[Shop-talk] Compressed Air Lines, RapidAir

[Scott]

I've been five feet from a pvc air line when it exploded.  It does 
happen.  Made a huge boom and sprayed shrapnel.  A guy three feet away 
caught some in the face and arm.

Though the fact that I was five feet from it and am just fine tends to 
mitigate that argument to people that want to use pvc for air lines.

I dunno, I won't use pvc for air anymore.  I have, however, flown 
250,000 miles (at least) having forgotten my phone was powered up in my 
backpack, and the plane has never so much as hiccuped.  I tend to be 
skeptical that a $200 million flying radio is going to be equipped with 
anything that has any issues with a phone's cellular radio.  I mean, 
most planes in the U.S. are rarely more than 40,000 feet off the ground, 
and most of the flights I take are at about 20,000 feet.  That's four 
miles.  My phone easily has a range of four miles, which means all those 
phones on the ground are emitting something that could interfere with 
the plane too.  The cell phone frenzy is one of those things that will 
convince us that we were retarded in 30 years.

Having said that, I'm very happy no one can use their cell phone to talk 
on a plane.  That'd be nightmarish.  I'd rather they just outlaw talking 
into your phone and eject non-compliers.  You only have to toss a few 
before everyone else would quit.  If you want to sit quietly and play 
Angry Birds, knock yourself out.

On 10/13/2011 1:37 PM, Wayne wrote:
> And of course everyone is gonna jump in with "do not use PVC, it can 
> explode and shatter".  But you know what -- I've seen it used in 
> multiple industrial air systems, including a local NASCAR shop (Andy 
> Petree - I now own his workbench and sandblaster) and never heard of 
> failures.
>
> I suspect it's kinda like "do not power up your cell phone on the 
> plane, or it will immediately nose dive into the ground"