New GAMA website

[doug8082a]

GAMA has a new media website to help inform the public about GA. Among the content is a section that lists performance specs for all GA aircraft. I looked up the 170 and it lists the speed as 511 knots! Woohoo! that must be a different kind of "knot" then what I'm used to using... kinda like the dog years vs. human years thing

http://www.gama.aero/mediaCenter/mediaG ... action=add

[170C]

I used to fly C-140's ragwing & A models. I never saw a 138 mph going straight down with them. I can't speak from personal experience, but I have my doubts about any of the C-180's going 170 mph.

Geeze I wish these folks would get this nautical /boat mentality out of their systems! My plane airpspeed indicator is in MPH's. No where does it or the owners manual refer to knots! As far as I am concerned knots are NOTS!! Get a boat if you want to use knots. Its another situation where "WE" have to become more worldly/global as in calling our TCA's (Terminal Control Areas), which made some common sense, class B. Lets let the rest of the world change to OUR way for a change.

(Sorry about the tirade.)

My $.01 worth.

PS: Thanks for the info on GAMA.

[blueldr]

I sure do agree with "OLE POKEY" on our "New" abbreviations.
We have more airplanes and pilots here in just California than all of Europe and Africa combined. For the life of me, I can't immagine why we are letting the tail wag the dog.

[GAHorn]

Well, knots makes sense to me but....that may just be me. (All the rest of our navigation is done by virtue of nautical knowlege...why knot speed?)
But ditto on the "rest of the world" stuff. I don't understand how the country that pioneers virtually ALL the advances in aviation...the country with the MOST aviation activites in the entire world....has lowered the standards for the rest of the world but made it more difficult for the largest flying population in the world---the U.S. pilot.
Back when I started flying we had teletype machines that abbreviated weather with symbology which would shorten the required keystrokes and therefore the required paper, printing time and transmission speed of weather reports. ( A simple 0 was a clear sky. an 0 with a / thru it was scattered. 0 with // thru it was broken and 0 with + superimposed (looked like the view thru a rifle-scope) was overcast. Couldn't get any simpler than that.
But what did they do? When computers came out and things got faster and "simpler" they started using "clr, scttrd, brkn, and ovcst" as if those somehow were easier to understand. Bunch of B.S.
Then, so the foreign students over here learning to fly could understand it....they started using FRENCH!! Instead of simply using the power of the computer to say "Mist"...they now use what they think is a more accurte and easy-to-comprehend, faster-to-transmit "BR"...(which by the way doesn't stand just for "mist" but also can mean drizzle, fog, or other indistinct precipitation!) Yeah. THAT really cleared things up a lot didn't it!!! Really sped things up in this slow, ol', computer world, ...huh? Makes weather comprehension MUCH better for the most populous of all pilot groups...the American taxpayer. Right? !!!
When, oh WHEN will we quit trying to please the rest of the world here at home, while we continue to aggravate them abroad?

[Roesbery]

BR = Mist, moisture in the air visability more than one half statute mile, and 6 miles or less visability. FG = Fog, moisture in the air visability 1/2 mile or less. DZ = Drizzle, light moisture falling from the sky reducing visability. Usually combined with BR as DZBR (Drizzle and Mist) As for where this BS comes from, just a example of who is really pulling the strings behind our government agencies.