The Anonymous Widower

Chasing Boats and the Red Arrows

This was not very successful yesterday, as I got to the Thames just after the torch went through on Gloriana and then in the evening, I was in the wrong place to take a picture as the Red Arrows went over Haggerston station.  I think that they might have changed the route because of the clouds, but at least I saw the RAF sacrobatic team.

July 28, 2012 Posted by | Sport | , | Leave a comment

A Kid Escapes From Manchester

Apparently an eleven-year-old boy has escaped through Manchester Airport to get to Rome, as reported here. Airline staff have been suspended, but what were the Border Agency staff doing?

Organising a strike for tomorrow.

Will anybody notice?

Let’s face it the PCS Union are a total disgrace, as Gary Richardson pointed out on Sunday.

At least there’s no problem now in selecting those for compulsory redundancy, if it’s needed. But I doubt it will be, as the terms for accepting redundancy will be very generous.

July 25, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

Lightning Strikes On Aircraft

They had a piece on BBC Breakfast this morning, about lightning strikes on aircraft, showing how that if there was a layer of metal fibres woven into the carbon fibre, the aircraft skin didn’t collapse.  They did show what happened if a lightning bolt hit the lab teapot.

But there was no mention in the piece of Michael Faraday, who would have course realised the solution, as he did all of the original work and invented the Faraday cage in 1836.

All metal aircraft are in effect, appropriately-sized Faraday cages and this work in Cardiff, is just repeating the process for carbon fibre aircraft.

July 18, 2012 Posted by | World | , , , | Leave a comment

Rolls-Royce Builds Its Latest Engine With Lego

The Times shows a half-size model of the Trent 1000 engine built from 152,455 Lego bricks. There’s more here.

Some toy!

July 10, 2012 Posted by | News | , , , | 1 Comment

Branson Goes Short Haul

It would appear that Virgin Atlantic want to set up a short haul airline from Heathrow, according to reports like this.

Now with a lack of runway capacity at the airport, surely we don’t want short-haul flights, but long-haul ones!

Especially, as the Channel Tunnel and its trains are not running at full capacity.

But then if an airline wanted to run trains from London to Paris, the French would probably find a way to block it.

July 9, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

A Real Time Waster

A large series of photographs showing Britain from the air in the 1920s and 1930s has just been published. They are described here on the BBC.

I’ve just spent about an hour on the web site, looking at places connected with my past.

Fascinating!

June 26, 2012 Posted by | World | , , | 1 Comment

The Grand Prix in Valencia

If there’s one Grand Prix, that I wish was only on Sky, it’s this one, as Valencia was where C and I had our last holiday together.  I described it here.

But it’s not Valencia’s fault, that I will probably never go back again.

Although, it was the wettest holiday, I think we ever had!

June 23, 2012 Posted by | Sport, Transport/Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

A Vulcan Story

Whether this story is true, I do not know, but I heard it from a retired RAF officer many years ago. The Avro Vulcan was one of Britain’s three V-bombers; Vulcan, Valiant and Victor, which were designed for Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

In a way, the Vulcan was unique in that it was instantly recognisable because of its delta wing. The shape also had the advantage that it didn’t have a very good radar signature.

I was told that at the height of the Cold War, the United States was worried that a sneaky Russian bomber might get through to bomb the cities of the East Coast.

So the RAF said, that they would stage a surprise attack.  A Vulcan was chosen and got through the radar defences unseen.

I think it is true to say, that in those days, there was a lot of rivalry between the RAF and USAF, and any story that showed up the others was distributed with glee.

There is now a Vulcan, XH558, in flying condition and it makes a wonderful sight in the air. But don’t forget your ear-plugs!

I must add one personal reminiscence here about the Victor.  When Handley Page folded in 1970, they were still converting some of the remaining Victors to the tanker role. These planes had to be ferried to Woodford near Manchester for the work to continue.  The job was entrusted to Handley Page’s test pilot, who after this job would not have a job with the company. Most were in need of a bit of repair, but he’d found one, on which he could retract the undercarriage and get a lot of power out of the tired engines. I was working at ICI in Welwyn Garden City at the time, and a colleague, who had used to work at Handley Page, said that there was going to be a low-level flypast over Hatfield Airfield and we were probably in the flight-path.

We were and at lunchtime, we saw this Victor pass overhead at probably the minimum allowable height of 500 feet.

It was a sight to be remembered.

June 21, 2012 Posted by | World | , | 6 Comments

Manchester Airport Runs Out of Fuel

Note the first word of the title of this post.

It would appear that the problem is due to the quality of fuel being delivered from the Essar refinery at Stanlow.

The refinery used to be owned by Royal Dutch Shell, but they sold it to the Indian company, Essar, in 2011.

June 7, 2012 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 2 Comments

Made In Eccles and Protecting The Olympic Flame

The problem is how do you transport an Olympic flame from Greece to the UK.

The answer is you use a version of the Davy lamp, developed by Sir Humphry Davy and others in the first two decades of the nineteenth century.

A Miners Safety Lamp Made in Eccles

All proper Davy lamps are made in Eccles and my version in the picture is an earlier version of that used for the Olympics. They use a modified version of the 6S lamp.  Mine is a version 6 and it was bought in a junk shop in Liverpool.

If you want to find out more about the lamp used, there’s a lot of information here on the maker’s web site.

Sir Humphry must be laughing his socks off in his grave.  Especially, as this year’s Olympic Torch Relay will start in Cornwall, the county of his birth.

May 17, 2012 Posted by | News, Sport, Transport/Travel | , , , , | 3 Comments

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »