@Federico funny answer: aviation.stackexchange.com/a/13048/14897 (the good kind) :D

how can a user remain (unregistered) for +3 yrs :o amazing dedication to not clear the browser cookies :D

What is it that makes cars so heavy compared to planes? I found that a 4-seat C172 weighs about 300 lbs less than a tiny 2-seat Smart car. Is it just a tougher structure, thicker metal, crumple zones etc. for crash safety?

@TomMcW For one, cost/weight trade is different. They are willing to spend more to shed weight, such as using aluminum or composites instead of steel. And yeah, crashworthiness means pretty different things for each one.

Part of the interesting stuff that keeps flying cars from being more practical.

hi @KorvinStarmast , even older users make mistakes and ask easy questions then realize it: aviation.stackexchange.com/q/32173/14897 -- my point is, if everyone horned their google-fu people will have nothing to talk about, a simple question also may bring people over from different fields and they learn something and appreciate it--there are yes subjectively stupid questions, but even those we learn from

@TomMcW sports cars go for aerospace materials :D $$$

@ymb1 What's the curb weight of a Ferrari F40?

@TomMcW here's a stupid question, have I used the verb horned correctly?

I think I'm confusing it with a similar sounding word

@TomMcW I will check but can't you find something that is newer and not from the 80's :P

@ymb1 Honed

@TomMcW thanks :D

@fooot Afaik a C172 doesn't use any fancy schmancy alloys. Just plain aluminum. I saw one yesterday with the entire front end off, engine, cowl, even the firewall. It just looked so flimsy like that

@ymb1 I like the older ones better :) What's a really light one? Btw , honed is sharpened. Horned, as in "horned in" is like cutting in line

@TomMcW I like older cars too! check the latest Corvette, lots of carbon and aluminum

@ymb1 Those new vettes are really nice looking! My wife hates them for some reason

@TomMcW she has a point according to Silicon Valley :D

@ymb1 Lol! I agree, the fedora was too much!

True story: in high school I came horrifyingly close to taking out a Lamborghini Countach with my Chevy Blazer. So close that the entire car disappeared from view beneath the hood because it was so low to the ground

:D

@TomMcW I once answered about car vs acft engines, I recall mentioning that F1 cars are ~600 kg and pack +1,000 hp

> Formula One engines have small displacement, very light weight, yet deliver near a 1,000 hp. But they don't last long either. Something like 15 hours of racing and practice sessions. @TomMcW

take the aerospace like structure, with a sturdy engine, and you can have an 800 kg car

problem is, no one wants cheap engine in an aerospace shell

@ymb1 The weight is all engine?

@TomMcW the F1 engine weights are more classified that DARPA projects :D but it's a fair portion

@TomMcW what I mean is you can have a Camry engine, in the most badass aluminum / carbon chassis / shell, and no one would want it, so we end up with cars all around 1,500 kg

@ymb1 Military secrets are nothing next to trade secrets :)

super engine + light chassis = light day-to-day engine + heavy chassis

but $$$$$$$ > $

@ymb1 But the whole point of building cars like the Smart is fuel economy. The lighter they get it the better. They're obviously not using super materials, but neither is a 172. And you could practically park the Smart inside the 172

@TomMcW how much does a Smart key-cha— ehem car weigh?

The sheet metal on that Cessna was paper thin. I'm assuming that's a large part of it

I agree, planes don't play bumper cars too often

I think the Smart goes for about 18,000 usd. Btw, I call them roller skates. Dealer tried to show me one once and I told him I'd have to buy two - one for each foot

I don't think I can fit in one

@ymb1 I sat in a 1980's model Porsche 911 once. I'm not sure I could have driven it safely the way I was crammed in there

@TomMcW worst car ride for me was a mini-cooper :'D

the new one, early 2000's luckily I wasn't driving (couldn't drive it if I wanted to)

@ymb1 I don't think that lowering standards is the way to go. Part of the point of an SE site is the high signal to noise ratio. My 2004 CooperS was a good little car. Bought it used in 2009. Sad to see it go a couple of years ago, wife no longer liked it. :(

@KorvinStarmast Huh... I mean, one the one hand, I guess so. On the other hand, if you can point to any SE that actually does that, I'd love to see it.

@KorvinStarmast - it's good to think of av.se like that, but as my recent meta post about FAR 23 shows, we are not the definitive source of information

@KorvinStarmast this one aviation.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3368/14897

> I'd worry if a flight test team came here for the takeoff regs.

@JayCarr Standards are only kept up if people bother to keep standards up. That's what community modding is about.

@KorvinStarmast community modding maintains the Be Nice policy, unlike YouTube, reddit, social sites, etc, I'll share an example:

@JayCarr It's a never ending struggle, but it's an effort worth making otherwise an SE is no different than any other noise basket on the internet.

before the example, what 5-person team collectively can have the knowledge to make decisions about factuality? There is not one single person on the Boeing 747 team or the Curiosity rover team who understands every single part

@KorvinStarmast Right, SE is no different than any other noise basket on the internet. Full stop.

@KorvinStarmast early in my SE days, way back, I raised a flag about a wrong answer, and got a response that made sense to me (btw my only declined flag):

> flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer

And, as I pointed out on a question you posed to the mods, the community of SE has no will to change that.

@ymb1 Had the question on 447 shown a reference to the report, I'd not have responded as I did. Given the number of times I"ve read that report, there are still a lot of good questions anyone can have after having read it.

@KorvinStarmast , the how can this be?!, refer to my point about the 747 or the mars lander

I made some suggestions at one point and was summarily told that if I didn't like it, I was free to make my own site.

@JayCarr was my question a while back? I think I may need to go and revisit that for reference. brb

@KorvinStarmast - AF report aside, if you agree the answer to this what 5-person team collectively can have the knowledge to make decisions about factuality? is no team can, then we are on the same page and we can enjou the troll-free site

@KorvinStarmast I...don't know what you are referencing. I was referencing the question you wrote up to the prospective mods that you made either today or yesterday. And then I reference a post I made well over a year ago.

@JayCarr my issue about misinformation was an answer, not a question, but it was a proposed mod question. Got it.

@KorvinStarmast Yes, sorry for the confusion.

@KorvinStarmast - the voting system up/down usually buries the wrong answers

I sympathize with your point, but I don't think you're going to get anywhere with it on SE. All SE is is a "wisdom of the crowd" setup glossed over with a veneer of expertise.

@KorvinStarmast - but, if you can, i.e., if you know about a topic, you can comment on the wrong answer so it can be improved, or post the right one

If the community on a particular stack is terrible at their subject, all answers will be terrible. But since they support each other in being terrible, it will never change.

@JayCarr I am reading your meta post now. thanks.

@KorvinStarmast lol, the responses I got on that one.... sigh

It's why I've been gone for over a year...

@ymb1 The issue with this is that people often don't read past the first post. If it looks reasonable, they just upvote. The worst part is that if the correct answer is to difficult for the lay person to understand, they will often vote for the simpler explanation because it is easier to grasp.

Throw on top of that the fact that nothing on this site can be immediately tested (as it can be on Stack Overflow, as an example) and you have the makings of a very serious possible problem.

But I'm convinced the problem has no solution.

And the only real answer the the whole issue is to accept that Aviation.SE can't really be considered authorative. shrug. But that's fine. I only ever come here for general concepts anyway.

But it does make it less appealing to professionals who actual need the answer to be accurate... just saying.

@JayCarr Thanks, I've followed up on my question, I still feel the same, and our community either will or won't take my question seriously.

@KorvinStarmast They won't, I guarantee it. You can either accept that, or you can't. Trust me, I've been there, I hate it, I wish it were different. But that's just how this site is set up.

If you happen to know a dozen coders who want to make a site that actually functions though, send them my way ;).

@JayCarr If I do, I'll do just that. I sometimes speak up when something bugs me. I'll not stop doing that, but I also need to be realistic about the environment I am in. Thanks.

@KorvinStarmast Hey, if you don't say anything, you never find out. I think it's a good attitude, hopefully one day you're voice will be the deciding factor in the struggle towards greater reason :).

Yay! We aren't last place!

;)

There's a lot of great information on this site. It's just important to recognize it's limits.

@JayCarr I don't disagree, but it goes the other way too. Just look at some of the answers by Peter Kämpf. People see a lot of math/citations and are impressed enough to upvote. Fortunately when people go to all that effort they tend to be right or willing to correct it.

But the site is also about providing useful answers. Even if you're right, if no one can understand it, it's not useful to them. And on popular questions a lot still hinges on who posts first and who has the pretty pictures.

@JayCarr sorry for the downtime, RE The issue with this is that people often don't read past the first post. Why does it bother anyone? Someone looking for information will invest time to exercise their index finger and scroll-down a bit more. A good example to what you are saying is this post: aviation.stackexchange.com/q/33269/14897 I remember it because I commented

I also remember it because accidental porn (the image i put together) :D

I'm not referring to fooot's answer, I am referring to the attitude of a passer-by

@JayCarr - re meta post Then we should have expert reviews of flagged answers The Joker says to not do something for free if you're good at it :'D

i think the intention of almost everyone here is to help, even if we sometimes (me, me, me) make mistakes

@JayCarr - btw, I share your concerns, an idea I thought of is like Wikipedia, if you don't like a line or paragraph, just have a system to insert [citation needed] and be on your way

@ymb1 Huh, that is not a bad option, honestly. I wonder why they don't do it. It would be in line, and it would quickly alert folks that something is amiss.

I like it, you should suggest it.

@JayCarr - I'm not on META, feel free to suggest it if you're active there :)

P.S. I hate that each site is separate, but hey, I like other things :)

@ymb1 Oh, I've had enough of suggesting things on Meta for one lifetime.

Literally everything I've put on there has been downvoted. Granted, it's all of two things, but still...the pain, it is real.

@JayCarr - ok, read your post, and checked the dupe, the dupe is well received, and it shows mods have citation needed tools, so maybe the downvotes on your post are because of the dupe?

@ymb1 Trust me, it's not a dupe, I went to great lengths to explain it wasn't a dupe. I read the other post they referenced and, yes, it sound similar. But there are key differences

Really wish anyone had actually read the **** thing.

@JayCarr maybe I didn't read the dupe carefully enough, I read yours very well and I don't mind it, sorry can't UV, I'm not there :) but, what also needs considering is the The Joker joke I made above, sometimes I feel the need to tag X to take a look at the mess I wrote, but who am I to say X has time to check said mess, especially if they don't come here in chat. the idea of a second competing site, and with the right revenue, perhaps with academic collaboration and a student/teacher user pool

the reviewer would be able to answer and be compensated as a job

@ymb1 That'd be cool if universities started doing something like that. One can always hope.

MIT have a lot of non-private pages online on many things aero

they're quite nice

for the lurking pilots

is this a valid circling I drew:

@JayCarr - on second thought, even some professors from first hand experience and from told-stories, globally there are not-so-proficient teachers with lots of degrees, they may not even what they are talking about

I'm pretty sure everyone came across said bad teachers

@JayCarr what if the go-to source is all messed up? just revised an answer with new sources: aviation.stackexchange.com/a/29358/14897

@ymb1 It's more about reducing the risk of bad information, you can't really eliminate it.

@fooot cleared my election comment too :)

@JayCarr maybe we need to start with where it's really bad, but then we'll delve into a very risky territory (I gave up long ago trying to have constructive discussions on misconceptions and wrong info), by the extension of that no one is innocent

@JayCarr growing up I thought pilots knew a lot about planes (especially the ones they fly), only to realize first officers etc cram for their recurrent and don't know everything in the FCOM's etc--there's so much the brain can know and with a degree of certainty. If what we learn becomes memories, memories have been proven to be fallible

end of semi-rant

hey there @ymb1 and @JayCarr

Howdy!

@ymb1 Very true.

how're things going?

@Shalvenay hey there, all good

hey as well @fooot

@Shalvenay hey

how're things going?