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South African (Off-Topic) Quiz

DamhuisClan

By DamhuisClan
in South Africa

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DamhuisClan

+DamhuisClan

Posted
Posted

I saw this idea on one of the other country's forums (link).

 

The idea is someone (who has the 'Ding') asks a question, which the other people need to answer. The person who answers correctly, according to the person who asked the question, then gets to ask the next question, and thus passing on the 'Ding'.

 

Rule 1 - No Googling!

 

Rule 2 - Try and keep your question at the level someone in a pub quiz might be able to answer...

 

Rule 3 - Any sane topic goes!

 

Who wants to fire off the first question?

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geocacher_coza

+geocacher_coza

Posted
Posted
True or False?

Some species of Turtle can breath through their rear ends!

False as it is not breathing!

 

BUT the Fitzroy River turtle (Rheodytes leukops) can pump water in and out of its cloacal bursae such that it can obtain as much as two-thirds of its oxygen supply through this route.The cloacal bursae are surrounded by a thin membrane that allow gas exchange across this membrane, so when a turtle is submerged and it "pumps" water in and out its cloacal bursae, it will allow some oxygen to reach the blood.

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DamhuisClan

+DamhuisClan

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
True or False?

Some species of Turtle can breath through their rear ends!

... can pump water in and out of its cloacal bursae such that it can obtain as much as two-thirds of its oxygen supply through this route.....

 

Ding! to geocacher_coza.

I found this an amazing fact.

Your question next.

Edited by DamhuisClan
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cincol

+cincol

Posted
Posted

As a matter of interest the oldest airport in the world was Berlin's Templehof {THF / EDDI} opened 8 October 1923 and closed 31 October 2008}.

 

Dingbat - I will question your link for Cape Town being the answer. Your link does not indicate as such. :D Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg Airports were all built around the same time - in the 1940's if I am not mistaken. Alexanderfontein, near Kimberley, was used as a training base for pilots during the Great War - 1913. [but this was not an internationa airport though.] This could well be one of the oldest airports in South Africa though. See Alexanderfontein

 

Looking forward to the correct answer from geocacher_coza :D

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geocacher_coza

+geocacher_coza

Posted
Posted (edited)
In the 1930's the Vaal Dam was used for flying boats bringing in international mail. They used to land near Deneysville

DING

Cincol is correct!

 

In June 1937 3,500 lbs of mail was delivered to South Africa by Canopus,a S.23 Empire Class flying boat built by Short brothers. It was also known as the "C-Class" as all their given names began with the letter "C". The planes had a crew of 5 and carried 24 passengers with airports almost non-existent they used the waterways across Africa to land and refuel overnight. The Vaal Dam was their southernmost terminal to Cape Town and the planes landed close to the Dam wall and the passengers and crew rested in the local hotel which has now unfortunetley been demolished and has made way for mock Greek houses. It could be said that Deneysvillle was the site of the first International airport in South Africa. The flying boat service used different planes including the Solent a development of the Sunderland - which served until 1950 when the service was replaced by land based aircraft. Lake Deneys Yacht Club famous for the annual "Round The Island" yacht race was founded by the crews of Imperial Airways and the company's speed bird logo still graces the club burgee today.
Edited by geocacher_coza
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cincol

+cincol

Posted
Posted

(My guess 1978, or must we be more accurate, and with the month and day?

 

Ummmm ......... :) You might be surprised by the date. When I toured the Boeing plant in Seattle I certainly was! And they are still being built today after entering commercial service a yearafter first flying.

 

The B-747 is and always will be my personal favourite. One of the most comfortable and quietest 'plane I have ever flown in. The B-777 comes fairly close. Somehow I will never accept the A-380 as being the "King of the Skies". The B-747 rules!

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geocacher_coza

+geocacher_coza

Posted
Posted (edited)

Also not googled this one! I find the history of planes very interesting. The Boeing 747 sure has the riches history of all commercial planes.

The first flight took place on 9 February 1969, with test pilots Jack Waddell and Brien Wygle at the controls and Jess Wallick at the flight engineer's station.

The first commercial flight was scheduled for the 21 January 1970 but only took off on the 22 January 1970, due to an engine overheating, making the original aircraft unusable. Finding a substitute delayed the flight by more than six hours to the following day.

Edited by geocacher_coza
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cincol

+cincol

Posted
Posted

The first flight took place on 9 February 1969, with test pilots Jack Waddell and Brien Wygle at the controls and Jess Wallick at the flight engineer's station.

 

Yebo gogo :) Nearly 40 years ago! Can you believe it? :cute:

 

I remember watching the 1st ever SAA B-747 on a low level fly past in Durban in 1971. It couldn't land as the runway still had to be lengthened to accomodate the "Jumbo". It did a loop around the country to show everybody what a magnificent bird it was.

 

Another piece of SA trivia - a lecturer of mine at 'Varsity was honoured with being the person who officially "invented" the Afrikaans word for Jumbo Jet - "Makrostraler"! Those were the days! -_-

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Jors

+Jors

Posted
Posted

The cape foot is a traditional unit of length in South Africa. It was established in Cape Town, South Africa in an Act of 1859 and was found in documents of belts and diagrams relating to landed property. Its use was discontinued in 1950. This unit is not the traditional Dutch foot, but it is similar in length to the "Rhine foot" of northern Germany. The Cape foot was widely used for land measurement and appears on many deeds in South Africa. Europeans often referred to South Africa as "The Cape," meaning the Cape of Good Hope.

 

Question:

If I say the home of the Blue Bulls, Minolta Loftus, is 2 850 000,000 meters from the equator - how far would that be in Cape feet? (to the nearest foot wil do)...

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the pooks

+the pooks

Posted
Posted

There was a time when i was investigating details of our farm that was recorded in Cape feet (typically as morgen, square roods and Cape feet). I thought it might still be on my computer somewhere, (so that i can get by the "no googling"), but alas I have not found it. so that is the closest I can get!

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DamhuisClan

+DamhuisClan

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I also have no idea, but lets venture a guess.

 

An imperial foot is 12 inches, and an inch is 2.54 cm. That makes a foot (imperial foot?) 30.5 cm.

Cape feet would be shorter (hypothesis), so lets make it 25 cm.

That makes it 4 per meter. So the answer could be 11,400,000,000 cf.

 

But the number 2 850 000,000 meters is interesting. Why those specific numbers? Maybe that is part of the answer?

Looking forward to the answer.

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Jors

+Jors

Posted
Posted (edited)

It doesn't matter, they still cannot play rugby anyway ! -Tong in cheek-

:mad::D:(

That just might turn out to be the tongue under the laces? :)

(Boots still have those?)

 

So the answer could be 11,400,000,000 cf.

Nope, just a couple of thousand million off...

But the number 2 850 000,000 meters is interesting. Why those specific numbers? Maybe that is part of the answer?

Looking forward to the answer.

Converting Project 2010 - Loftus Versveld to the South African survey (grid) system

 

gives WG29 Y=78 096,874 X=2 850 014,834 where

 

Y would be the projected distance west of the 29° line of longitude and X south from 0° latitude (equator)

 

I just rounded the X-value, nothing special about that :mad:

 

:anitongue: ---Don't trust Gooogle--- :(

Edited by Jors
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tomtwogates

+tomtwogates

Posted
Posted
:( my late father was caught speeding in the good old days when they still used stopwatches - he queried the distance and then gave them a cape foot tape (he was a builder and used it to set out plots) to check their measurements - they scratched their heads as of course it was not what they had measured that very morning - he rolled up the tape and drove off laughing!! The cape foot must be longer than the regular foot!:anitongue:
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Jors

+Jors

Posted
Posted

The cape foot must be longer than the regular foot!

 

True: A Cape Geodetic foot is longer by a factor of 1,033 a Imperial foot.

 

For this question: Rule 1 - No Googling!

 

:anitongue: If no takers by then, I'll give the conversion factor tomorrow...

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DamhuisClan

+DamhuisClan

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

The cape foot must be longer than the regular foot!

 

For this question: Rule 1 - No Googling!

 

According to this website (Thanks to Google)

feet (Cape) 0.3148581 metres feet (geodetic Cape) 0.314855575 metres

Thus it would be 2 850 000,000 * 0.314855575 = 897 338 388,000

Edited by DamhuisClan
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DamhuisClan

+DamhuisClan

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Cool thanks!

 

My question is:

Who was the person that found the first cache HIDDEN in South Africa.

Any one can answer in the 1st 24 hours, except the person that found it.

After 24 hours (at 9H30 CAT) that person may answer, if he / she wishes to.

 

As a bonus point what is the cache name?

Edited by DamhuisClan
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geocacher_coza

+geocacher_coza

Posted
Posted
South Africa

Thats it!

During the 1970s and 1980s, South Africa pursued research into nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Six nuclear weapons were assembled. With the anticipated changeover to a majority-elected government in the 1990s, the South African government dismantled all of its nuclear weapons, the only nation in the world to date which voluntarily gave up nuclear arms it had developed itself.

The country has been a signatory of the Biological Weapons Convention since 1975, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1991, and the Chemical Weapons Convention since 1995.

In September 1979, a double flash over the Indian Ocean detected by a U.S. satellite was suspected of being a South African nuclear test, in collaboration with Israel (this event is known as the Vela Incident). No official confirmation of it being a nuclear test has been made, and expert agencies have disagreed on their assessments. In 1997, Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad stated that South Africa had conducted a test, but later retracted the statement as being a report of rumours. Pahad apparently had no inside information about the program. A number of other sources[who?] have quoted anonymous Israeli officials verifying that some sort of test took place, but none of this has been officially confirmed by the Israeli, South African, or United States governments. However, in February 1994, Commodore Dieter Gerhardt, the convicted Soviet spy and former commander of South Africa's Simon's Town naval base was reported to have said:

"Although I was not directly involved in planning or carrying out the operation, I learned unofficially that the flash was produced by an Israeli-South African test code-named Operation Phenix. The explosion was clean and was not supposed to be detected. But they were not as smart as they thought, and the weather changed – so the Americans were able to pick it up

South Africa also had a relatively sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile programme running concurrently with the nuclear programme, and was known to be working on more sophisticated nuclear weapons capable of delivery from such a platform. According to published data one of the missiles, the RSA-4, may have been capable of delivering a 700 kg nuclear warhead from its South African launch site to any point on earth

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