Author Topic: How cold is too cold?  (Read 8261 times)

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Offline Seldom Seen Slim

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Re: How cold is too cold?
« Reply #30 on: December 11, 2009, 09:48:47 AM »
Then there's the concept of keeping the cat indoors 100% of the time.  The closest either of our two kitties has evver been to outdoors is to go into the screened back porch -- whereupon they discover that zero degrees and snow aren't as much fun as they appear to be when looking through a window.

It was -6F this morning, with the temps forecast to soar into double digits today.  "Throw another log on the fire, Jon, and snuggle up close to me in the heated waterbed", says Nancy
Jon E. Wennerberg
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Offline Dean Los Angeles

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Re: How cold is too cold?
« Reply #31 on: December 11, 2009, 10:26:22 AM »
Quote
12 degrees @ 9 a.m., the kee-kee birds are singing in the bare oak branches, "Kee, kee, keereist it's cold!"
The first time I heard that line was from a NOVA television episode "B-29 Frozen in Time".

The Kee Bird was a  B-29 Superfortress, of the 46th/72d Reconnaissance Squadrons, that became marooned after making an emergency landing in northwest Greenland during a secret Cold War spying mission on 21 February 1947. Although the entire crew was safely evacuated, after spending three days in the isolated Arctic tundra, the aircraft itself was left at the landing site.

It lay there undisturbed until 1994, when a privately-funded mission was launched to repair and return it.

After months of painstaking work over two years on the aircraft and setbacks such as the death of the mission's chief engineer, the repairs were completed and the aircraft prepared to take off from a frozen lake nearby on 21 May 1995. As it was taxiing to its takeoff position, however, a fire broke out inside the rear fuselage, from an auxiliary power unit mounted there, and quickly engulfed the whole fuselage. The entire crew on board escaped unharmed, but the Kee Bird's fuselage and tail surfaces were completely destroyed. When the lake thawed in the spring, the wreckage (with nearly intact wing panels and engines) sank to the bottom, where it now lies.

Well, it used to be Los Angeles . . . 50 miles north of Fresno now.
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Offline bbarn

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Re: How cold is too cold?
« Reply #32 on: December 11, 2009, 10:53:42 AM »
Quote
12 degrees @ 9 a.m., the kee-kee birds are singing in the bare oak branches, "Kee, kee, keereist it's cold!"
The first time I heard that line was from a NOVA television episode "B-29 Frozen in Time".

The Kee Bird was a  B-29 Superfortress, of the 46th/72d Reconnaissance Squadrons, that became marooned after making an emergency landing in northwest Greenland during a secret Cold War spying mission on 21 February 1947. Although the entire crew was safely evacuated, after spending three days in the isolated Arctic tundra, the aircraft itself was left at the landing site.

It lay there undisturbed until 1994, when a privately-funded mission was launched to repair and return it.

After months of painstaking work over two years on the aircraft and setbacks such as the death of the mission's chief engineer, the repairs were completed and the aircraft prepared to take off from a frozen lake nearby on 21 May 1995. As it was taxiing to its takeoff position, however, a fire broke out inside the rear fuselage, from an auxiliary power unit mounted there, and quickly engulfed the whole fuselage. The entire crew on board escaped unharmed, but the Kee Bird's fuselage and tail surfaces were completely destroyed. When the lake thawed in the spring, the wreckage (with nearly intact wing panels and engines) sank to the bottom, where it now lies.



I almost cried watching that show, I thought for sure they were going to pull it off. Those poor guys worked so hard and spent so much time and money for nothing, plus they lost a great piece of history.
I almost never wake up cranky, I usually just let her sleep in.

Offline k.h.

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Re: How cold is too cold?
« Reply #33 on: December 11, 2009, 11:17:24 AM »
Every genuine Alaska bush story begins:  Now this is no Subaru.  So, this is no Subaru . . . By January up on the Yukon, my blood would thicken to the point that if I was zipping up my parka, it was always about -35.  If the Athabascan kids were playing ball out on the frozen river in shirts, it was 10 above.  Now this is no Subaru, there was a search and rescue effort based in our village for a week with temps about -25 or so.  Volunteer pilots stayed at the hotel.  Land the bush planes in the afternoon, drain the oil from the engine into metal cans, take it to the hotel, get up in the morning and put the can on the stove to warm it, hurry out to the airport, pour it in, circulate with mag off, mag on, yours truly would prop start, (no references to HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED, please) batteries were removed for the season and that was just the routine.  Now, the fun part was all the planes were on skis, no brakes, so when the motor fires, the plane starts sliding forward.  Anyway, they didn't find the lost plane until summer, in a lake.  Now this is no Subaru . . . to open a frozen sewer line in winter in one of my villages I brought in a steam cleaner, built a manifold to connect it from the steamer, ran six lines off the manifold to 8 ft lengths of i/2 inch pipe, held them vertically on the dirt road surface until they ate their way down a foot or so, then they bored their own way, spread the six points around and let the thing run over night.  In the morning, dug out the mud down to the sewer main, cut a hole, and ran the steam hose attached to a heavy plumbers snake using my "steam drill bit," an attachment that shot steam forward and backward.  Voile, it's working, dump 500 gallons from the village fire tanker down the lift station cistern to keep it going while patching the pipe and backfilling, and steam is your friend in the SubArctic.  Keep the new-fangled toilets paid for by oil money flushing.  Now this is no Subaru . . . oh, I'm getting homesick for a big plate of stinkheads and deep fried King Crab Acuras.

Somewhere in my files I have pictures from Kiska Island, circa 1972.  After the island was taken from the Japanese, and after the war ended, everything was just left.  14 Japanese wrecked ships in the harbor, rusting miniature subs on the beach, airplanes all over in the tundra, buildings, bullets, ammo dumps, and I remember standing in one place looking at the hills covered with gun emplacements with the guns intact.  Anyway, the native corporation had the government come in and clean it up as a make-work project later.  After all, no one ever goes to Kiska.  We just stopped in to get out of a storm.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.  But in practice, there is.--Jan L. A. Van de Snepscheut

Offline floydjer

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Re: How cold is too cold?
« Reply #34 on: December 11, 2009, 11:38:11 AM »
Dean, Bbarn...That was a great show....until the end.IIRC the APU was left loose and bounced around,starting the fire. Tragic. J.B. ( 14 degrees and the snow if falling side-ways,Fred`s not down w/ working today)
I`d never advocate drugs,alcohol,violence or insanity to anyone...But they work for me.

Offline bearingburner

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Re: How cold is too cold?
« Reply #35 on: December 11, 2009, 02:59:40 PM »
Will have to disassemble but chasis will fit out the hatch way. Already checked that.

Offline 4-barrel Mike

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Re: How cold is too cold?
« Reply #36 on: December 12, 2009, 08:01:06 PM »


Dec. 9: NASA's MODIS Rapid Response satellites Terra and Aqua captured this image of snows covering the Western United States.

Brrrr!

Mike
Mike Kelly - PROUD owner of the V4F that powered the #1931 VGC to a 82.803 mph record in 2008!