[Christ]

747 is "technically" too heavy, the "steel birds" where never supposed to be able to fly, according to the "knowledgable" among those interested at the time.

Interestingly, no airplane throughout history has ever landed... that is not to say that they don't hit the ground, they just were never designed to "land"... they were designed to fly, so in essence, when they land, they're performing a "systematic, controlled-crash situation"

The idea behind landing a plane, especially to commercial pilots, is to "crash with as little damage as possible".. of course, over time, it's been perfected to the extent that "as little damage as possible" has become almost none.

YaY! for aerodynamics.

99metro - Correct. Adding high octane fuel does nothing unless your vehicle needs it.

A vehicle that normally used to run on low-grade fuel, but over time, has developed a penchant for high-grade fuel in order to run properly, should be cleaned with seafoam or something similar. (BY the way, seafoam is essentially mineral spirits and kerosene distillates, for those interested, and in general, it is not cheaper to make on your own.)

The reason for this is that something is in the engine (gunk/sludge/coke/carbon/etc) built up on the combustion chamber and piston tops, that is causing higher compression.

It's been a secret of ASE mechanics for how many years... if you suddenly find that your car is running balls out on higher octane fuel than it used to, CLEAN IT.

Don't just assume that you're getting a better burn now.

As far as Corvette owners are concerned, those cars are ultimately wasteful in their processes, in that while it could be tuned to run 87 Oct fuel, it would still lose power... and the end result would still be detonation (I've tried it)... the compression ratio in that motor is achieved without design consideration for higher cylinder pressure or "uneven spread" techniques... meaning those owners are pretty much either stuck with E85 or 91/92/93 octane.

Just for kicks.... E85 is not 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline.

85% ethanol is correct... the other 15% is "stuff"... lubricants, detergents, cleaning agents, "air scrubbers" etc... there is next to no "gasoline" in E85, except the individual components of it. There are petroleum distillates in it. Other than that, it's nearly purely an aromatic fuel... hence the reason for the additives... aromatics (alone) will lead to bad juju in metal engines.