Stijn!!

[Rick V]

I flew to St Louis and then drove to Rolla, I have seen more of that state than I ever care to. What a not to my liking place it is

[porsche4life]

St. Louis to rolla really isn't that far either. I've driven all over MO. Haven't found a bit I liked much either.

[Rick V]

The frog in Rolla was about the only thing I found cool

[flipper35]

Joe, as Sid says, the stuff from Horizon is pretty decent stuff. I still think you need something that shoots back at you. Though i would put a safety glass on the front of the ACOG. I have seen lesser optics get broken in an airsoft battle. Would hate to have it dinged.

As I was ranting about stability control earlier, I hate it. If I am taking a corner at speed and want to drift to the outside and it brakes the inside front and kills power. To me it is just as dangerous because now the car is doing something unexpected. It should be off by default. Doesn't help in the snow either.

I would like the radar cruise control for the four lane. Not to follow someone, but so it will slow down until I can pass and not have to mess with cancel and resume.

[GH85Carrera]

My cars have no traction control or even ABS. They are 100% manual with the exception of power brakes and power steering on the Elky. I always wondered why every rear wheel drive car did not have limited slip or posi-traction until I converted the Elky to limited slip. If you are just a little careless going around a corner in wet or slick condition you will be going backwards in a hurry. Making a right hand turn from a stop onto a 50 MPH road in the rain is not for a beginner driver.

Again, I see the advantage of the day we can get in a car and just ell it to take me home or to the grocery store. Especially for older drivers or vision impaired drivers.

[Rick V]

The Boxster and MB have trac gizmos but Lanna and Peggy are raw and neither are fans of bad moods and wet roads

[flipper35]

I had a big block Coronet with a Sure-Grip rear end. It was nasty bad if it was slick out. The Sure-Grip is locked and unlocks a bit in tighter turns. The Cobra has limited slip but it has enough power both tires spin anyway. Even when it had a open diff.

The Ramcharger was a great car for when other people are stupid, which is sadly very often it seems. It was a beat up old truck and if they wanted to run into it it was their prerogative. The only time it let me down was when I sank it up to the running boards in mud. We had to tie my uncle's truck to a tree and run the winch line back and forth a couple times because the 8000# winch couldn't pull it out otherwise. We tried a snatch strap on an S10 Blazer first, but it just bent his truck. Had to drain all the oils, diffs, transfer case, oil pan. Got crap in the u-joints and the center joint on the front shaft let loose some time later.

[Rick V]

My ramharger never failed me, I wish I still had that engine, It would be awesome in Peggy with her NP801 tranny

[RKDinOKC]

I like the PSD differential on my GTS. It's uses inputs of speed, direction, accelerometers, and steering input to determine whether to and/or how much to lock up the rear differential. It also works in conjunction with the ABS that is programed for maximum braking, not just keeping the fronts from locking up. The system is not intrusive at all.

The Cayenne S is another story. PSM won't let it slide or drift. Even if you turn it off, it comes back on when you hit the brakes. Takes some getting used to. But, then again, despite what some do with them, the Cayenne is NOT a track vehicle. It is the tow vehicle to take the track car to the track. On the cars, PSM is supposed to let the car drift up up 15 degrees before overriding driver input.

My 81 GMC Jimmy was full time 4 wheel drive. The rear end was positrack and the transfer case was limited slip. With the big tires, if you made enough turns in the same direction it would take up all the slip between the rear wheels and one front wheel and stop dead in it's tracks and kill the engine. You would have to back up, staighten it out and go forwards and back a few times to reset the slip lock to continue on turning in that same direction. It usually happened when trying to turn into a parking spot after cruising round and round all in the same turn direction. Did happen once when i was just turning a corner though.

Drove a Boxster with TC, not PSM and it was mostly brakes and throttle to keep you out of trouble, and very intrusive when trying to drive fast. TC did not allow for any drift.

[flipper35]

Mine had a 318 but with the transfer case on that one anything very big would have exposed it as the weak link.

If I ever build the block I have in the Garage, you can have the 360 out of the Cobra cheap. Hughes has built a few 408 strokers in the 485hp/525tq range and he isn't too far from me. Would be perfect in a 2400# car. Mine is only 406hp/435tq now. Or it was with the hybrid manifold. It was an experiment from the Dodge boys plant in Beaver Dam. It has an Air Gap now and the bottom end is a lot better.

[flipper35]

Our Durango is awesome at drifting on damp or snowy surfaces. You can hold it sideways all day long if you want.

Richard, the 928 sounds more reasonable than the car slapping you along side the head saying knock it off.

[RKDinOKC]

I remember when PSM first came out on the 911. Porsche had an informercial thing where they had race drivers doing laps with and without the PSM. The drivers commented that PSM felt intrusive and they did not like it. But, they would use PSM even though they didn't like because it was faster than without.

[azzarule]

well they just said that the first city to go below $2 a gallon will be Oklahoma City, lucky ducks.

[RKDinOKC]

Not yet

I got gas...heh heh, heh heh.

[nynor]

i cannot imagine some sort of auto driver in the snow around here. no way would i let a computer drive for me, especially in the snow.

[Rick V]

I am actually very impressed with the computer control on the Mercedes, put it in winter mode and you lose power, first and overdrive and if you hit the brakes hard enough you lose abs. It actually works well and I don't really have much faith in these types of systems

[nynor]

what i am talking about is a full auto-pilot in the snow.

[RKDinOKC]

In 1991 I visited the American Airlines command and logistics center in Dallas right after they first got it set up. That is where they did all the flight plans, weather, etc. They said they have the capability to fly the planes autonomously, and pretty much did so. The pilot merely picked 1 of the 3 flight plans offered, the computer system did the rest. Was told they made cargo flights all the time with no pilots on board. But they didn't think they would ever get any passengers if they knew there was no pilot.

The also had a very sophisticated communication system for the day. Said they could take over and fly any plane remotely.

The AA logistics center did most of the scheduling for all the other airlines. The system was called Sabre Net. Thru a friend working to put the system together I got a login for the Sabre Net.
About that time my Mom flying in from Harlingen to OKC. Went to pick her up and she wasn't on the flight. Went home logged into the Sabre Net and searched for her NAME up. It showed she was on a different flight number because of a changeover in Houston and would be arriving on that flight instead. There was an option to see where the plane was, but Longitude and Latituded didn't do me much good at the time as there was no Google Maps. She arrived on the flight the Sabre Net said she would and on time too. With that level of information available back then, makes me skeptical of the whole story on 9-11 tower thing.

[Rick V]

Morning Y'all,
Skynet, just saying

[GH85Carrera]

Morning folks.

Richard I have an App on my phone called FlightAware and they have a web site as well. It will tell you where any commercial airplane is in the sky. Even little aircraft like ours when we file a flight plan. I use it every time my wife flies to track the location of her airplane and know if it is on time or late. It tracks aircraft all over the world. There are on average 690,000 people in the air at any given time. Obviously a lot more locally at prime time but remember that just because it is 3:00 AM here does not mean anything to the people in China or Australia. It is always prime time somewhere on the planet. There are an average of over 4,000 airplanes flying at any given time. That can spike to 19,000 at prime time in USA.

Good morning folks.