The Independent View: gas and balloons
Weather you are filling your car, truck, tractor, weed blower, lawnmower, generator, compressor, or pressure washer, you need to use the proper fuel or risk lower performance and or damage to the machine.
Sometimes this presents a challenge. In some states gas and or diesel is just that. Gas has different octane ratings. This rating denotes the flash point or under what temperature and pressure the fuel will explode. If it explodes too soon (pre-iginition) the piston isn’t at the point where the explosion will cause it to retreat and provide power to the machine. In some states the use of Ethanol is added to the fuel to help lower emissions.
In California, Ethanol is required in all gas sold. Ethanol provides a cleaner burn and lowers emission of un-burned hydrocarbons. On the negative side it emits formaldehyde and ground level ozone but they don’t tell you that. Fuel with Ethanol is about 3 percent less efficient causing a loss of mileage.
Enough of the chemistry. Here’s what they don’t tell you. When you turn the pump off or it shuts off automatically the gas in the nozzle, hose, and connecting hardware is trapped there. If you pull up to the pump and select 93 octane, you will get just less than a gallon of what ever the previous person was pumping. That’s why they never pump diesel from the same hose. If your chainsaw needs 97 octane, you should pump the first gallon into your car or a separate can, then pump the needed fuel into the can you will use for the chainsaw. There’s an excellent Youtube video covering all of this and more.
Balloons: Last week I gave my opinion on why they observed the first balloon before shooting it down. Since this event there have been many balloons shot down at first sighting. They’ve been studying the balloons and their payload and learned or just released information that has been kept secret for security reasons. It seems the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) has a fleet of thousands of these balloons all over the world studying almost every country. Balloons are an excellent vehicle for this mission. They’re inexpensive to make and deploy and have the advantage over satellites which are in orbit and can’t observe the same thing for an extended time.
These balloons are made with plastic similar to grocery bags. The balloon itself is inexpensive to construct and deploy. The surveillance equipment attached is much more expensive but cost effective compared to launching a satellite which only gives a few minutes of surveillance of a given site. The balloons are launched with only about 10 percent of its capacity using ether Helium or Hydrogen to lift it. As the balloon rises, the lifting agent expands and fills the balloon as the air pressure outside becomes less at altitude. This keeps the balloon from bursting at altitude.
The original balloon had the ability to propel itself to different locations but recent versions use change in altitude to capture winds that flow in the desired direction to navigate. My research showed an average price to construct and deploy these balloons is about $200K. Sensationalists claim it cost $37 billion to shoot it down. Of course they’re considering costs to develop and test the F22 along with other non tangible expenses that would have been spent with no balloon. However it was expensive because we had to deploy several fighter aircraft, a couple of refueling aircraft, recall military personnel and civilian contractors, fuel all aircraft, put military bases on alert, prepare and possibly launch Air Force One, and put a ground stop on civil aviation which cost the airlines a pretty penny.
Unit cost of an AIM9X Sidewinder missile: $472,000 (3)
Unit cost of an F-22 fighter jet (used off South Carolina): $143,000,000 (4)
Unit cost of an F-16 fighter jet (used over Lake Huron): between $14,600,000 and $18,800,000 (5)
Flight cost per hour of an F-22: “roughly $70,000”. (6)
Flight cost per hour of an F-16: $22,514. (7) Costs of retrieval and analysis of wreckage? Who knows. (Who will ever know)?
P.S.: Cost to operate Air Force One: “Taxpayers fork over $206,337 every hour the world’s most famous plane is in flight.