Mar 14, 2023
Another puzzler!
This is not new. Not automotive in nature, but still a good little puzzler. This one was inspired by a letter we got years ago.
Here goes.
Years ago, I took my boys to this Cub Scout rally at this air force base. It was held on a large air force base which had a civilian air field attached to it. This was someplace in Massachusetts. And this air field had a hangar. And airplane hangar, where they keep planes when not in use. There were all these planes there. Little ones, bigger ones. You know, Piper, Cessna... all those types.
All of them were propeller driven planes. And while I was looking at them, I noticed that they all had a little spinner right in the center of the propeller. That little cone shaped thing. I noticed that some of them are painted. Some of them are not painted, and some of them are chrome plated.
My boy goes, "Yeah, if you notice, there is a reason some of them are chrome plated..."
And I said, "Huh?"
He knew the answer. This is another case where the kid surpasses his father in intelligence. And he was just a boy then, so that should tell you something about me! Kids get taller than you, smarter than you, stronger than you... That is just the way of things.
So this is the puzzler. What did my boy know that I did not? Why are some of them painted chrome and some not?
Good luck.
Time for the answer to this chrome-plated puzzler. Here goes.
Recap. Years ago I was at a Cub Scout rally with my boys. It was held in an airfield. Lots of small, older planes around this hangar.
The planes all had propellers. Some of them were painted chrome, and some were not. The tips of the propellers. The spinners.
And my son says, "You know Dad, there is a reason they are painted that way."
So the puzzler was, what is the reason some of them are painted chrome?
Here is the answer.
The landing gear, this is the reason. So the chrome plated spinners allow the pilot to look into them and they act as a mirror, to see if the landing gear is down when it should be.
With the chrome plated spinners, you can see the underside of the plane. So you can verify that your landing gear is down when you need it to be.
That is how they used to do it with those small twin engine planes.
