Here are links I found interesting on April 15, 2013:
I finally take the decibel meter for two rides to find out.
I don’t know why I own a decibel meter. I just do.
I might have bought it years ago when I tried to stop developers from putting the Hermosa Ranch subdivision at the end of Wickenburg Airport’s runway. (I won that battle even though I lost.) Or I could have gotten it before that. I’m sure it had something to do with aviation because I bought it as a piece of Flying M Air equipment.
In any case, I have one — a Radio Shack model — and recently found it among the electronic junk in my old office. I was very surprised to see that the battery still worked.
Penny in the passenger seat of the helicopter. These cotton “earplugs” stayed in about 3-1/2 minutes on this flight.
I wanted to see how loud my helicopter was in cruise flight with the doors on. You see, Penny the Tiny Dog often flies with me as a passenger and I simply can’t get any kind of ear protection to stay in place over her ears. I’m worried about hearing damage over the long term. I figured it might be a good idea to see just how loud the helicopter was.
And the answer? The cabin of my 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter is right around 100 decibels at cruise flight — 110 knots — with all doors on.
That didn’t seem like very much to me.
That got me wondering…how loud was my 2003 Honda S2000 with the top down cruising at about 65 miles per hour? A recent ride with the meter and a friend gave me the answer. Would you believe it’s just about the same? We got readings of 95 to 100 decibels when we kept the meter out of the wind.
No wonder I’m starting to get symptoms of tinitus. Sheesh. Nothing I drive is quiet.
Use less fuel.
Yesterday, during the brief time I was in the Jeep running errands in town, I caught part of an NPR interview with someone about the current fuel price situation. His take was that the fuel companies are gouging us — they’re obviously charging far more than it costs them to produce and deliver fuel.
My response to that: What the hell do you expect them to do?
As one of my least favorite presidents so accurately quipped years ago, “Americans are addicted to oil.” (That may have been one of the few truthful things he uttered during his eight years reign.)
I agree. We are addicted to oil.
Look at it this way: the oil companies are drug dealers. They hook us on their product by making it relatively affordable — the U.S. still pays far less for gas than Europe and most of the rest of the world. The car companies help the process by selling us vehicles that are impractical for most people but have lots of “style” or “status” — which insecure people apparently need. Cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles further encourage us with their urban sprawl and insufficient mass transit, forcing us to drive to work from our dream homes in distant subdivisions.
So we settle in, like junkies, burning our daily fix of fuel. We drive everywhere in vehicles that are far bigger and more costly to operate than we need: trucks and SUVs instead of more fuel efficient sedans. We live in the ‘burbs and commute, alone in our cars, to our workplaces, which are sometimes thirty miles away or more. We’re too lazy to walk anywhere — we’ll often drive across the street from one shopping center to another.
When we’re good and hooked, the prices start coming up.
Bravo, oil companies! You sure know how to work that bottom line!
In Wickenburg, I’ve been listening to people whining about fuel prices for the past ten years. They never seem to shut the hell up about it.
It’s the same complaint: local filling stations are gouging them on fuel prices. Wickenburg pays at least 10¢ more per gallon than they do in Phoenix. Funny thing is that these complaints are coming from the same people who think nothing of doing their grocery shopping down in Surprise, 35 miles away. So not only are they driving far more than they need to, but they’re likely buying their fuel where it’s cheaper anyway.
Still, they think our government should somehow intervene and cap fuel prices.
That’s the kicker. The same people who are complaining about fuel prices are the ones who voted in Republican congressmen and senators who are pro big business. The ones that are right behind tax breaks and other incentives for the oil companies. And they’re the same people who are saying we need smaller government and less regulation.
Guess what, folks? You can’t have it both ways.
I can’t complain about the fuel companies gouging us — which I agree that they probably are. Why can’t I complain? Because I recognize the right of a business to maximize its profit any way it legally can. If that means charging as much as the market will bear, so be it.
You see, there’s this little economic theory called Supply and Demand. As long as there’s demand for a product the provider of that product can charge as much as it wants — or as much as it can get away with. There comes a point, however, when the amount they charge is just too much and demand falls off. As supplies increase, prices go down.
This is basic economic theory.
So as long as we keep buying fuel, they’ll keep selling it to us at the highest prices they can squeeze out of us.
And I can’t fault them for that. We’ve made it possible for them to gouge us.
But we also have the power to make it stop.
Instead of complaining about it and carrying on like usual, do something about it. Want some ideas? Try these:
These are just a few basic ideas. Surely you can think of more.
And before you start spouting excuses why you can’t do any of these things, why not do a little research to see if you can?
And instead of complaining about the problem, why not be part of the solution?
Remember, the reason they’re gouging us with fuel prices is because they can. We have empowered them. The solution is not government regulation. It’s consumer lifestyle change. When they start to see consumption go down, they’ll know our addiction is faltering. Their logical course of action is to drop prices to get the hook in a little deeper again.
It’s happened before; it’ll happen again. Why not give it a try and see?
Book value: $250. Reliability: Near 100%.
This morning, I had to drive down to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to pick up my helicopter for a charter out in Aguila, AZ. I have a 1987 Toyota MR-2 that I bought new in October 1986. That’s my airport car. It basically lives down in Deer Valley when I’ve got the helicopter out. The idea was to drive it down to Deer Valley, park it, do my flight, and then bring the helicopter back to its Wickenburg hangar so I could wash it before returning it to Deer Valley.
That was the idea, anyway.
This morning, the MR-2 roared to life, just like it aways does. But I had some trouble getting it out of first gear — I leave all my cars in gear when I park on our hilly driveway. I rolled back and got it half turned around. Then I attempted to shift into first or second to depart. The gearshift wouldn’t budge.
Understand this: the car is standard transmission. It was my first standard transmission car. I learned to drive stick on that car. A week after taking it home, I was driving back and forth to my job in downtown Manhattan from New Jersey, battling bridge and highway traffic. I got really good with a stick shift really fast.
And the car still has its original clutch.
It only has 133,000 miles on it. When I bought my Jeep in 1999, it became my secondary car. When I bought my Honda S2000 in 2003, it became my third car. I didn’t even need it for sporty drives anymore. That’s when it became my airport car.
Here’s my old helicopter and Toyota MR-2 parked at Howard Mesa during the summer of 2004.
I don’t think I put more than 1,000 miles per year on it after that. It spent the summer of 2004 at Howard Mesa or Grand Canyon Airport when I flew helicopter tours for one of the operators at the Grand Canyon. It spent at least two years in Prescott as an airport car — my mechanic was based there for a while — and then another whole season in Scottsdale — I used to fly there quite often. When the Scottsdale cops called and threatened to tow it away, I drove it home. It spent a year or two in my hangar. Then I brought it down to Deer Valley to be my airport car there.
It didn’t mind neglect. It just about always started up when I turned the key. The only exception was once in Prescott, when the battery had finally died. Fortunately, I’d parked it pointing down a little hill. I released the break, popped the clutch in second gear and got it started. Drove it to Sears, put in a new battery, and went about my business.
Every year or so, I get the oil changed. I bought it new wiper blades and sun screens about a year ago.
Today, when the clutch wouldn’t engage, I wasn’t very surprised. Hell, it was the original clutch! More than 23 years old! What the hell did I expect?
My Honda visits my Toyota at DVT.
I took my Honda down to Deer Valley. I locked it up. I wasn’t happy about leaving my best car overnight at Deer Valley. The Toyota was disposable. The Honda wasn’t.
As I flew west to my gig, I thought about the Toyota. I wondered if this was how it would all end. It didn’t seem right to put hundreds of dollars into a car with a Kelly Blue Book value of under $250.
I did my gig. It involved over 3 hours of flying north of Aguila. It ended with a flight to Wickenburg to photograph some property. I’d drop off my clients at either one of the spec homes they’d built or nearby private helipad that they led me to believe was part of their property. We were doing the photo flight when I heard some chatter on the radio. Wickenburg Airport was closed. Turns out, an F-16 trainer had crash-landed there earlier in the day. So I landed on the helipad. I didn’t have enough fuel to get back to Deer Valley and I couldn’t land at Wickenburg. I wound up leaving it there for the night. As I type this, the airport is still closed.
Back at home, Mike got the idea that maybe the Toyota’s clutch wasn’t broken. Maybe it just needed fluid.
We pulled the owner’s guide out of the glove box and looked it up. We found the reservoir. It was bone dry. (Oops!) We grabbed some of the recommended DOT 3 brake fluid out of the garage and filled the reservoir. I pumped the clutch pedal. A lot. I started the car, pushed down the clutch pedal, and smoothly shifted it into first gear.
It works.
So my Toyota continues to run smoothly with its 23-year-old clutch. Best of all, it seems very forgiving of my neglect.
How can I not love a car like that?
And I don’t like cars bossing me around.
This week, I had the dubious pleasure of driving a Dodge. In all honesty, I don’t know what kind of Dodge it was. It seemed to be a kind of cross between a station wagon and an SUV. The car was a rental and I didn’t rent it so I can’t complain. I do feel bad for the company that rented it for me. They got ripped off. The 6-day rental cost them nearly $400.
I will make some comments about this vehicle:
After leaving Burbank and starting my long drive to Ventura on the 101 freeway, I noticed that one of the idiot lights was on. We used to call them idiot lights because they used to warn drivers about the obvious problems with a car: overheating, low oil pressure, out of gas. But these lights have apparently graduated to the next level of reporting. Now they report about more advanced problems — or potential problems. I thought the symbol was referring to the oil, but I didn’t pull over to check. After all, I’d just picked it up at Enterprise and they should have checked the oil. Instead, I ignored it.
On the third day, I got tired of looking at it. I pulled out the manual, which was in the glove box, and looked it up. It was a tire pressure indicator. The light on meant one of two things:
I walked around the car. The tires looked fine.
I spent the rest of the week ignoring the light.
I wear my seat belt — at least most of the time. I don’t wear it in parking lots, especially when backing up. I also don’t wear it on the extremely rough roads I sometimes drive in my Jeep. And no, I don’t wear it while driving around town, since my speed seldom tops 45 MPH. My 2003 Honda S2000 and 1999 Jeep Wrangler both have airbags. In the unlikely event of a collision at 30 MPH, I’ll let the airbag protect me from the steering wheel. I don’t think a collision at that speed is going to throw me out of the vehicle, either. I’m more likely to get trapped in my seat when some senior T-bones me at an intersection.
I’m fortunate. Neither of my primary vehicles (or the two secondary vehicles — a 1987 Toyota MR2 and 2994 Ford F-150 Pickup) has one of those annoying seatbelt reminders. Sure, an idiot light goes on on the panel. It might even flash — I’m so good at ignoring it that I just don’t know. But it doesn’t repeatedly beep until I fasten the damn seatbelt. It gently reminds me and then allows me to make my own decision.
The Dodge this past week was a nag. It got so annoying that I fastened the seatbelt behind my back on Tuesday and left it there until I departed Ventura today.
It could be worse. It could be one of those automatic seatbelt things. My sister had a car with one of those. What a pain in the butt.
My Jeep thinks it needs to tell me when to shift gears. An idiot light comes on when I accelerate, apparently to signal me when it’s time to upshift. As if I can’t hear the engine or feel the power of the engine. As if I’d prefer watching the instrument panel for the cue than the road in front of me.
I don’t shift when it tells me to. I like to wind things out a bit. My Honda redlines at 9000 RPM — and yes, I’ve been there.
And that’s another thing: engine cutoffs. Both my Honda and my Toyota cut power if I enter redline territory. Okay, so maybe that’s not such a bad idea. It certainly keeps me on my toes when Mike and I race home from Scottsdale or Phoenix. I have better reaction time at traffic lights, but if I don’t shift before redline, the car gives him an advantage. (The fact that he’s driving an AMG doesn’t help me much, either.)
My Jeep also likes to beep when the fuel level gets low. That’s a good thing, since I have become an expert at ignoring idiot lights. The audible warning is a real help. Unfortunately, the Jeep’s idea of low fuel and mine are very different. The Jeep tells me I’m low when the 19 gallon tank gets down to 5 gallons. That’s not low, even for a Jeep.
My Honda uses a series of lighted bars on the digital dash to indicate fuel level. When it gets down to two bars (out of about a dozen), the low fuel light goes on. But I’ve taken it down to zero bars and have only put 11 gallons in the 13 gallon tank. At 25 miles per gallon, I still had 50 miles left.
Of course, I have completely run out of gas in my Toyota. I was on my way to work, wearing a suit and heels, and had to walk about a half mile to the nearest gas station. Then I had to beg them to loan me a container for the fuel. Sheesh. So I’m more careful now. And I use the odometer on that car to judge remaining fuel.
I almost ran out of gas in my redneck truck. (That’s the 94 Ford.) You can read about it here, if you’re curious. That vehicle doesn’t have low fuel lights. It has two fuel tanks, though, and only one fuel gauge.
What is it with driver controls these days?
My Honda has buttons near the steering wheel to control the stereo and climate control. But the main control buttons for both devices are less than 10 inches away from the steering wheel. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it a hardship to reach 10 inches, even when I’m driving.
The car’s cockpit — and yes, it is a cockpit, with less room for the driver than my helicopter has for the pilot — has everything clustered around the driver’s side of the dashboard. And some things are clustered there twice.
At least that car doesn’t tell me when to shift gears.