CHINAGRAPH

Come on forumites, tell us of your grease-pencil stories. But, do try and keep it clean. 🙂

The Met Officer at Shawbury getting so annoyed with student Pilots/Crewman calling him for an ‘actual’, he came down to the Squadron crewroom, drew a square on the window in Chinagraph, and wrote ‘Actual’ above it and then flounced back whence he came….

Oops. Tsk, tsk tsk… Newforest – When lifting text it is considered polite & perhaps ethical to attribute the source – you know, acknowledging the work of others. 😡

JAMES K JAMES K[COLOR=Lime]JAMES KJAMES K

Apologies, apologies, apologies. As you can see, the ‘blue box’ doesn’t get reproduced on a quote from a quote. The quote was abbreviated for clarity and the source was not quoted, oops, oops 😮 but following the thread from the beginning should make the source obvious.

Papa Lima.

Physics was not my strong point!.

NASA never asked Paul C. Fisher to produce a pen. When the astronauts began to fly, like the Russians, they used pencils, but the leads sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the [capsule’s] atmosphere where there was no gravity. They could float into an eye or nose or cause a short in an electrical device.

Could the ‘lead’ in a pencil, which is not a metallic substance cause an electrical short? :confused:

Oops. Tsk, tsk tsk… Newforest – When lifting text it is considered polite & perhaps ethical to attribute the source – you know, acknowledging the work of others. 😡

I hope I am remembering correctly but I seem to recall looking inside a late model Canberra (E15 or T17 ?) in the 70’s and seeing multi coloured blades on a cooling fan caused by somebody (bored Nav ?) holding chinagraphs against the rotating blades. 😀

Graphite is a good conductor and used for brushes in electric motors and dynamos.

NASA never asked Paul C. Fisher to produce a pen. When the astronauts began to fly, like the Russians, they used pencils, but the leads sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the [capsule’s] atmosphere where there was no gravity. They could float into an eye or nose or cause a short in an electrical device.

Could the ‘lead’ in a pencil, which is not a metallic substance cause an electrical short? :confused:

The Yanks (NASA) spending millions on researching a pen that was suitable for space use – while the Ruskies quietly carried on working with pencils…

Which were soon cancelled because of the danger to the electronics (and fire etc) from floating particles of wood and graphite dust . . . which was why Fisher (not NASA) developed the pen.

From Snopes . . . .

NASA never asked Paul C. Fisher to produce a pen. When the astronauts began to fly, like the Russians, they used pencils, but the leads sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the [capsule’s] atmosphere where there was no gravity. They could float into an eye or nose or cause a short in an electrical device. In addition, both the lead and the wood of the pencil could burn rapidly in the pure oxygen atmosphere. Paul Fisher realized the astronauts needed a safer and more dependable writing instrument, so in July 1965 he developed the pressurized ball pen, with its ink enclosed in a sealed, pressurized ink cartridge. Fisher sent the first samples to Dr. Robert Gilruth, Director of the Houston Space Center. The pens were all metal except for the ink, which had a flash point above 200°C. The sample Space Pens were thoroughly tested by NASA. They passed all the tests and have been used ever since on all manned space flights, American and Russian. All research and developement costs were paid by Paul Fisher. No development costs have ever been charged to the government.

Shame to shoot down a nice bit of yank bashing, innit!

:rolleyes:

The Yanks (NASA) spending millions on researching a pen that was suitable for space use – while the Ruskies quietly carried on working with pencils…

The inspector circling proud or cocked rivets on the Airbus A320 wing production line!!!!! Always in RED!!!!