SNAP

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Throwing the Perfect spiral isn’t easy but it can be learned. The pros do it. Kids and dads do it, too. It just takes practice, practice, practice. Don’t forget to check the videos at the bottom. Especially that last one with Drew Brees. WOW!!!

Hope you are enjoying this seasonal transition to fall and the upcoming … (can’t say it).  I’m guessing like you, I was drawn to the television this past weekend and watched my beloved Brownies lose another heartbreaker to those demons out east.  During the game, I was reminiscing on my much earlier days playing quarterback on the high school and college levels, and still marveled how the pros throw a football.  I went on line, and did some digging – for my engineering buds out there – and found some great info on the physics and details of throwing a perfect spiral.  (One of my favorite tips was “the final finger flip). One of my daughter’s can still throw the “perfect” spiral! On top of this, I considered what it takes to make a “perfect play” – when all 11 execute perfectly – and it reminded me of my great team here at KHT – everyone doing their job, in harmony, with perfect results (talk about a consistent delivery on your PIA (Pain in the @%$)Jobs!  Like the pros, we also consider the obstacles, plan a solution, practice/practice, all execute together, and bingo – touchdown!  Here’s some cool info on that crazy football pass and what it takes to make a perfect throw.  Enjoy, and thanks to cps digital.org, yahoo.com, wikipedia and You Tube for the info.

  • You may think throwing a football is one simple motion, but you would be wrong. When you release a football, if thrown well, it should spin at about 400-600 RPM’s, or revolutions per minute.
  • This spin creates a gyroscopic torque, which is when the axis of a spinning body is tilted. This creates a third axis that is perpendicular to the spin and the tilt axis. Gravity will try to pull the nose of the ball downward but will have a hard time, the ball is aerodynamic so the forces of wind counteract gravity and keep it in the air longer.
  • Newton’s laws help dictate the pattern of all moving objects, including footballs. The path of a football’s flight is not random, it is the result of the physical forces of inertia, air resistance and gravity. Newtons first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. the basic flight pattern of a football is the shape of a parabola, this shows that there is a bend in the football’s movement through the air. Newton’s first law applies here because there are outside forces like air resistance to keep the ball from traveling in a straight line.
  • Newton’s second law states that the total change of an objects motion or position is equal to the sum of all forces acting on that object. As a football flies through the air the forces acting on it are constantly changing, except gravity. As the quarterback releases the ball inertia is the greatest force acting on it, that is why it travels upward. as the football reaches its high point inertia weakens due to air resistance. Gravity then takes over and pulls the ball back towards the earth.
  • Newton’s third law tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is shown through a football’s lift which helps it fly higher and longer, lift occurs when air is moving around an object. As a football moves sideways through the air, its upward motion forces more air under the ball which creates a buoyant force which is why quarterbacks throw at an upward angle.
  • (Did Newton play in the NFL??)
  • Looking back to some basic physics classes, we can understand that the way a ball flies depends on the launch angle and the speed it is thrown at. However, you can throw a football as hard as you want, that doesn’t guarantee that it will fly in a perfect spiral. In order to get a football to fly perfectly, we have to be a little more concerned with inducing gyroscopic precession.
  • Due to the gyroscopic effects of a spinning football, the way the ball behaves in the air actually varies based on whether the quarterback is right or left-handed. A ball thrown by a right-handed quarterback will curve slightly to the right, and one thrown by a left-handed quarterback would do just the opposite. Understanding this is essential to throwing an accurate pass.
  • Now, adding more spin to the ball isn’t all that throwing a good spiral needs. A faster-spinning ball will take up more proportion of the imparted energy to continue spinning than to continue moving forward. This means that quarterbacks can actually lose yardage when they impart more spin to a ball. It’s all about finding a happy medium. The ball needs the necessary amount of spin to attain proper gyroscopic motion, while also maximizing the forward velocity to maximize range.
  • The launch angle is another fairly simple aspect of a football pass, but one that is essential to mastering the game. Like any other trajectory, the maximum distance can be achieved with a launch angle of 45 degrees. At higher than 45, height will be maximized, and at lower angles, the ball will likely not travel as far as you need it to.
  • Throwing a perfect football may be easy to understand from a mathematics and physics perspective, but mastering the art is a completely different challenge. If you were to give any random physics student a problem involving a quarterback and a running receiver, it would likely be one of the most difficult parabolic motion problems they ever completed. Yet, good quarterbacks can perfectly take into account launch angle, velocity, and spin to perfectly place a football in the hands of a receiver down the field.
  • Baker Mayfield threw an absolute rocket of a Hail Mary on Monday night against the Baltimore Ravens.  Mayfield threw the ball from the Browns’ own 40-yard line and wound up overthrowing the end zone.  While it was ultimately incomplete, the pass landed in the history books as the longest ever recorded by Pro Football Focus.
  • The longest pass completion of 99 yards has been achieved on 11 occasions in the National Football League (NFL) and has always resulted in a touchdown. The most recent occurrence was a pass from Eli Manning to Victor Cruz, for the New York Giants against the New York Jets (all USA) on 24 December 2011.
  • In a given year, NFL quarterbacks throw about 20,000 passes, with a completion rate of 64.9%.
  • An average ball being passed travels about 60 mph.

Longest Passes in History
Browns Fans, Plug in your earphones & crank the audio. Watch Baker!!
Best NFL Passes 
The Physics of a Football Pass – UC Irvine 
How to Throw the Perfect Football Spiral – According to Physics 
Very, VERY Entertaining to Watch: Drew Brees Edition | Dude Perfect 

 

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

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I’m So Lucky

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lake view 768 blog

(top left) From my office window. (top right three photos) From my roof top. (second row left) Freighters pass everyday. (second row middle) A commemorative stamp to Great Lakes Transportation. (second row right) Great Lakes depth chart. (third row left) Frenchman Louis Jolliet first sighted Lake Erie in 1669. (third row middle) Great Walleye fishing! (third row right) Balloonist John Steiner’s first attempt at crossing the Lake Erie in a flimsy balloon didn’t pan out very well. But the whack job from Philadelphia finally made it in 1857. (bottom left) Cool view of Lake Erie from space. (bottom right) Cool view of Lake Erie from the lake during a storm in October. Sports photographer Dave Sandford’s passion is shooting Lake Erie’s monstrous waves. Read about this guy and see more of his images HERE

 

Years ago when Mom and Dad chose our current location, they knew it was special because of the visibility from the highway. They both wanted everyone to see KHT! Although they probably never realized just how special it was. Back then, inexpensive rent, open manufacturing space and capable local workers, coupled with easy “on/off” access to the highway was what caught their eyes. Being just outside of downtown, along with the local/regional “neighborhood” customers, made Dad’s decision a good one when he started KHT.

Over the years, as most of you know, we’ve acquired adjoining land, added buildings and built needed additions to handle our growth and our expanded array of PIA (pain in the @%$) specialty treatment services. We’ve remained “committed” to Ohio City and Cleveland, and see positive things happening all around us still today.

One great outcome of our location on the “Northshore” is the office view I have, designed to take advantage of the beautiful views of Lake Erie and downtown. Each morning, being the early bird I am, I get to come in really early, and watch the lake and the city come to life. With spring finally here, it’s even more beautiful – awesome trees, blue water, the return of lake freighters, sunrises/sunsets and the renewal of the highway and walkways across the street. If you are ever in town, swing by and take a peek with our telescope … and Thanks Mom and Dad for the great spot!!

So, for my engineers and trivia lovers out there, as I sit here soaking in the views, I thought I’d pass along some Lake Erie trivia. Enjoy.

  • Lake Erie is the eleventh largest lake in the world (by surface area), and the fourth largest of the Great Lakes.
  • The Lake is 241 miles long, 57 miles wide and has an average depth of 62 ft., with a maximum depth of 210 ft. The water surface area is 9910 sq. miles and its shoreline equals 871 linear miles.
  • Ninety-five percent of Lake Erie’s total inflow of water comes via the Detroit River water from all the “upper lakes” (Superior, Michigan and Huron) with help from the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and numerous tributaries. The rest comes from precipitation. The lake’s water retention/replacement time is 2.6 years.
  • Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and is especially vulnerable to fluctuating water levels, fast storms and choppy waters.
  • In 1669, the Frenchman Louis Jolliet was the first documented European to sight Lake Erie, although there is speculation that Étienne Brûlé may have come across it in 1615. Lake Erie was the last of the Great Lakes to be explored by Europeans, since the Iroquois who occupied the Niagara River area were in conflict with the French, and did not allow explorers or traders to pass through.
  • The name Erie comes from its southern shore which was at one time occupied by a nation known to the Iroquois League as the “Erielhonan,” or the “long-tails.”. This name is always mentioned by the early French writers as meaning “cat”; Lac du Chat means “Lake of the Cat.” (reference to the wild cat or panther).
  • Wind Setups (wind pushing the water from one end of the lake toward the other), usually from west to east, have produced large short-term differences in water levels at the eastern and western ends of the lake, the record being more than 16 ft. Throughout the lake’s history, winds have been so strong, they have stranded boats in the western basin harbors due to shallow waters.
  • In 1857, a balloonist named John Steiner of Philadelphia made an ambitious trip across the lake. During his trip, he arose to the height of about three miles, but said he thinks his balloon bounded from the water at least twenty times, striking and then rebounding like a ball, going into the air from twenty to fifty feet, while still rushing down the lake at railroad speed. Just off the shore of Canada, he splashed down, abandoned the balloon, leaped into the water and swam to a nearby boat.
  • During the Prohibition years, a “great deal of alcohol crossed Erie” along with “mobster corpses” dumped into the Detroit River, which sometimes washed up on the beaches of Pelee Island. According to one account, Al Capone hid a “fortune” in the walls of the Middle Island luxury club, that featured a basement casino with poker tables and slot machines. No money was found.
  • In 1999, the warm lake almost became a problem for two nuclear power plants which require cool lake water to keep their reactors cool. The warm summer caused lake temperatures to come close to the 85 °F, the limit necessary to keep the plants cool.
  • The Lake is home to one of the world’s largest freshwater commercial fisheries, and is the most abundant of the Great Lakes. Due to the lake’s relatively mild temperatures, it’s “loaded with superstars” such as steelhead, walleye, pickerel, smallmouth bass, perch, bass, trout and salmon.
  • The lake is also responsible for microclimates that are important to agriculture. Along its north shore is one of the richest areas of Canada’s fruit and vegetable production. Along the southeastern shore in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York is an important grape growing region, as are the islands in the lake. Apple orchards are abundant in northeast Ohio to western New York due to the climate created by the lake.

 

 

 

 

Now That’s Just “Great Timing”

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tim conway 768 blog

Click to see the VIDEO HERE.  Challenge: Try getting through this with a straight face. Even if you do make it without laughing out loud, you’ll be crying after Vicki Lawrence finally speaks.

 

Not often compared, but believe it or not, dynamic thermal processing and comedy share something very special – and that’s great timing. At KHT, whether its our first class turn around time, engineered time in our processing divisions, making sure we’re following the proper cooling schedule, or getting you your parts “JIT” – great treated parts, like comedy, requires great timing.

Tim Conway, a Cleveland born original (like KHT) and a Bowling Green State grad has an amazing knack for great timing. Throughout his career he crushed audiences with his wit, dry humor and impeccable timing in so many TV series and movies – some of our favorites include McHale’s Navy, The Steve Allen Show, The Carol Burnett Show, Dorf, the Apple Dumpling Gang and on his own television series The Tim Conway Show.

For fun, we thought we’d dig into the archives and share with you a classic sketch from the Carol Burnett Show titled “The Elephant Story”. The scene takes place during afternoon dress rehearsal – and, well – just watch it through, as I’m sure it will help you wrap up your week with a belly laugh and a smile. Tim shares the stage with Carol Burnett, Vicky Lawrence and one of the very best, Dick Van Dyke.

Like a great comedy troupe, at Kowalski Heat Treating, we go to great lengths to make sure our timing on your PIA (Pain In The @%$) Jobs! is on target, helping you save time and money by revitalizing underperforming materials, reducing waste and scrap and providing you confidence you’re working with a reliable, dedicated (and fun) partner. Enjoy!!

Watch “The Elephant Story” below, or click to view on YouTube