Doughie

Ah no wanky little lawnmower engines. The things are usually Rotax's, built for big reliability. 4-stroke or 2-stroke, depends on the application. I think about 60-70bhp for most of them, lots of torque. I went microlighting in Queensland Australia last year - top stuff ! Took my videocamera up with me too and got some good footage ! They can have total power-failure and glide down like a hang-glider. Glide-ratio isn't as good as a pure hang-glider due to the weight, but they do glide down. On my flight, the pilot had a, erm, 'sudden engine failure' and did a simulated emergency landing on a beach. Came RIGHT down to, quite literally, about 3 or 4 feet off the beach (still belting along) before giving it LARGE on the throttle and going skyward in a hurry. Reason it was a, erm, 'sudden engine problem' is that technically they're not allowed to fly under 500feet unless there's a technical problem.... so.....they tend to have 'sudden engine problems' quite a bit ! Got some great video of that 'near-miss' beach landing. Haven't got tape with me but will try to upload it somewhere one day. Brilliant fun! also done a lot of paragliding and also a tandem free-fall skydive (30secs free fall).

There's no chance of that going anywhere near70mph. More like 15 - 25mph. It's 110cc *4-stroke*, not *2-stroke*. 2-strokes (on track) can go as fast as they like. Some 125cc 2-strokes do about 80-90mph given the right gearing. 250cc 2-stroke gearbox karts top out about 160mph. Deeply scary.

he came in with too much horizontal speed, so pitched it up to try to slow it down. Unfortuantely he pitched up TOO much and contacted the rear into the ground first, hitting the rear rotor and causing rear-rotor failure. Rear-rotor failure is known as a zero-survivability situation in helicopters. The only reason anyone lived was that it happened on landing, not high up. i'm pretty sure the guy that got flung out survived. - i can't see him being hit by anything UNLESS the tail hit him before he ran clear. Two more which are good (AND TO ALL THE TEDIOUS SMART ALECS - NO I DO NOT BLEEDING CARE IF THESE ARE REPOSTS) : Brilliant Chinook skills, especially the manoueuvre starting at 2m25secs.: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6019970022155239486 IN-COCKPIT camera filming a military pilot ejecting just 20 seconds after take off. Got out just 140feet above ground level.: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3787769698063121523 Finally one more: another pilot coming in wioth too much lateralspeed, pitches up to slow down and loses altitude,catching rear wheel on safety net (ha) and plunges into ocean causing fatalities. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-72293662863359175

slight shame the camera-operator managed to miss the crucial bit, and instead was pointing cam at the ground !

ian try posting on one these editing forums : http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=105 lots of clever chappies on there.

Running way rich then - unburnt fuel vapour igniting in exhaust. Better rich than lean that's for sure..

Thats not right dude after 3 days or something.. go get them checked out. i've done my fair share of karting outdoors in winter in rain, cold and even snow (yes). You got to wear two pairs of gloves : - latex rubber mechanics disposables underneath, or rubber marigolds - normal gloves over the top of that. The rubber gloves will stop wind-chill and water getting through if it rains. Wind-chill outdoors in winter is BIG factor. 40-50mph on the straights, fingers not moving... little circulation. The normal driving gloves will give a bit of insulation over the top. I usually wear orange high-grip gloves for the top-layer. = excellent grip on the wheel due to the latex bands of rubber. The problem with endurance-karting (if you're not used to it) is generally hand-grip gives out and /or forearms give out. So if you've got very sticky gloves, this means you don't have to grip the wheel in a vice-like grip so much. Thing is - you're concentrating so hard that often you don't realise how HARD you're gripping the wheel and you actually get some muscle-lock in your hands/fingers. So apart from the glove advice (pic attached of an orange high-grip glove) the next time, on the straights CONCIOUSLY flex your fingers as much as possible. it's important. pic attached, any hardware store like B&Q / Homebase, dirt-cheap - about 3 or 4 quid. Can be washed or chucked as desired.

I read somewhere that 52% of births are male (i think) so that kinda evens it out a bit.

Very well said. I'm pretty tired of hearing the word "insurgents". It's all Western propaganda (mainly Bush's propaganda). Why don't the Americans do a nice survey of 1000 Iraqi civilians and ask them if they still want the Americans to be there ? Oh hang on - a British newspaper already did that fairly recently and, by memory, the results were that about 82% of Iraqi civilians wanted the Americans (+allies) OUT NOW. And i think about 50% of them said that they thought it was ok for civilians to attack allied soldiers. So that shows how popular the American military is in Iraq. Whole situation is disgusting and almost unsalvageable now. Bush's Vietnam. He just said yesterday i think that (paraphrased) when soldiers would be withdrawn "would be a question for Future Presidents". So in saying that he just effectively signed the death-warrants of another 2,000 American soldiers. At least 3 more years of full occupation, lot of dead WEstern soldiers, lot of dead Iraqi civvies, all cos Bush wanted to finish what his daddy started. - Worst American President ever, responsbile for death of 39,000 people in Iraq alone, - an awful lot of completely unnecessary blood on his hands.

that´s fukcing appalling mate. IT´s the LIES that they say it´s in stock - i´d expect that sort of bollokcs from some fly-by-night company but not from a company like Amazon. That is absolutely false advertisiing. In fact i orderd something frpm amazon early monday morning and it said "usually ships withion 24hrs". Well it took 3 days to ship. I want ACCURATE estimates not some bollokcs default "yeah yeah we´ll just say ´within 24hrs for everything.". Amazon SERIOUSLY gone very very downhill in the last 2 years IMHO.

ooh Formula A. top stuff. about 28-30bhp Sandeep? Charles Saatchi used to drive Formula A. He used to do testing at Rye House in Herts. I was at Rye for a test day and just going into the circuit & I was behind this Lincoln Town Car once, and err, raced him across the VERY bumpy car park heading for the narrow exit. We both came sliding to a stop about 2 feet from each other. Didn't know who he was at the time until someone told me it was Charles Saatchi !! had about 4 different chassis in his own truck ... bar-steward!! (Stadium bend @ Rye is one of the best corners in UK karting. Clay Pigeon right up there too)

Well bottom line is F1 engines are now limited to 2.4ltrs, and they have to be naturally-aspirated. no turbo's, no superchargers. Try getting 700bhp out of a road-going 2.4ltr naturally-aspirated engine. Absolute max. you might get would be about 250bhp and that's a very highly tuned engine. Only way F1 engines can get 750bhp out of such a small engine is .... revs. They're going over 20,000rpm now this year. That makes a sports-roadbike look low revving. Torque on an F1 car is "relatively" low though. I think with the 3.0ltr engines it was about 350lb ft. of torque. Now with these 2.4ltr engines it'll very likely be less than 300lb ft of torque. So it's a true statment that a stock Supra TT has more peak *torque* than a current state-of-the-art F1 engine. (stock UK TT is i think 320lb ft max torque).

Yo JB. Long time no speak mate ! Yep it's true - more weight helps stick a kart down on the fast corners. you actually want to be leaning towards the outside on fast corners. And if it's wet, then it's DEFINITELY an advantage to be heavier. You can get much more traction, and it's even more important to lean and use bodyweight in the wet. But if it's dry, lighter is always better over a complete track. Each stone heavier you are, you will be approx. 0.3secs a lap slower. Conversely obviously you'll be 0.3secs faster for each stone lighter. This is for an 'average-length' outdoors track with an 'average' number of hairpins, in the dry. The more slow corners you have, the worse it is for heavy drivers. But the weight thing generally only really matters when 2 drivers have pretty equal skill. A very good heavy driver will beat an average lightweight driver. ps. yep the fast left-hander after the long uphil straight is defintiely the best corner by miles. It's pretty fast. And then immediately after it's a hard-brake into a tight right hairpin. AccidentWaitingToHappen.com

Take a look at this video. Watch the drivers' eyes - he nods off at the wheel and then obviously goes off road down some embankment and rolls the car. He ends up in the BACK of the car. amazing.. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5648344180145636035 ps. also - watch the display at base of screen - they've got frontal and side G-meters in the car. When he initially goes off road, there's a Side-G of -6.8 (goes red). Then later he gets a frontal of 7.9G or something. Difficult to read peak levels. Must've been crash research company or something installed cams and G-meters in a whole load of cars. What a freaky vid.

I watched 'V' the first-time around in the 1980's. Really excellent - i loved that series. never missed an episode. I have a feeling that if i watched it now, it may have ....'aged' ... a little (but then so have i) but it was a great sci-fi series. Some nice-looking ladies in there too.