88 MPH!

[Colonel]

So I'm driving to the airport yesterday, and guess what I see
on a trailer in the right lane?

[img width=500 height=374][/img]

Cameras in phones are pretty good, these days.  Not much
of a car, mechanically speaking, but I'd still like to have one,
perhaps with a transverse-mounted aluminum V-8?

At the airport, driving past the rows of hangars, I see that
someone else's airplane is an X-wing fighter:

[img width=500 height=375][/img]

Cute.  So I call the fuel truck, check the oil, blow the dust
off - slightly annoying, but better than having the cam lobes
and lifters spall - and everyone is jammed onto the "big
runway" which is 25R with 3 or 5 knots from the west.

[img width=500 height=375][/img]

So I ask for 25L for closed pattern.  Hardly anyone, even
people with stall speed half of mine, will use the "short runway"
which is 2700 feet long.

So I do a bunch of circuits - sorry, "pattern work".  Get
"cleared for the option" as soon as I turn downwind, which
is nice.  Sort of my runway, everyone else trying to use the
big one.

After a few times around, I figure my landings are as good
as they're going to get, and the oil is up to temperature and
I tell tower I'm planning on a full stop.  Note the word "planning".
Remember, a go-around - if shit goes south - isn't the end
of the world.  I wish more people would remember that.

Anyways, I let the speed drop below 100 mph on slant final,
the nose comes up - no flaps - the little runway completely
disappears (if you see it, you're not going to land on it), chop
the power and roll out, and here's the neat thing - I cleared
on Q taxiway.

Looking at the airport diagram, that means I was able to get
a full-stop landing in 1350 feet, with a 100 mph Vref.

And the guys in Cessnas and Pipers are all on 25R.  Sigh.

[Slick Goodlin]

There was talk of putting the Delorean back in production as an electric car.  Get that right and it would rock.

[ScudRunner-d95]

I would like to put together one of those factory five racing kit cars and make it electric. A company down Colonels way[url=http://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40] http://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40[/url] even sells the guts of to make it happen.

[Eric Janson]

Not sure how many people get the 88 mph reference.

I guess it dates those of us that do.

[woodzi]

I sent a family of racoons into the future, doing about 88, coming home from that movie in my '76 Pontiac (yes, the speedo was in MPH in those days). No way that car was stopping or turning at that speed.

[Colonel]

[youtube][/youtube]

Unfortunately, for decades since then, pilots of 172's
have maintained 88 mph until over the numbers.