Pat

My brother needs some help with calculus, but his review book isn't explaining the answer well enough. What is the limit of x(sin1/x) as x approaches infinity? We both believe the limit doesn't exist, but the book says it's one. Can someone explain why please? Much appreciated.

Believe me when I say I never do this, but I really have no idea how to approach this homework question my professor gave us, and none of the lecture material he put online deals with it even indirectly. I was hoping someone could help me out, I'd really appreciate it. It has to do with hydraulic systems, and it reads something like this:

"A hydraulic system accumulator has a volume of 120 cubic inches. The pump kicks out at a pressure of 2600 psi with 95 cubic inches of hydraulic fluid in the accumulator (25 inches of nitrogen). What was the pre-charge psi?"

I wouldn't ask for help online like this if I wasn't struggling with it so much. Thanks for any help you can give me.

Specifically, they're mounted on a PBY Catalina for sale from Courtesy Aircraft. I've googled the bejeezus out of it, but the only thing I've been able to find is about 120-130 gallons per hour.

I'm just wondering if I go NROTC, if I can be reasonably assured that I'll be flying after college, and not loading or something like that. If you don't wanna answer, that's fine, I'll just ask at the ROTC center when I get back on campus, but if you can offer me some insight, whether I should go AFROTC instead (although I'd like to fly cargo planes instead, maybe even COD's), any help is greatly appreciated.

Just curious. It's my (limited) understanding that cars need transmissions to change the direction of energy between the pistons and the wheels, but the Cessna 172's prop is turned by the crankshaft, which is directly connected to the pistons. Is this the case for all prop planes?

Some epaulets have thin silver bars, some have thick gold bars, some people have two bars, some three, and some four. What does it all mean? Google only gave me shopping suggestions, and Wikipedia wasn't very specific.

I've been thinking a lot about bush flying lately, and I see and hear a lot about people just setting their Huskies and Maules and Super Cubs down in the wilderness of the Great White North and just sort of exploring and whatnot. Is the majority of communications self-announcing position, or do they get flight following or talk to ARTCC's like the US? Can I just set my plane down wherever I reasonably consider fit? And do they have a "500-foot bubble" rule for unpopulated regions?

I'll probably see if they have their own version of FAR/AIM and crack it open this weekend, but for now, the question still stands.

I mean, clearly, if a situation is out of control, you'd have to be a moron not to declare an emergency, get priority, and haul *** down to the runway, especially if you have passengers. But in a situation that's usually serious, but still controllable, could a pilot decide not to declare an emergency to avoid the accompanying deluge of paperwork?

Scenario: I'm going out for a solo flight in my generic twin-engine, and shortly after takeoff, I experience left engine failure, but it's still manageable, and I just request left traffic, full-stop landing (of course, I'd tell ATC if I lost an engine), but I choose not to declare an emergency. It's a judgment call, isn't it? Would the FAA or the NTSB ever fault me for not declaring an emergency if they think I should? Would it fall under that blanket statement of "reckless judgment" that Techwing usually brings up, or is it the pilot's ultimate discretion, as long as he or she can reasonably explain his or her actions?

Again, this is all theoretical. I imagine in the actual event of an engine failure shortly after takeoff, I would declare an emergency without even thinking about it, it'd be pretty imprudent not to, unless you can fly a twin on one engine and remain incredibly stable. Plus, I only have a PPL, so I assume I'll learn more about this during my multi training as well.

Right now I'm looking at several planes, wondering which one I would tentatively buy in the future for humanitarian missions, flying food, water, and medicine and whatnot into developing countries and crisis areas, and I'm having a little trouble comparing, because there are quite a lot of figures to mull over, and some of them it seems like apples to oranges, and I was wondering if there was a template in place for comparing them already, instead of me having to make one up myself, like a pound*mile/gallon or a pound*gallon/hour, something that considers range, mileage, and payload.

Any engineers out there?

I'm looking at ATP Flight School for the remainder of my flight training, specifically their "fast-paced" program, which claims to only take ten months. I would imagine the trade-off for an express course would be either cost or quality of training, speaking stricly from an economics standpoint. Can anyone here comment on how safe their program is, or point me to some resources on the school's safety record?

The reason I ask is because I haven't been up in awhile, so I was thinking about going out to the local airport and take a 172 out for a ride, but that airport doesn't have any equipped with nav III, what I trained in. Upon inspection of my temporary certificate, I noticed no mention of what kind of plane, outside of airplane single-engine land. Further research tells me that I would only need type ratings in large aircraft, turbojets, and things like that. Is this to say that I could theoretically go out and fly any kind of piston single-engine non-complex non-high performance non-pressurized aircraft I wanted? Without ever having flown in one like it before?

I've figured by now that I can fly that six-pack Cessna, but now I'm curious about being able to fly any kind of piston single.

I worked at an FBO one summer, and occasionally had to move some planes around - King Air, Diamondjet, and the like, so I'm well familiar with tow bars and tug carts, but I've never had to move a taildragger, and was wondering how it's done. I mean, I imagine you could just push smaller planes around by the struts, like a Cub, as long as you have one person pushing on each side, but what about bigger planes, like a DC-3? Would you have to taxi around every time you wanted to move it somewhere?

Also, is there a short field landing procedure for a taildragger, since they generally outperform tricycle gears in STOL anyway? If there is, is it much different? I imagine they don't encourage maximum braking, unless you'd like to do a nosedive right into the pavement.

I'm flipping through the FAR/AIM 2010 right now, but maybe someone else might post the answer before I find it. There was this light sport seaplane in the movie "Knight and Day" which I am very interested in. First, does anyone who's seen the movie know what kind of plane it is? It's a high-wing single engine LSA that sort of uses its fuselage as a hull. Second, what would I need to fly one if I already have a private pilot's license for single-engine land? Is it just an endorsement, or would I need a new rating, even though the sport license would technically be superseded by my PPL?

I know landings are visual whenever possible, and Class Alpha is IFR only, but I was just wondering if pilots (or their dispatchers or what have you) make their flight plans all IFR since many flights will spend a great deal of time in Alpha, or if it's not much harder to file VFR-IFR-VFR (unless there's weather, of course). I haven't learned much about IFR flight plans just yet, and I didn't feel like waiting until I start my instrument training.

If the question was vague, I'm trying to pick one or the other. My backup plan is working at one of the aerospaces, so I was wondering if they actually preferred or needed one more than the other, or if one was more hireable than the other. I hear more and more that the BS in Aeronautical Science is much less useful than advertized by a certain college (or three), and the conjecture that it might further my career or give me an edge is, well, BS. So my gameplan is: degree in engineering, get my A&P as well, and finish up my flight training. Thoughts?

So we went out to this hill tonight to watch the fireworks, and we actually saw a Mooney M20 overhead as the fireworks were starting (or at least what I believed to be a Mooney M20, unless any other planes have that very interesting tail design), so I was wondering how close they are allowed to get to fireworks, if that's something that's specifically regulated, or if it just falls within the "500-foot bubble" rule. And does ATC provide separation, or is that more of a see-and-avoid situation?

It's the verbal part, not the flight part. Dress code is lax for the oral activities here, and I think it'd be more important to feel comfortable so I could focus better, and I didn't see anything in the line items for grading me on how I dress, or my professionalism or anything like that. Is that something TCE's care about?

I'm currently in month 10 of training for my private pilot's license. I've had over two dozen flights cancelled because of weather, and I've spent over $20k so far. I'll be up for the checkride within a week, but I've never been more pissed at how long it's taking and how much it's costing.

People who went to Embry-Riddle, Florida campus: was this anything like your experience?

People who didn't go to Embry-Riddle, Florida campus: am I missing the path of least resistance here? Or should I say, is this school really worth it?

Just wondering about transatlantic flights, which I'm not gonna learn about for another eight months or something like that, but just curious. I imagine there's a minimum altitude for flights over the water, just wondering what it was, does it differ between types of planes, and is it mandated by the FAA, the JAA, or some kind of international authority? And is there minimum required equipment, besides the emergency gear for planes that go out of glide distance of the shore?

Out of curiosity, I surfed over to the FedEx and UPS careers websites, and looked to see if there were any openings for pilots, not overly surprised to see that there were no openings. My question: is this because of the recent economic downturn, or is it because they don't really advertise it on their website? I've heard, ironically from an actual FedEx captain, that it's not what you know, it's who you know, which got me wondering if they ever actually advertise open jobs, or if they prefer other channels, like a recommendation from a current employee, and if I should focus on networking and things like that.