On 9/18/2015 9:39 AM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 18 Sep 2015 02:25:53 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 9/17/2015 8:16 PM, Alex wrote:
Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 9/16/2015 8:00 PM, Alex wrote:
Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 9/15/2015 8:07 PM, Alex wrote:
Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 9/14/2015 8:15 PM, Alex wrote:


The motor on that door had such a high gear reduction I think it
would
probably lift the front end of a car off the ground with no
problem.
The Harley was close to 900lbs and it lifted it off the back of my
truck
like it wasn't even there.

If I remember correctly it took about 3 minutes for the folding
hanger
door to open halfway.




I can't believe the door didn't fold in half.


It did.


I meant horizontally - from the weight.


No way. The "garage" was actually a 32' by 46' aircraft hanger that
one of the properties we had in Florida had. The door was about 28'
feet wide and 16 feet high. It folded in half horizontally as it was
raised.

It had a very heavy duty frame (probably for hurricane codes) made of
square 4" by 4" steel tubing that ran horizontally and vertically
every four feet or so. Lifting a 900lb motorcycle was duck soup for
it to handle. The electric motor didn't even change pitch when
lifting it due to the high gear reduction.

During one of the hurricanes (we were not there) about 24 people who
lived in the gated community all moved into the hanger during the
worst of the storm because it was totally brick construction (other
than the door). From the stories I've heard they had quite a
hurricane party in it with generators sitting outside providing power.




Nice! Did you have a community landing strip in that development? There
are several scattered around FL.

There is a private airstrip in the community although our house was
not in that section. The hanger on our property was actually built
for helicopters.


I have always wanted to learn to fly. I have two friends who are GA
pilots and live in communities like that. There is one about 100 miles
north of me that has home sites on about 3 acres for only $30K. One
friend has a place there, too. I'm seriously considering grabbing o
to build on later. It might push me to get a license and a little
plane. He's offered space in his hangar if I want to do it.

I had always dreamed of getting a pilot's license since I was a kid
and finally pursued it when I was in my early 50's. Once I had my
ticket though I began to realize that the fun was the challenge of
learning to fly. I had no purpose for flying other than recreational
sightseeing and found that it wasn't exactly "relaxing". I continued to
rent a Cessna or a Warrior for a few years but also got into boating
which I found much more to my liking.

===

Every once in a while I get bitten by the "learn to fly" bug. I took
lessons many years ago but never followed through with getting my
license. Life, family, kids, jobs, boats came along and got in the
way, probably just as well. One nice thing about boats is that they
don't fall from the sky when the engine fails. And if you pooch a
docking maneuver the penalty is usually nothing more than a few bumps
and scratches. The thing that sometimes re-ignites my flying passion
however is the thought of being able to fly to the Keys or Bahamas in
an hour or two. On a nice day that would be really cool.


As I mentioned before the challenge of learning to fly was really the
driver in my case. Once I had my ticket I began to lose interest. One
issue was that I flew out of a small, uncontrolled (no traffic control)
municipal airport in Plymouth, MA. They usually had a guy manning a
small tower but it is up to the pilots to be vigilant of other aircraft
either approaching or taking off, both visually and via the radio. Many
are students and you really have to pay super attention to what everyone
is doing. Not exactly relaxing. Then, the larger airports with formal
traffic controllers bark out instructions to you on the radio and you
have to make sure you follow them to a tee and don't miss any. Again,
not exactly relaxing.

I found boating to be much more enjoyable. There's a bit of a challenge
when making a voyage to places you haven't been before
but being on the ocean (and going a hell of a lot slower) is nice.