Paddled over to the Post Office...paddled back through the Oak Grove to Lower Falls, and over Chapel Bridge on the Big Loop...quiet...pic of Downy Woodpecker at Chapel Bridge...well, the walk was quiet except for talkabout with friend that came along for the walk...sadly, they have eyesight handicap, and cant see small things at distance, or even the Rainbows on the Falls...but they get along okay at work and are a video game fan...anyway, the Ken Burns PBS National Parks documentary movie was a subject...I missed the broadcasts, though I think they can be seen at PBS web site....and now the dvds are for sale hereabout...some people when watching sports are very calm, others very animated, and I was taken aback when the subject of Hetch Hetchy came up in the talkabout...my friend became very animated!...not having seen the documentary, I can only guess, but I'm guessing that the building of Hetch Hetchy dam was portrayed as a dastardly deed...as it often is....I'm not so sure it's dasterdly...and mull it over often...and it's become what I call a 'thoughtHobby'....my thoughtHobbies are collections of lore about one thing or another that has struck my fancy...dont know but Fauna and Flora is a thoughtHobby that has happened to find visible expression through the cameras , computer, and web!!
Another thoughtHobby of mine is ornithopters....I've collected a lot of lore about early flight inventions...ornithopters were the first guess about how to make an aircraft...and Santos Dumont is a kinda hero of mine!...anyway...in keeping with thinking about things that fly, the other day the fancy popped into my head of a rocket propelled parachute!...I've 'floated' the idea past a few friends, with the usual initial incredulous scoffing responses...which I dont take too serious if I have to explain what an ornithopter is!...but anyway, I've bounced about the web with searches the last few nights looking to 'fill' out the fancy, and see if it has 'wings'....and it may!
A misconception I've had about bird flight I think has been perpetuated by those who explain that the Wright Brothers designed their aircraft's wings after the shape of of bird's wings, and this was the breakthrough idea that made airplanes...the curved top, and flat bottom of a wing creates a pressure difference between top and bottom as air passes over -- and that makes 'lift'....
and this is true of birds when they glide and fly level...but in taking the pics and clips, I've become aware of what a marvel birds wings are for myself!...bird wings do more than just glide!...anyway, here's a link to wiki's history of flying inventions:
Since I was a kid, some really neat new model flying things have come along....one, called a 'stringless wonder' is a bit like my parachute notion...imagine here a rubber band propeller , which is a long stick with a stretched and wound rubber band connected to a propeller, under a parachute....if a toymodel shop were nearby, I'd get the parts to try and make one!...
here's link to the 'stringless wonder':
very cool
and tonight, in doing another search, on the google list was something called a 'propeller powered parachute'...so I put that in the search box, and..wala...now, I've seen these, but it didn't click what the possibilities these new flying things have...others have, and the monitoring of wildlife in difficult to get to places is one of them...and too, they are terrific platforms to take pics from...
veryvery cool...
unfortunately, the propeller powered parachutes look to be too fragile to fly in rough weather, though in calm they are said to safer than fixed wing aircraft, but one wonders what a large scaled up version could do!!
sunny blueblue and cold...
the one hobby store in Merced that I know of, by the mall, has gone out of business, but tomorrow I may take a trip to town!
"Rockets work by 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, dont they?"
"Yes."
"And that's what powers them to space, but f one turns the rocket around, and with a parachute above it to catch the exhaust gasses and wind the gasses make, will the whole caboodle go up...or down?"
"Like lifting one with ones own bootstraps....well, it would go up....I think!"
"Ah!...if it works, that's what I'll call it...'Bootstrap'!"
quote
To which application the system is most efficient at ?....In every condition that require quality air photography from a height of several dozen meters and in a radius of till 1 km. Using the system will supply an immediate answer to: locating trapped people after natural disaster such as flood and earthquake searching for missing people in the desert and problematic locations for flight and foot search, archeological research, examining animals and birds, damage reports, supervising and guarding over agriculture fields, supervising over nature reserve and safari.
unquote
veryveryvery cool
Oh!...in looking about tonight, I recalled the science fiction book 'Footfall' which has a rocket idea in it, one a bit bigger than I had in mind, but it is derived from a true life rocket design called Project Orion (I just watched again Men in Black last nite!)...this design used a feature called a 'pusher plate' to catch explosions, in much the same fashion as my fancy to use a parachute to catch the exhausts and force of a rocket downside up!....here's link, kinda scary, to youTub clip:
Project Orion
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