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Ummm...about 5,000$, give or take a 1,000 or so. My parents have spent about 2500 so far on my lessons.
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I just got some crunchy tacos from taco bell.. and they shells were so destroyed I had to eat them with a spoon!! IDK if the guy in the back threw the shells on the ground and jumped on 'em a few times cause his gf left him or what....
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Ummm...about 5,000$, give or take a 1,000 or so. My parents have spent about 2500 so far on my lessons.

$5,000? I might just have to look into that. Pretty darn reasonable for that kind of experience.

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Yeah, with lessons about 100 dollars an hour, its not bad. That pays for instructor, and rent of the plane, which includes the gas, insurance, etc. And with a minimum of 50 hours instruction, that comes out to about 5 grand. Of course, you will fly more than that before getting a license, but thats the minimum you pay.

And, as you said, its worth a lot more than what you pay. I can't wait until I get my license; I have people at school who want to go fly, and I have relatives living in nearby states. And so many people are jealous that I am getting my license B)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j3llwlwJpg

Woot, get my 3rd class physical, and I can solo in a few weeks.

 

Nice landing! When you solo, you're going to look to the right, see an empty seat, and s**t a mental brick, but you'll know what to do, and it'll be a high point in your life.

 

Most instructors do it this way: When you are close to solo, on a nice day with light winds, you'll fly a few patterns; then, he'll have you pull over and simply hop out and say "have fun!" It comes as a bit of a shock to many. Take a few deep breaths and taxi away for your solo ride! Be ready for it. You'll know when it's about to happen. When the IP talks very little, doesn't touch anything for a couple of circuits, it's coming! B)

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Yeah, I can't wait to solo :D

And on the random side, here's a cool website: damninteresting.com

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I came across several yards of very thin copper(I believe) wire that should work very well in bridgewire detonators. It is the wire used in wire-guided missiles. It is fairly strong so that is a plus, it should make soldering it a bit more practical. Now I am going to have to learn how to micro-solder.

 

The max range for a TOW is 3,700(I think) some odd meters.. If that gives you an idea of how many "several yards" I came across...

Edited by RUUUUUN
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I was thinking of trying out a Hydrogen Peroxide engine. I only just came up with this idea, but I read a little about H2O2 rocket fuels (from wikipedia... I know. I know) and it said that a silver wire mesh screen can act as the catalyst for H2O2 into water and O2.

Considering it is only the catalyst, the silver wire itself shouldn't be too heavily damaged, should it? I'd rather not spend tons of money on just the silver wire catalyst, when I know all of the rocket engine tests, hydrogen peroxide and such alone will not be cheap. In addition, if it's not tarnishing or something, could I simply use silver PLATED wire? This is a shitload cheaper, and it seems to me it should work fine...

 

This is a purely hypothetical thought, who knows if I'll actually get around to doing this, but it would be cool.

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im starting to play with sodium percarbonate and an acid and manganese dioxide. so far i have decided on bporic acid beacuse it has a fairly decent H+ to mass ratio. so far i can get a tube to swim around in water. its a type of peroxide engine i guess
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hey guys havnt been around lately but just wanted to stop in and say hi forum has definitely changed a little bit....i wish i could get back into the hobby
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Long time no see, How's life?

 

Nice avatar LOL!!!!!

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SrNO3 is salvageable by drying it out the oven, correct? I have had an open container of it out in the shed for a month or two, and it has white crystals on the top. The unexposed stuff looks fine, though. I assume that this is some sort of reaction with water.
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SrNO3 is salvageable by drying it out the oven, correct? I have had an open container of it out in the shed for a month or two, and it has white crystals on the top. The unexposed stuff looks fine, though. I assume that this is some sort of reaction with water.

Yep.

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Thanks, Ritchee.

Hooray, I get to donate blood for the second time ever on Monday! I almost can't donate, cause I'm about 6ft, 120 pounds. Anybody else here donate at least once a year?

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My school has 2 or 3 blood drives a year, so I donate at them when I can. I've been to 2 so far (before that I was too young). Wow, you are really light haha. I'm about 6 ft, 155 lbs and I thought I was fairly skinny! Edited by scarbelly
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Lol. I can almost fit my hand around my biceps, there's a half-inch space inbetween thumb and middlefinger. My ribs stick out even when I'm just relaxing; I can laze around the whole summer, stuffing my face, and I won't gain a pound. It's quite nice, really. The only problem is that I can't build muscle very well. We weight-lift for XC, but I don't get that much stronger. All that happens is that my abs and legs tighten up a bit.
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Wow, that's impressive. I know a guy that I would explain in pretty much the same way as you just described yourself.

 

You weight lift for cross country? I've always thought that for long distance running, muscle is more of a detriment than an aid?

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Well, we don't lift like a lot, around 3 at the end of practice. It does help some because you do need some upper body strength. We also do calisthenics and such. If you look at really good distance runners, they do have noticeable upper-body muscles. XC is the only time of the year where my abs or biceps actually look like they exist <_<
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Yeah I guess that's true. It's only bad once you get to the point of being "huge" (muscular-wise).

 

I just did some calculations, and I calculated that for a 1 gallon mill jar (231 cubic inches) 127 inches of 1/2" cylindrical rod or 57 inches of 3/4" cylindrical media would be used to fill it about half full (Those amount to 100 cubic inches each if I'm correct, which I figure would be extra if you account for the empty space between media). When I translated these numbers into individual pieces of media, it comes out at 250 pieces of 1/2" media and only 76 pieces of 3/4" media. I feel like this cannot be correct, can someone help me out and tell me what I'm doing wrong with this calculation?

 

And btw, thank you for being veterans all you veterans out there.

Edited by scarbelly
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Those values are not correct. You will need to at least double if not triple those values. I think I at one point calculated that there is about 60% filled, and 40% empty space in that "half full" value. So that is 76 in^3.

 

With this value, which is actually less than your estimate, I got 171 linear inches (229 3/4" x 3/4" pieces) for 3/4". I got 388 linear inches (775 1/2" x 1/2" pieces) for 1/2". Emperically I know it takes around 150 3/4" x 1" long pieces to fill a gallon jar, and somewhere around 750 (I think) .50 caliber lead balls to fill the same volume, so the calculations should be vaguely close to reality. It might be better to back calculate the filling percentage from the empirical data.

 

I suspect there was something wrong with your radii. Remember it is pi r^2 for area. r is .375" and .25" for these media.

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Ahhhh thank you very much.

Yeah I was using the diameters instead of the radii. I'm kind of surprised I didn't notice it as I've done calculations like this before.

 

Another question:

Does anybody remember which stainless steel alloys can be used to mill black powder? I remember hearing somewhere that it was the 300 series. Is that correct?

 

EDIT: Nevermind, I found it. #316 is apparently the best for it's sparking resistance and corrosion resistance

Edited by scarbelly
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Lol. I can almost fit my hand around my biceps, there's a half-inch space inbetween thumb and middlefinger. My ribs stick out even when I'm just relaxing; I can laze around the whole summer, stuffing my face, and I won't gain a pound. It's quite nice, really. The only problem is that I can't build muscle very well. We weight-lift for XC, but I don't get that much stronger. All that happens is that my abs and legs tighten up a bit.

 

Lucky you....I'm the complete opposite. I have had to fight my weight my whole life, I take Karate, I lived on a farm growing up, and I walk at least 2 miles a day on campus....but yet I still gain weight. In fact I have gained 50 pounds in the last 2 years. It was getting out of control although I am beginning to get it under control, have lost almost 15 pounds in the last month. I'm currently 5'8" and 200 pounds....I carry my weight really well though, nobody would guess thats what I weighed if they saw me.

 

I'm not aloud to donate blood because I have Mad Cow disease. :P Not really.....but its possible. My great grandmother dies of Kruds Felts Jacobs Disease (the name for Mad Cow in humans). Since it can sometimes be passed genetically through generations there is a possibility that she passed it on to us. No one in my family since her has showed any signs or has any reason to think we have it but I guess it can stay dormant for years and show up in old age, or be carriers. So until one of her descendants gets checked for Mad Cow we aren't allowed to give blood. Oh and if you were wondering why none of us has got checked?...there is only one test that can determine if you have Mad Cow....an autopsy. ;)

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Ok. Charcoal fountains. I have heard that C6 and C8 are good for them, and TT is too slaggy. Is this true; and would you guys reccomend C6 or C8?
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C8.

 

I've been trying to find the Dirty Jobs episode where Mike visits a firework factory, its over 30 minutes of all the tasks a pyro goes through. So far I can only find it in foreign languages...

Does anyone know where I could find it?

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