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Hey! Look up!
As a pilot, sometimes I want to signal friends on the ground to say, “Hi, I’m up here. Take a look up.” | |
The only way to do that is to cut the throttle or the mixture. I am always wary of cutting the throttle due to the possibility of carburetor icing. Rocking the wings only works if my friends happen to be looking up. What is a pilot to do?
Enter the new Aero-Horn. It is fitted to the underside of
the wing and is simply a horn, facing aft, with a small funnel facing into the airstream. A small solenoid is activated by a button on the yoke that, when pressed, opens the throat of the funnel to the oncoming air and makes a loud racket. By pressing the button and releasing it, a pilot can make multiple honking sounds.
We’ve all heard the expression “as useless as a horn on an airplane”. This would be for low level signaling only as an airplane at altitude would be unable to be heard.
The default position would be closed and when flying it would normally be silent. The drag penalty would be minor.
The Moller Flying Car
http://www.moller.com/purchase/
[theircompetitor, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
The Red Arrows
http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/home.html
This lot never have a problem with making people look up. [DrBob, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
All you need is the horn now.
http://www.ultralig...mages/lilbreeze.jpg
The "Breezy" [Klaatu, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
real life horn on an actual plane can be heard for miles
http://bcwildfire.c...FireSuppression.pdf
These "Warblers" precede water bombers [Brian the Painter, Jan 05 2013]
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I like to break mach 1, that usually gets their attention. (ok, so I'm no pilot but I would if I could) Here's a fluffy snack for your flight. |
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If you can fly low enough to buzz them, they'll probably look up anyway. That's probably illegal though. I like the airhorn as a way to freak the groundlings. "What's wrong with that plane?" + |
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How about making the airflow through the horn simulate the 'wheeeeee' sound made in movies by a falling bomb. Primed by the noise of the engine, this would make your suddenly ex-friends run for their lives, or for the nearest supply of Charmin. + |
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there's a lot of pilots by the look of the croissants, my dear! |
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Klaatu, you just need a more distinctive vehicle. |
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Mount the "Buzzing Bun Croissant Siren" under a wing. The croissant shape gives it respectable aerodynamic properties and lets friends know you're up and about. |
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Water balloons, my friend. Water balloons. |
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Install a Super-Soaker and play Manfred von Richthofen (or Snoopy if you prefer that). A good squirt will get their attention and they will wonder for the rest of their lives if it was really just water. |
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Hold onto one end and drop a roll of toilet paper. |
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I think kbecker just came up with an interesting use for crop-dusters, too. |
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Or just bomb them with actual carpet. I'm sure they'll appreciate the irony as they're suddenly smothered by a particularly luxurious shagpile. How to Lose Friends and Suffocate People. |
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("sand crackers (throwdowns)"? Not familiar with either of these. Same as a "throw rug"?) |
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Just rev the engine down and up a few times. That should attract the attention of anyone within earshot. I presume you're in a prop plane. |
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If you incorporated a parabolic dish, it might be possible to target your honking more precisely. Attaching a laserpointer would facilitate this. If you had a computer to keep the dish targeted to a particular area as you flew over, you might even be able to speak directly to a person standing on the ground. For all that trouble you had better say something pretty good. |
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Sounds great. Wish I could fly... |
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You could siphon a little fuel out of the tank, direct it into a bell kind of like a rocket engine, and detonate it. It'd make a neat BANG that would be pretty directional. |
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Hello fellow pilots. First, FAR 91.119 (Minimum safe altitudes) states: "The regulation states, first of all, that except for landing and takeoff, altitudes must be high enough to allow an emergency landing without creating a hazard to people or property on the ground. Then it covers congested areas, such as open-air assemblies, cities, towns, or settlements, where pilots must stay 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within 2,000 feet of the aircraft. In uncongested areas, pilots may descend to 500 feet, and they may go lower in sparsely populated areas if the aircraft remains 500 feet from people, vessels, vehicles, or structures." |
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[DonBirnam] This idea is not intended for "buzzing". Quite the contrary, if I can get someone's attention from altitude, then I do not need to go below a safe altitude. |
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For the others who suggest dropping things from their planes: You may want to rethink that idea after you have invested USD$10,000 into building flight time and another USD$30,000 for a high time aircraft. You will have your ticket yanked in a heartbeat. |
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[ub] The thought picture of dropping 20,000 sidewalk crackers out of the plane for "carpet bombing" has been stored away for that last flight when the FAA pulls my ticket for blindness. What a way to go! |
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[hangingchad] Unless you are flying an injected engine, when you "gun" the engine, you are risking carburetor icing which can totally ruin your day. |
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[spacecadet] If you can drive a standard-shift automobile and you aren't blind or have a debilitating illness, you can fly. |
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//which can totally ruin your day// |
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And quite a few of the following days, too. |
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Shhhhhh...We don't want to scare away future pilots. |
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Like: "Has anyone seen the runway?" |
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I'm glad to see someone posted
the minimum altitude rules. Seems
any closer than that it should be
no holds barred for us
groundlings. We'd get some peace
and quiet down here with a light
distribution of homemade surface
to air missiles. |
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On a less hostile note you might
give friends a tuned rod for their
yards that sympathetically vibrates
to your particular engines
idiosyncrasies... This could trigger
the Look up! alert. (or you might
need to add a tuned strut to your
airframe to generate a personal
tone(s) for the purpose.) |
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[DMW] I had actually thought of that idea and think it has a more subtle quality to it, but figured that to get that STC'd (Supplemental Type Certificate) by the FAA would cost millions and take years. Since there is no possibility of radio interference with the Aero-Horn, I opted for the low-tech approach. |
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Is there a Dukes of Hazard version? Yeeee ha! |
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For those who don’t know history as well as I do, the creator of Superman *was* going to give him a horn to get people’s attention. Heck, how else would people notice such a small flying object? No bigger than a gnat, really. The man was a down-to-earth superhero (so to speak), so he couldn’t very well be yelling at people—“hey, look up here...yeah, I mean you, buddy...look at me up here...flying!”—even though he had a super voice. Well, he must have had one, right? |
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The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of chuffing great big jetliners going around making very loud *PARP* noises using one of those old-style car hooters. |
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If only you could make an aerodynamic bicycle bell... |
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I've always thought that it would be fun to ride around in an open cockpit aircraft with a large horn (something like Harpo Marx) and scare the bejeebers out of folks on the ground. <link> |
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My vibrating thingies (ok no craks
you weirdos) were not radio
emmiters but plain old sound
generators. But tuned to particular
frequencies. It would be irritating i
suspect to have it droning away so
it would need a dampner (most of
the time it would be dampned) and
possibly a kapo to signal special
friends separately. |
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I once tied to mi hanglider control bar a large air horn, a compressor and a small battery. When flying ridge lift I sneaked behind and over friends, then scared the bejezuz aut of them with the horn. A hanglider is quite quiet, only the air whisting past, so it was quite a shock. I recommend it. Croissant on the rocks. |
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I'm surprised no-one's mentioned "Ride of the Valkyries" yet. |
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funnily enough, I did mention it to Klaatu but he has not got back to me. |
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In British Columbia, air tankers are always
preceded by a smaller lead plane (bird dog)
over the drop zone. The bird-dog plane will make
a pass and warn you of an
impending retardant drop and completion of drops
as follows:
Warbler (yelping sound) means an impending drop.
Clear the area and take cover.
NEVER TAKE COVER BEHIND A TREE OR SNAG. |
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Hide in front of tree BTW |
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