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I thought Kansas was flat!

May 15, 2019, 06:45:21 pm

I always thought that Kansas was pretty flat. Today we drove from Melvern Lake to Kanopolis, which is only about 150 miles or so. There were some small hills, but nothing all that spectacular, just nice scenery. Then we got to our campsite. The coach is sitting on the left-front tire, and about an inch or so above the right front tire. The left duals are on 2x6 planks. The right duals are on two thicknesses of 2x6 planks. The rear air bags are at or close to full extension. It took us several tries to get level. If we were only going to be here for one night we'd have just lived with what we got the first time. Since we're here until Monday, though, we thought it worth the effort to get properly leveled.

Fortunately, Monday's drive isn't all that far, so removing and stowing all that lumber won't delay us much.

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Re: I thought Kansas was flat!

Reply #1 – May 15, 2019, 07:00:52 pm

I did some railroad aerodynamic testing on real trains in Kansas in the 1980s.  We had a dual mainline to work on that was flat within 10 ft over 10 miles and absolutely strait.  They let me operate the locomotive!  The funny part of this experience was that coming out of the rail yard the tracks went right down Main Street of this small town.  The train went 5 mph or so in town and the engineer told me they hit 8 or 10 cars a year in town.  Hard to miss a locomotive?  I guess not.

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Reply #2 – May 15, 2019, 08:51:41 pm

Roger that must have been a North south route. East west is about 15 feet elevation change per mile. Kanopolis is supposed to have some pretty rock formations.

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Reply #3 – May 15, 2019, 10:07:20 pm

Ellsworth has pretty boy Floyd underground steak and speakeasy, never been there. Coronado heights to the South. Rock City to the north. Warning about awnings in Kansas the winds can build really quickly and violently. Might see some unusual air traffic to the north east as Salina has a 12,300 foot runway. There's a wildlife park also to the north.

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Reply #4 – May 16, 2019, 06:21:12 am

The long runway in Salina sees some interesting aircraft.  My brother will be running an atmospheric research project out of the Salina airport on and off for the next couple of years.  They will be using NASA's version of the U-2 spy plane. 

Rich

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Reply #5 – May 16, 2019, 08:17:39 am

As we were setting up yesterday there were several fast-movers making a lot of noise. At that time I didn't know whether they were from an AFB or ANG. After looking at the map I'm guessing that it is ANG in Salina.

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Reply #6 – May 16, 2019, 09:31:42 am

Phred, I looked at a KS map for a while, I really don't recall what town it was or which direction we went while testing. It was more than 35 years ago. Most of the test runs were very early in the morning or at night.  Come up to speed (several different ones) and move through the test section at constant speed. Turned the train around and went back the other way to try to reduce wind noise.  There were about 40 cars all with pressure instrumentation in several locations on each car and on the locomotive.  We were working on models to predict the aerodynamic drag contribution to the total train from a particular car at a position in the train.

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Reply #7 – May 16, 2019, 10:15:10 am

Coming from Wash St., Kansas is flat!!  Have a great day  ----  Fritz

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Reply #8 – May 16, 2019, 11:45:18 am

I discovered Kansas wasn't flat when I pulled a heavy load (80,000#) across the state East to west. Uphill all the way not a steep grade by any means, just a steady uphill grind. Headwinds didn't help either.

Roland

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Re: I thought Kansas was flat!

Reply #9 – May 16, 2019, 11:54:17 am

Glad I'll be headed east through Kansas in a few days.

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