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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:18 pm 
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Location: Norway/Japan
Switzerland drives on the right.

-Tor


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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:42 pm 
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Tor wrote:
Switzerland drives on the right.

-Tor

But they run trains on the left. Seems logical! :shock:

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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:43 pm 
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I've noticed that planes board on the left, as if they too drive on the left. It seems only natural to me!


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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:13 pm 
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BigEd wrote:
I've noticed that planes board on the left, as if they too drive on the left. It seems only natural to me!

Well, the captain does sit on the left side of the cockpit. It gets more confusing if the first officer is flying the plane.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:23 pm 
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Interesting!
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At the end of the World War I, most fighter aircraft were designed and fitted with rotary engines. When it came to steering these rotary-engine aircraft, turning to the left was easier because it followed the torque of the engine, whereas turning to the right was harder, as it was against the torque (twisting) forces. Hence, it would require more rudder movement to compensate for the forces. Because of this, pilots chose to turn left as a more convenient manoeuvre and thus, most traffic patterns in the air around airfields involved mainly left turns.

When bigger planes were designed with side-to-side seating, the co-pilot was made to sit on the right. The left-hand seat was made exclusively for the captain. It comes with complete flight instruments and controls. This seat also afforded better visibility with the assumption that more frequent left turns are made during the flight.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:46 pm 
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BigEd wrote:
Interesting!
Quote:
At the end of the World War I, most fighter aircraft were designed and fitted with rotary engines. When it came to steering these rotary-engine aircraft, turning to the left was easier because it followed the torque of the engine, whereas turning to the right was harder, as it was against the torque (twisting) forces. Hence, it would require more rudder movement to compensate for the forces.

Adding insult to injury with the rotary engines, which had a lot of flywheel mass due to the rotating crankcase and cylinder assembly, making too abrupt a turn would overstress the airframe due to gyroscopic effects, and the engine and propeller assembly would break off. The sudden change in the aircraft's center-of-gravity would cause it to violently pitch up, go into a stall and crash. Very few pilots managed to regain control in time to do anything other than auger in.

Engine torque is still a factor in today's reciprocating aircraft, especially during takeoff, but more manageable due to better flight controls.

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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 8:38 am 
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BigDumbDinosaur wrote:
But they run trains on the left. Seems logical! :shock:

I don't see any reason why trains should drive on the same side as road vehicles, since they use completely separate medium of transportations. By the way cable cars runs sometimes on either side, by the way, and some types of them such as funiculars alternate their direction of running every time.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 8:42 am 
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Good point about funiculars - I hadn't thought of that.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 11:05 am 
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Apparently French trains mostly drive on the left, but German trains on the right:
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In most countries, the “rule of the road” for trains is the same as for road traffic. For example, in England, where cars drive on the left of the road, trains run on the left hand of a pair of rail tracks, while in Germany, where cars drive on the right, trains use the right hand track of the pair. France is an exception to this rule. Cars drive on the right, but trains run on the left. This is because the early railways were mainly built using British expertise and standard equipment “out of the box”. No major operational problems are caused by this discrepancy, but it did give rise to an oddity: between the end of Franco-Prussian war of 1871 and the end of the First World War, the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine formed part of the German Empire, and during this time their lines were converted to right-hand running. When the provinces were returned to France in 1919, right hand running was left in place. To cope with the change from left hand to right hand running at places where there was no necessity to stop for a border crossing, a number of flyovers or sauts de mouton (literally, “sheep jumps”) were installed whose sole purpose was to take one running line over the top of another in the opposite direction.

The Paris Métro also runs on the right; this is believed to be because the first lines, opened at the beginning of the 20th century, were closely based on electric tram technology and operation. Paris trams of course had to run on the right when operating in the streets.


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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 5:18 pm 
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Look at all the off-topic discussion I started! :lol:

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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 5:22 pm 
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Bregalad wrote:
...some types of them such as funiculars alternate their direction of running every time.

Indeed, as the weight of the descending car counterbalances the ascending one.

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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 9:02 pm 
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Despite all the cool stuff he did around computing I was always impressed that Babbage also invented the cow catcher for the front of locomotives.

Simon

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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 9:05 pm 
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I really recommend his memoirs - the descent into a volcano is great.


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 Post subject: Re: Leaping Forward
PostPosted: Fri Jul 03, 2015 1:08 am 
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Simon wrote:
Despite all the cool stuff he did around computing I was always impressed that Babbage also invented the cow catcher for the front of locomotives.

Which, despite the name, usually killed cattle, not catch them. :roll:

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