F100 quick update

 "Be a free thinker, and don't accept everything you hear as truth.  Be critical and evaluate what you believe in." - Aristotle

Aurora - finally

 

 

Unf*cking the truck

 "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." - Laozi

1960 F100 - A new chapter dawns

 "While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with a hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A vacation, almost

"Falling down is not a failure.  Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen." - Socrates

Neutron Activation, N-16, and pools

"Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that is how all important discoveries have been made?" - Henri Poincare

Fuel Inspections and criticality alarms

 "We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to office." - Aesop

How Green is Germany, anyway?

 "Since every man dies, it is better to die with distinction than to live long." - Musonius Rufus

Top Fuel

 Below is a cool onboard video of a top fuel dragster through Start-up, burnout, and a run.  The car starts on gasoline, squirted in by the pit crew, then switches over to nitromethane - the exhaust gets cloudy at that point.

A few statistics about Top Fuel drag race cars:

• The fuel burn during the run alone is about 14 gallons (53 liters).
• 100 mph (161 kph) is reached in 0.8 seconds
• 300 mph (483 kph) is reached in just over 3 seconds - making these the fastest straight-line accelerating vehicles in existence.  Faster than rockets, faster than aircraft carrier catapults, and faster than jets on full afterburner. 
• The pushrod hemi engine is limited to 500 cubic inches (8.2 liters), and produces about 11,000 horsepower (8090 kw)  This value can only be calculated by the acceleration that the engine applies to the vehicle.  There is no engine dynamometer capable of measuring the engine's output.
• Boost is by roots supercharger at 60 psig (4.1 bar)
• At launch the driver experiences 4.5 g, which increases to 6 g mid-track as the clutch fully engages.  Fighter jets must maneuver in order for pilots to experience this level of g force - they cannot achieve it on engine acceleration.

Below:  A reaction video.  Supercharged nitro engine noise is pretty intense.  Every fiber of your body vibrates.

If at first you don't succeed...

 ... learn to live with failure!  Kidding.  Try until you get it right - or at least as well as you can do it.

"Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.’ … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca