American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

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Dave
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Dave » Sun May 08, 2005 6:11 am

A pulsejet hangover, jet lag, a sinus attack and work have delayed my posting to the Form until now. I can only second Chris’ statement: “What a weekend. The setting was beautiful and the engines were amazing. Everyone there was amazing. 13+ of the finest human beings I've ever had the pleasure to meet.â€
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There’s a new Sheriff in town!
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Very useful tools.
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Enjoying the fruit of someone else’s labors.
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Our test site in the distance
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Ah come on, it all has to fit!
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Dave
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Dave » Sun May 08, 2005 6:24 am

Where to buy, what is in my opinion, the simplest and most reliable ignition device of the 2005 Pulse Jet Meet.

http://www.quikliter.com/cgi-bin/store/ ... =Quikliter

Dave

Mike Everman
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Mike Everman » Sun May 08, 2005 8:34 am

Hear hear to that, Dave. When Chris left with the generator and compressed air and AC became scarce, we relied on that sparker and the Rosscojector. There's just no going back to air bottles and gel-cels now. I can't recommend the sparker enough, and it was largely unused in my box until the meet! Rossco's shown us the way to do a demo with only a stinger and a small propane bottle... Faaaaascinating!
Mike Often wrong, never unsure.
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skyfrog
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by skyfrog » Sun May 08, 2005 1:24 pm

I was hoping you guys could show us a group photo. :-)
Long live jet engine !
Horace
Jetbeetle

Dave
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Re: re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Dave » Sun May 08, 2005 2:10 pm

skyfrog wrote:I was hoping you guys could show us a group photo. :-)
There is at least one partial group photo taken on the last day, just not with my camera. Christie (alias Pulse Jet Princess) took one as well as the HD Video version shot by Christian on our last day. The video included a thank you for the vineyard, introductions and a bit of other info (if I remember correctly). Hopefully one or both of those can be posted soon, along with more pictures, data and useful information.

Some of the participants are just now making their way home and, other than the Forum, we do not have a central place to consolidate all the pictures, video and data. Hopefully others will recover from the total experience more quickly than I did and you will start to see more postings soon.

Attached are a couple of pictures to help hold you over until others can post. The first is the closest thing to a group photo I have. Unfortunately, it is only about half of the participants. We basically had one full shop area and at least two test areas running most of the time, so it was almost impossible to keep up with everything that was going on. The second photo proves that it is possible to sleep while pulse jets are running. Combine jet lag and good times with ear protection and it will put you under the table. Sorry PJP, I just couldn’t resist posting this one.

Dave
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Too much of a good thing?
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Partial group photo
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Rossco
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Rossco » Mon May 09, 2005 1:08 am

Hey all.

Great to have some faces, and accents to the postings here now.

Im back, and will be picking up the pieces for a while yet.
Jet lag!!!! bad. were waking up at 3 in the morning here now!
Not a spot of allergies since we landed. I like our air.
We both passed out on the bus, then before take off from LA, slept till dinner, then slept till breakfast, then wandered around NZ for a bit, flew out and had breakfast again. Very disturbing to the body clock.

Chris, its official, mines bigger. CC and all. Ill get the flare bumped out on the intake, and feed some real amount of propane into it and see how it goes. Looks from yours that starting is all about getting just the right fire ball aimed at just the right person.

Good to see that some of you have some more belief in my "tall stories" now. Ill get that "cat guts" fired right up yet!

Dave, you up for some visitors one day? Wed like to get some real sence of the bigger US picture. Im up for crashing in any back, or front garden!
Great to meet you thanks for carting us all around with so much junk, hope the hire van came out OK.
We might take you up on your offer too Ed. Your a caracter! and i wish we had gotten some shots of you dancing to the backfiring engine.

Mike, thanks again! OH, and im sorry, ive still got "access"! promise i wont abuse it. I might send a package sometime soon to you with it included. Ive found a little Esky, the actual brand, so ill have to stick some stuff in and send it for you both, and the boys to get ready for the trip. Please stop over. Ill have to take you for a drive on the other side of the road, and see how you go!

Rossco
Big, fast, broke, fix it, bigger, better, faster...
[url=callto://aussierossco]Image[/url]

hagent
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by hagent » Mon May 09, 2005 5:30 am

Any reason why I can't upload a 2.55 meg zip file?

I just bought my welding stuff. Now I only need tanks...
Hagen Tannberg

Dave
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Dave » Mon May 09, 2005 6:29 am

Rossco

We would love to have visitors, especially those who speak that new and interesting language called English. Might even let you sleep inside, you just have to watch out for my daughters 20 pound attack cat. Niagara Falls is just 45 minutes up the road…

Dave

Bruno Ogorelec
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Re: re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Bruno Ogorelec » Mon May 09, 2005 7:09 am

Larry Cottrill wrote:Well, that's good enough for now. Thank you for your willingness to work with it!
Larry, it was a great privilege! To me, it was double than normal, as I hade not fired an angine with my own hands since 1975 or so. Quite a thrill, really. Thank you for making it happen.

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Re: re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Bruno Ogorelec » Mon May 09, 2005 9:26 am

Dave wrote:A better exchange of information, ideas, culture and conversation in a more picturesque setting would be difficult to imagine. My thanks to all who attended as I gained something special from each and everyone of you.
Dave, I must second that, as well as Chris's assessment. I expected a lot but received so much more. What amazed me was the incredible fact that maybe 15 completely different people spent quite a number of days (some of us as long as a week!) together without a single raised voice, complaint or as much as a black look. In today's mad world, it was an experience to savor.
Dave wrote:Mike: Thank you for your hospitality, your good humor, for finding the perfect location and for inviting a bunch of people you’ve never really met into your inter circle.
Yes, Mike, thank you for holding everything on your shoulders, like Atlas. It would surely have unraveled if you hadn't been everywhere at once at all times doing everything. I wish I had your organizational ability.

Dave, thank you for adding another backbone to the event and helping Mike out. You were truly invaluable at Rancho Escopetta.
Dave wrote:Bruno: O master of Pulse Jet lore and the lessons of life.
Um… the ‘master’ bit has worn out by now, I guess. Looking back, it is quite clear I was the least necessary member of the meet. I was just getting in everyone’s way. The event would not have lost absolutely anything had I stayed at home. It took me just a day or so to realize that, and the rest of the meet just confirmed it.

This is really another measure of the extent to which the forum has matured. In the old days, many participants relied on me to tell them the basics so that they could enter the field properly. By now, however, so much information is available and so many people are knowledgeable that my assistance is hardly necessary. Indeed, I am probably quite far from the top in the knowledge scale by now.
Dave wrote:Rossco and Christie
Well, as Rossco says himself, the wild stories from Down Under will be believed from now on. Yes, gentlemen; to everyone’s amazement, starting the engines without air, running them on ‘turps’, old paint and balled packing tape… it is all true and possible. Indeed, the ‘Rosscojector’ starting method may well have been the pinnacle of the event. I am particularly glad to have seen that, for it confirms my preaching that propane pressure must be used to pump more air into the engine. OK; I was preaching the Bunsen system, but a Rosscojector pushed into the intake is really a kind of a peculiar Bunsen burner, isn’t it?

As for Christie, simple words cannot do the lady justice. We were all in love with her even before her squeals of delight at the dancing jam jars.
Dave wrote:Mikhail
Yes, our ‘Nanosoft’ turned out to be an amazing talent. He simply has a feel for what an engine needs and can seemingly coax life out of anything that consists of cans and pipes. I sure hope he becomes an engineer and designer.
Dave wrote:Bill: While hanging out at Rancho Escopeta I was able to learn enough of the basic ratio’s from you to make my California Hair Dryer sustain. And your engine and test rig,,, impressive!
Yes, Bill has certainly shown us how to approach engine development seriously. To me, the most valuable lesson has probably been Bill’s suggestion that engine thrust figures may well be for entertainment figures only and that we have to look at two things: TSFC, rather than thrust; and at the entire assemblage, rather than the bare engine. We have seen first hand how even a totally primitive, cobbled together thrust augmenter can push thrust of some engines up by 30 or 40 percent, yet do little or nothing on others, or even diminish the thrust in some cases. We have also seen how low loading of an engine can boost TSFC markedly – to the extent that it may well be better to have a bigger engine with low loading than a small engine with high loading. Too bad those wonderful scales misbehaved. I wish we could have measured the TSFC for all the engines whose thrust we have taken.
Dave wrote:Upon arrival home I was mentally and physically worn out, sick from the flight and definitely not ready to go back to work,,, but I’d do it all again in a New York minute.
Well, I can certainly second that. Lufthansa 747 seats are so cramped it’s a torture spending 11 hours pinned down. But, quite perversely, the jet lag is less of a bother now that I have to work under its effect than it was in California, when I was having fun… I’ll never understand that.

OK, who’s on to organize the next meet and where and when?

Are we sure it should be an annual event?

Mike Everman
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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Mike Everman » Mon May 09, 2005 2:34 pm

Thanks for the kind words, all!
And I'm glad to hear everyone is home safe, if frazzled. I'll be looking you up in August, Ross and Christie, if we go to Bris. that is. Bruno, don't be hard on yourself, you're still the one everybody wants to sit next to!

I've just watched the raw HDTV footage of monday's activities, and Chris (the videographer) is having a great time with an edited version I should see this week. I wish he'd gotten there for nighttime activities! Think I'll get him out and run some in darkness as a "reinactment".
Mike Often wrong, never unsure.
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Re: re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by Bruno Ogorelec » Mon May 09, 2005 11:11 pm

Ben wrote:Send me an e-mail with a price and an address, and I'll reimburse you for your shoes.
Bwahahaha... no way! I treasure that experience. It is not every day that you burst into flames among pulsejetting friends.

I purchased an almost identical pair at Five Points the next day and the well-worn and slightly charred old ones ended in the trash bin. I was planning on finally replacing them after years of sterling service anyway.

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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by resosys » Mon May 09, 2005 11:17 pm

Bruno, Ben,

Quit all the crap about not being necessary or contributing. You have and did, even if you had no idea you were. Us Uh-mer-kuns are so sneaky, we had you working, thinking, engineering, welding, bashing, and going on beer runs for us and you don't remember any of it!

Next time, if it's in the US, wear a tin foil cap!


Chris

ed knesl
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Re: re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by ed knesl » Tue May 10, 2005 3:40 am

resosys wrote:Bruno, Ben,

Quit all the crap about not being necessary or contributing. You have and did, even if you had no idea you were. Us Uh-mer-kuns are so sneaky, we had you working, thinking, engineering, welding, bashing, and going on beer runs for us and you don't remember any of it!

Next time, if it's in the US, wear a tin foil cap!


Chris
What is wrong with these guys ?
Obviously, jetlag is bad for humans.

edk
...Nobody is right, nobody is wrong...

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re: American West Coast Pulsejet Meet, April 30

Post by interpilot » Tue May 10, 2005 6:47 am

Pulse Jet '505' .. Hi folks, I'm new here .. but I had the great pleasure of meeting some really cool Global/PulseJetters here in Santa Barbara last week. Wow!! that was awesome! Lot's of pop's & fire .. and Ben .. you are the the star of movie in the beginning. You made it seem all so easy.

I can't tell you just how much I enjoyed meeting you'all ..

I filmed about 2hrs. in hdv. format .. honestly .. I've watched it over & over .. and I've finally edited it down to about 74min. 'Fun Stuff' ..

As soon as I get some 'Time' I'll post some download/able clips to my website: interpilotfilms.com .. if you are interested in the full docudrama movie 'Pulse Jet 505' just let me know! Michael has suggested that some procedes for this movie go to a pulsejet scholorship program. I think that's great .. I know that the real inventers are in basements in Wisconsin and Iowa in january and and aren't thinking about how much money their going to make, but how much fun it is to invent something!

Thanks again for a great time Pulser's!!

Christian Andersen ..

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