 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of our population.
Parent
Re:the truth is (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
CC.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, psychologists must be forbidden to ever take a statistics class then. Remember, these people are usually just as fucked up as the people who pay them $$$ to listen and now we're trusting them to do math.
Uh? I'm in a statistics class right now, and I can assure you that in a normal distribution the median is the same as the mean. The plot of the probability distribution function of a normal distribution is a bell curve. It's symmetric, so the mean is in the middle (which is the median). I think you might be the one who needs to crack a book.
I think he means that its silly to think the distribution could be even remotely normal... Looking at the tails of the curve, you're always going to have more people at the low end whom are randomly physically screwed up (due to accidents or whatever) and a smaller tail at the high end of superior intellects.
Consider that the superior intellects require good genetics AND not getting screwed up from environment or accident vs the lower end requires either bad genetics OR getting screwed up from environment o
Yep Fuel economy has always been king. (Score:3, Interesting)
Fuel is heavy. Every pound of fuel you burn is one less you can carry and charge for.
Of course it kind of goes south when you talk about people that take an airliner designed for 300 people and use it as a private jet.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the president usually hauls well several dozen people on Air Force One.
I was thinking of John Travolta, and the Google guys.
Is this really controversial? (Score:5, Insightful)
great (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're working outside your field, you should approach it with some humility. The way he phrases things in the article indicate he has some agenda where the assertion--that maybe airplanes haven't increased in efficiency that much--provokes an emotional
Who's calling who a liar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pop quiz: who is calling who a liar in this paragraph? For that matter, how many parties are being discussed here, and what are their positions on fuel efficiency?
--MarkusQ
Re:Who's calling who a liar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. This is one of the most convoluted setences I've ever seen. I know that Slashdot "editors" aren't really editors in the generally accepted sense of the term, but -- really? Did you look at that sentence and think, "Hey, that's something that should go on the front page and that people will read and easily understand!"
(Full disclosure: I am an editor, without quotation marks.)
Parent
Reviews: how not to write them (Score:5, Informative)
Starting your review with a convoluted first paragraph chock-full of double negatives and irrelevant references is a Bad Idea. I had to read it three times before I figured out which book was being reviewed and what the reviewer thought of it.
The review also takes whatever this book says as gospel. How do we know that this book is any more correct than the studies it tries to debunk?
House says (Score:4, Insightful)
In the TV show House, M.D., a premise that protagonist Dr. Greg House holds dear is that people are liars and stupid. Real life is often not far from House's observation.
I would say that only a person smarter than average could make such observation. The rest would simply not care or be capable of thinking to such depth. In House's case, this is exactly it, because he seems to have an outstandingly high IQ. Amusingly, House says that we all lie, but he is the only exception. And he certainly doesn't think he's stupid.
Having said that, I've been working in the "med biz" for five years and I share House's philosophy. People always distort facts for one reason or another, and ultimately, that makes them look dumb.
Re:House says (Score:4, Interesting)
> Amusingly, House says that we all lie, but he is the only exception.
He says everybody lies, and he doesn't exempt himself. He lies like crazy, to get his way. He'd say he'd be stupid not to, since it does help him get what he thinks is right.
He just thinks that lying to your DOCTOR is stupid, since that gets you dead, which is usually not what you want.
Parent
I believe it. (Score:4, Insightful)
The same will be true for any Slashdotter who wants to explain to me in scientific terms why my neighbor was 'technically' correct.
Let me help: The wood? Hickory and Cherry. The temperature? 240deg. Time: 6hours.
So tell me; how many polar bears did I kill?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer would likely be close to zero. Of course, that's mostly because you have all the effect of a drop of water in a hurricane. The hurricane still does damage, though.
But I digress...if you used charcoal you make yourself without the use of fossil fuels, you're likely to be net zero for carbon emissions. All the carbon you use was probably pulled out of the air in the last 20-40 years by the tree you are burning, and the stuff you'll burn tomorrow comes out the trees growing today.
As for baby back ri
Turbopropellers (Score:3, Informative)
Good heavens (Score:5, Insightful)
The signal to noise ratio in this story is astoundingly low.
How about:
Here's a review of "The Plane and Simple Truth."
It's a book about efficiency gains in airliners over the last 70 years.
I liked it.
It had lots of good information.
It also debunked many fallacies put forth by those who think the airline industry is bad for the environment.
Report is wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
1. Cargo - planes carry significant amounts of cargo today, on the piston engined aircraft of yesteryear it was pretty much 'passengers OR cargo, but not at the same time'. Thus the plane today is doing work that your plane of yesterday would be excluded from because you aren't getting a per-seat-kilometer value for it (no seats).
2. Range - planes today carry out some serious routes, with the top end of the scale actually topping out at between 8,000miles on a regular basis (there are longer routes, but they are less common). You won't be getting that in piston engined aircraft.
3. Reliability - jet engines are much more reliable than the piston engines of yesteryear, which is why we now have ETOPS (extended-range twin-engine operational performance standard) hitting 207 minutes. Thats three hours and twenty seven minutes distance from an airfield on one single engine. Try that in a piston engine aircraft of yesteryear.
4. Reliability - yes, its worth mentioning again. Jet engine aircraft can run sectors with minimal turn around, with minimal maintenance between sectors and with minimal top-ups of required fluids. Piston engined aircraft required a lot more in the way of coaxing and looking after on the ground between sectors. More time in maintenance means less time making money.
5. Longevity - there haven't been many piston engine aircraft that were built for two or three decades in passenger service (the DC-3 comes to mind, but not many others). Most piston engine passenger aircraft of the pre-war and immediate post-war period were designed to last only a few thousand hours, or a couple of years in passenger service.
Oh, and yes, I'm related to the aviation industry
Re:Report is wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
A piston engine is constantly trying to shake itself apart, a turbine engine doesn't do that. In addition to the mechanical wear issues, the vibration was unpleasant and also contributed to reduced airframe life.
With piston powered airliners it wasn't uncommon to have engine fires and other catastrophic failures. But hey, no biggie right? Still have 3 good engines! With today's turbofans it is just about unheard of.
Commercial FADEC jet engines can be treated essentially like lightbulbs, turn them on and go.
Parent
Re:Report is wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, turboprops still have the vibration issue that plagued piston engined aircraft. Sure, its drastically reduced, but it still raises the cabin noise level significantly over a turbofan - which means you need more sound reduction material to counteract it and bring cabin noise levels down, which means weight.
Secondly, turboprops are high power but only in certain bands - and increasing the size of the props to give a better power band is not easy, as it increases the strain on the gear box among other things. You seem to be under the impression that
Thirdly, because of the size of the props we are talking about, they need to be mounted on a high wing rather than a low wing. This means significantly added cost and more importantly weight, as you need to transfer the wing load down through the body of the aircraft to the undercarriage. Or you use wing mounted main gear, which has to be significantly larger than on low wing aircraft because you are now transfering the load a farther distance. Thats all extra weight to carry around.
Fourthly, turboprops aren't as powerful as you think - the A400M needs 4 TP400-D6 turboprops to lift a MTOW of 141 tonnes, or 311,000 lbs. An A330-200 has a MTOW of 230 tonnes, or 507,000 lbs with only two Trent 700s. And even then, the A400M only has a 3,800nm max (dependant on configuration), while the A330-200 will be topping out at 6,800nm.
In short, theres a damn good reason why the airline industry uses turbofans, and its not because they are shiney.
Parent
The reviewer confuses fuel efficiency with economy (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuel economy (MPG) on a modern land-yacht SUV is indeed atrocious.
However, fuel efficiency on a modern vehicle is simply astounding. A modern engine can extract far more motive power out of a given amount of fuel than an engine even ten years old.
The problem, as far as total consumption goes, is what the automakers have chosen to do with those efficiency gains. Instead of increasing fuel economy, they have chosen to increase the power of the engine, and put those engines in ever-heavier vehicles. This means that fuel economy has remained relatively static, even as efficiency has made huge strides.
SirWired
Uhm, hello? What a ridiculous summary (Score:5, Informative)
Excuse me, but I just actually read that report (...on slashdot!? I must be new here), and it nowhere states that jet engine efficiency *hasn't* improved tremendously over the past 40 years. On the contrary, it shows clear diagrams that shows they *have* improved a lot.
However, it states, probably correctly, that compared to the last-generation *piston* aircraft engines which where built around 1955 or so, first-generation Jet engines used twice as much fuel (per passenger or kg moved per kilometer) compared to those. However, that amount of fuel since halved so they are now about on par with 1955 piston technology. Doesn't look like a lie to me. Of course, modern jet engines can fly a lot faster than those with piston engines.
In addition, it states that the amount of reduction will level off when the technology has matured. This happened for piston engines, and I don't see why it wouldn't for jet engines; most things to improve their efficiency by a lot have already been invented by now. This explains why they use much less fuel than 40 years ago, but doesn't guarantee in any way that they can get a lot more efficient still.
Of course, I like taking a plane to the Hawaiian beaches as much as the next guy, but I don't see why we need to post this kind of bullshit stories just so we can fool ourselves into thinking that planes do not use a lot of fuel.
English, motherfucker, do you speak it? (Score:5, Funny)
Known as the Peeters report, after lead author P.M. Peeters, the authors of Plane Simple Truth...
It took me three tries to figure out what this sentence was saying. The authors of Plane Simple Truth are known as the Peeters report?