Woo-hoo!    I was telling my buddy Rodger today about how sweet that car is going to be! 

It's nice to have friends who make the rules LOL!

From what I could see, the "shingle" (smooth stones) and sand ridge are pretty much gone.  The picture shows low tide, and the D-Day assault was conducted close to high tide.  That ridge of sand and shingle would have been where the sea walls are now.

Since the war, the village has definitely swallowed up a lot of beach above the tide line.  There are some excellent museums in the area.  When you see the diagram of the beach as it was, then look outside and see it now, the difference becomes apparent.

Jay - Funny you should mention the V-1 launchers.  At my French family reunion in Normandy a few weeks ago, my mom and her brothers and sisters were telling stories about life as refugees during the German occupation.  (The Gestapo had commandeered their home, since it sat on top of the hill overlooking the town.)  They had to hide in barns and neighbors' houses, but their main "home" was a large cave made from a pile of boulders deep in the woods.

The Germans had built a couple of V-1 launcher rails not far away in those woods.  My relatives described the sound of the V-1's launching as a terrifying screech and buzz.  Then it only got worse when the Allies started bombing the area.  Imagine being an elementary school-aged kid living in a cave with all of that stuff going on! 

Meanwhile my dad was a chief petty officer on a U.S. Navy cruiser in the Pacific.  His stories mainly involve bombarding Iwo Jima and Okinawa, with the occasional Kamikaze plane getting in amongst the ships.  Nothing like the stories of those aviators over Europe, or those infantrymen going ashore.

Speaking of going ashore, here's a shot I took at Omaha Beach:

I'm an engineer with a background in aeronautical and control systems.  I too have been following this story closely! 

As the systems become more complex, how do we ensure that a pilot has what he needs in an emergency?  I don't know...  Remember the Aeroperu 757 that crashed because maintenance had taped over the pitot-static ports?

http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_details.cgi?date=10021996&reg=N52AW&airline=Aeroperu

There are lots of big brains working on this problem, but I don't see how you can manage every failure mode on such a massive system.  Could a battery-powered GPS device be an effective last-ditch information source, as it was for Kerry?

Hi guys -

Nope, I didn't do an FEA study of these rockers.  I'd be curious to have a look at them though.  Did they break under the fulcrum or out towards the arm?

I'm just resurfacing after a trip to Europe (and then a flog to catch up on my work!)

- Bill

Woot!  Looking good Jay.  That intake is going to be very cool.

Glad you're making progress on the car at the same time too.

I've finished my new spin test cell.  It's very stealthy:



Then you open the first door and things start to look unusual:



The second door reveals the insulated room:



Here's a better view inside the cell (with the machine fitted, before I put in the acoustical tile):



Now the acoustical tile and thick rubber floor are in:




I remembered your advice a while back about building test cells.  Well, I went one step further and independently framed the room slightly spaced away from the existing structure.  Everything is double insulated with thick foam - about 18 inches total with the independent double doors to seal it off. 

The results are amazing!  I ran the machine at 8,700 rpm and the noise reduction is about 35 dB.  You can hardly tell the machine is running when you're outside the building.  Inside, you can have a quiet normal conversation with only a dull drone to remind you of what's happening.

The machine looks big in there, but I'm redesigning the frame to be half its current size.  It will be designed to mount a block directly at about half the current height as well.  That will leave plenty of room to walk around in there with the machine.  Testing will be done with the operator outside the cell, with a webcam and controls outside to do everything.

Jay -

Per my copies of factory sideoiler block drawings (bought from Dave Shoe), the stagger distance from the left bank to right bank on the FE is 0.880 inch.

Hope this helps!

Nice work Jay!  The car is really starting to shape up.