Comments on: From the Great Idea Factory

By: brizock

brizock — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:39:21 +0000

Shoulder belts? You must be driving those newer Cessnas Lex! No such thing in our '67 Hawk, not yet at least. Gotta scrounge up some dough for B.A.S. harnesses.

By: virgil xenophon

virgil xenophon — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:03:19 +0000

Ron,11B40/

They were WAY cool. My Dad had a 1961 Dodge Polara 500 2-dr hard-top with the huge hemi engine and 4bbl carb with posi-traction rear end. In the Polara the button console was a small grouping in an extended oval that protruded from the dash just to the LEFT of the steering wheel. The linkage was lightning fast and lots of the the cheaper models like the Dart were used for drag racing and were actually faster than standard shifts. Ours drove like a bat out of hell with that huge engine (can’t remember HOW big now, but was largest that didn’t require a breather scoop on hood.) but was the luxury model w. leather seats, ac, a “reverberator” (didn’t have stereo in those days.) enhanced simulated stereo-sound radio–the works. (Creme/Tan exterior w. chocolate trim w. creme/tan & chocolate trim seats.) Was a delight to drive on long trips.

By: Navig8r

Navig8r — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:34:38 +0000

How much wieght do the airbags take away from your useful load? I fly out a a 2000′ runway with a bank at one end and trees at the other. I’m not a small guy, so if I carry a pax I already end up leaving fuel behind.

By: Ron Snyder Ron Snyder

Ron Snyder Ron Snyder — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:16:31 +0000

Ha! Those PB trannies were pretty cool.

By: Marianne Matthews

Marianne Matthews — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:33:17 +0000

The first auto seatbelt I ever wore was in a home-built sportscar from California named the Comet, and it was in the 1950s when Gen. Curtis LeMay used to let the SCCA race on his airbases. At that point, cars didn’t have seatbelts, so the shade tree mechanics among the sports car drivers, who were risking life and limb at high speeds, decided to take aircraft seat belts and install them in sports cars. The first one I saw was very wide webbing and had no shoulder belt attached. My driver had two installed, one on the driver’s seat, and one on the passenger seat next to him, which he kept tightly cinched, so that if the car rolled, he could duck to the right and hook his arm under the belt, to keep himself in the cockpit and held mostly flat.

Every sportscar rollover I ever witnessed and photographed showed the driver with his right arm straight up, trying to hold the car off the pavement — an instinctive, natural and dumb thing to do, so Glenn tried to prevent this from happening. Pretty soon, most race cars had belts, and then, later, roll bars [for those guys who just had to try to hold the car up off the pavement when it rolled.]

Ahh, memories. Just thought you might enjoy them, you speed demons.

Marianne

By: Wilko

Wilko — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:43:40 +0000

It will be a hit with the same folks who retrofit a ballastic recovery system to a plane. It might make the uneasy rider a better passenger. A lot better than just the inertial lock up devices. I like it.