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It is possible to make exact scale models of aircraft
that are perfectly flyable: a 1/3 scale radio
controlled Spitfire has been flown across the
English Channel.
The Spitfire is without question the best aircraft
ever. But it is a single seater, and a cramped single
seater at that. There
are a couple of tandem
trainers, but that's it.
Now, BorgAir are designing a 3 x scale model of
the Spitfire. It looks like a Spitfire, it's just three
times bigger, and seats four people. It's powered
by two Merlin XXIV's or Griffons, mounted in
tandem.
Now everyone can have that flight they've always
dreamed of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boops_boops
[not_morrison_rm, May 15 2012]
Seagull v Spitfire
http://www.flickr.c...scrumbs/4844380205/
Poop v Bullets [skinflaps, May 15 2012]
James May version
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8327914.stm
[UnaBubba, May 15 2012]
A dirty Fokker!
https://en.wikipedi...ki/Fokker_Eindecker
[DrBob, May 15 2012]
P-47 vs Spitfire (and everything else)
http://www.wwiiairc...-47/p-47c-afdu.html
Didn't know they had ASCII text back then. [doctorremulac3, May 15 2012]
Best propeller driven fighter plane
http://en.wikipedia...Grumman_F8F_Bearcat
[doctorremulac3, May 15 2012]
Low Flying Spitfire
http://www.youtube....watch?v=Wpq4Tu2NnrQ
rather impressive close to ground [xenzag, May 15 2012]
The Jug. King of the WW2 fighters?
http://www.368thfig...group.com/P-47.html
The more I learn the more that looks like the case. [doctorremulac3, May 15 2012]
Welding sparks some foamy fun.
http://theaviationi...2/05/14/foam-party/
[AusCan531, May 16 2012]
F22 hypoxia
http://www.bbc.co.u...-us-canada-18081936
[not_morrison_rm, May 16 2012]
Replica Spitfire
http://www.telegrap...dron-takes-off.html
[hippo, May 16 2012]
Z1300
http://feetforwards...z1300qsr/index.html
[not_morrison_rm, May 18 2012]
Les Barker
http://monologues.c...ny_News_Iceberg.htm
A moving vehicle accident can be very bad news for all parties involved … [8th of 7, May 19 2012]
[link]
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Build it, and they will bun. |
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They both have to pedal very hard to achieve lift off speed, surely? Oh, I made a boo(ps) boo(ps).. |
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But seriously, I like the idea. |
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Armed with .909 inch machine guns and 60mm cannon. |
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Jumbo sized 875,000 lb seagull.I wonder as to whether that is what R.J. Mitchell was thinking of? |
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Giant 4-seater Airfix seagull ? |
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"And in other news, a potato chip factory was
yesterday destroyed by a gigantic, blue, plastic
seagull. It was apparently controlled by a
corpulent fellow in a WWII fighter pilot's helmet. |
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The three passengers in the err.. "aircraft" with
him were wearing Tshirts emblazoned with a
partially eaten croissant. |
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Police suspect, based upon that evidence that it
may be part of a French plot to reclaim the
Pommes Frites for France, despite it originally
having been invented by a Belgian, in America." |
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//The Spitfire is without question the best
aircraft ever.// |
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Piston engine category perhaps. The best aircraft
ever is clearly the F-22, which holds the honor of
extending beyond the category of "Best aircraft
ever" and into the category of "Best things ever".
As in "#1: Hot date with a pair of underwear
models. #2: The F-22 Raptor...." |
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With a little tweaking an F-22 could shoot down a
flight of Spitfires without even leaving the
ground. Granted, this is matching Ali with Tyson,
two different time periods, but if we're talking
"Best" it must be mentioned. [+] despite the typo. |
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// With a little tweaking an F-22 could shoot down a flight of Spitfires without even leaving the ground//
That's useful, given the number of fleet groundings and semi-conscious pilots.
These "underwear models"...are they Airfix too?
How do you get them off the sprue? |
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//That's useful, given the number of fleet groundings and semi-conscious pilots.// |
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Touche', but can't say I didn't see that coming. |
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//a potato chip factory was yesterday destroyed by a gigantic, blue, plastic seagull. |
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No, no, go do the Citroen factory. They're used to it. It bombed by the Germans and then repeatedly bombed by the RAF..for exactly the same reason, to stop the enemy using it's aluminium welding equipment. So being shot up by a huge Spitfire will just seem like business as usual. |
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I'm pretty sure I saw a spitfire going along a motorway, once. |
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//The Spitfire is without question the best aircraft
ever.// |
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Now, that's just begging for an argument. If I were just a
teensy bit more egotistical, I'd say that statement was
targeted directly at me. |
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Ah, but what criteria to base our comparison on? Vintage
or modern? Military or civilian? Fixed-wing, rotor, or LTA? |
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A-10 Warthog gets my vote. Survivability, versatility,
manueverability,
and a big fucking gun. |
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But, yeah, spits were awesome, and [+] for this. Fun for
the whole family. Does it have 3x the guns? Oh, and if you
mount the Merlins inline with a hollow shaft, you can run a
CR double to maintain that single-prop appearance. |
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Any computer programmer worth his Mountain Dew and Cheetos should be able to make a program that would pit various fighters against each other in simulation while taking pilot skill out of the equation. |
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Then you could program in different scenarios and see what happens. First thing I'd try is a squadron of P-47s against an equal number of Spitfires. Not all that far apart in speed, rate of climb etc, slight edge to the Spits, but ability to take punishment, double the range and 8 fifty caliber machine guns might put the jug in the win column. By win I mean whichever plane had 1 left flying. |
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See link of actual comparison done during WW2. No mention though of the P-47's ability to take punishment which was legendary and what might put the Jugs over the Spitfires. (maybe) |
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Much though I love the Spitfire, I am not sure I can
bun this. Part of the appeal of the Spit was its size -
it looks like it was designed to be worn by the pilot.
It makes modern fighters look ridiculous - more like
aerial battleships which are kept aloft only by
electronics and huge amounts of power. |
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So, a bigger version? Nah - it just wouldn't look
right, except from a distance. |
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Actually, scratch the P-47. Looks like a F8F Bearcat would eat Spitfires for lunch. See link and check the specs. Speed, rate of climb, range everything waaaay outmatches the Spitfires. |
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Spitfires definately win the beauty contest though. |
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Endurance was a huge factor, but
manueverability on paper is one thing... In the air, a
different story. A great pilot could make a Spit dance
circles around a Jug (which is my favorite single-engine
craft of the era, so don't think I'm discriminating). A Spit
could also pull out of a steep dive much faster. On a head-
to-head pass between squadrons, you're going to lose a lot
of Spits and maybe one or two Jugs; the P-47, as noted,
had devastating firpower. However, it was a 'stable'
airplane--which made it so wonderful for ground attack--
so once the furball started, it would be at a serious
disadvantage against the Spitfires. |
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The Bearcat, as well, was stable (Americans had a
penchant for building fighters that flew straight and level,
while the Brits took notes from the Germans), without the
inherent instability that made airplanes like Spitfires and
Mustangs so nimble. The paper stats don't reflect things
like how fast the plane could snap-roll or loop, how quickly
it could recover from a stall (a favorite tactic of Spit
pilots), and how easily it could be made to slip and yaw,
vital when eluding pursuit. The trade-off for these
attributes was having an aircraft that operated right on
the very edge of control all the time, requiring constant
attention just to hold it in place. Reportedly, flying a
Spitfire on an extended mission was the ultimate test of a
fighter pilot's endurance. |
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The computer simulation would be telling, but flawed; no
computer can match a pilot in the seat. |
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[Max], no better description of a modern fighter can be
made. They are completely unflyable without the
electronics, and designed to sit just over the horizon and
fling massive amounts of bad news at distant enemies--just
like a battleship. |
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I need to find the video from a show called "Dogfights" where a P-47 got oil from it's shot up engine all over the canopy so the pilot could barely see. That canopy was also shot up so he couldn't open it to bail out. I believe it was a ME109 that just followed behind and kept shooting but couldn't take it down. At one point the German flew along side, saw the condition the Jug was in and shook his head in amazement before returning to the American's 6 oclock where he emptied the rest of his ammo into him to no avail. The Jug just kept flying. As the 109 flew off the American took one last shot at it (in it's general direction) as a final act of defiance. When he finally landed there were several hundred holes in the plane which had survived despite being turned into confetti. |
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Back on the original idea, I'm under the impression that wing size has to scale up more quickly than body size (area of wing compares to mass, therefore volume of body). When scaling down, this increases the proportional lift which isn't usually a problem, but it puts a fairly strict limit on scaling up. |
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[doc], I've seen that same show, and read several personal
accounts of such occurances. |
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Yea, I don't think a Spitfire with it's water cooled inline engine could survive a leak in it's cooling system much less being shredded to pieces like that. Here's the stat I found: |
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"The heavily armored (P-47) plane sustained 824 combat losses, only .07% of the Jugs didn't return from a combat mission, the lowest total of any Allied fighter." |
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The P-47 also had redundant systems and many of its
piping was cleverly hidden in and under the hefty engine
block. Later in the war, many were fitted with improved
self-sealing fuel tanks that actually worked. |
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Spits had
_supposedly_ self-sealing tanks, but they didn't always
work, and the positioning of the fuselage tanks behind and
and under the pilot meant that fuel would often spray into
the cockpit when the plane was hit from behind. Pilot
losses from severe burns were horrifically common during
the Battle of Britain. |
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Sorry 8, I'm afraid you have to retract: "The Spitfire is without question the best aircraft ever." |
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You can however replace is with "The Spitfire is without question the coolest aircraft ever." with few disagreeing. Although I'd still put Raptors up there. Woozy, blue faced, hallucinating pilots and all. |
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I will only agree to "the Spitfire is _one of_ the
greatest/coolest aircraft ever." |
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Well, I always knew the Jug was badass, but the more I read the more it looks like the un-glamorous Jug was top dog of the WW2 fighters. |
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"Seven of the top 10 European Aces flew the P-47 Thunderbolt against the Luftwaffe." (wow) |
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"The Thunderbolt flew twice as many sorties and dropped 2,010% more tonnage than any other Allied fighter." (see link) |
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Re: The P-38. An amazing plane. One could only imagine where they might have ranked loaded with 2 Merlins instead of the Allisons they were powered by. |
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Re: The Raptor. I saw that 60 minutes episode and remember, one of the guys refusing to pilot it said it's the most invincible plane to ever fly. You just need to hold your breath while you're doing it. |
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They'll iron out the kinks. |
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// Well, I always knew the Jug was badass, but the
more I read the more it looks like the un-glamorous Jug
was top dog of the WW2 fighters.
// |
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Many have thought so. Bottom line: it got the job done. |
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A close second for my top single-engine pick is the Il-2; it
was a ground attack aircraft, not a fighter, but it scores
high for sheer invincibility. Swarms of 109s would empty
their guns into it and the sucker would just keep tooling
along, picking off Tiger tanks like it was swatting flies. |
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The P-38 scores a tie for my WWII twin-engine top pick,
alongside the Mosquito. Both very, very cool aircraft. The
P-38 especially was beloved by its crew, who often
claimed it could outfight any single-engine fighter in the
war. Given some of the tactics they developed that played
to its strengths (speed, climb, firepower, and flat-out
acceleration from cruise), they were often right. Japanese
pilots were terrified of them, dubbing them "fork-tailed
devils." |
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Has no-one a kind word for the P-51 ? |
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// "The Spitfire is without question the coolest aircraft ever." with few disagreeing. // |
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Fair enough. It is agile, fast, but above all aesthetically beautiful beyond measure. For those that disagree, bring forth the Wicker Man ... |
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Lovely plane, right up until you tried to land it, at which point the engines had a tendency to catch fire ... |
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The Mustang was a great plane, but, like the Corsair, late
to game and based on the merit of its predecessors. Plus, I
have thing for unsung heroes. If something is popular, I
won't automatically reject it, but I will wander around the
back to see what's in its shadow. |
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And the Spit is without doubt the _prettiest_ fighter plane
of all time. |
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// The P-38. An amazing plane. One could only imagine where they might have ranked loaded with 2 Merlins instead of the Allisons // |
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Same as the P-51, which was something of a lemon until the Allison was replaced by a Merlin. |
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Anyone may correct me here, but I believe I read in some
book or another that there was a structural issue limiting
the maximum horsepower that the P-38's frame could
handle. |
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P-51s, the earlier models before they bubble-cannopied it, easily rival Spitfires for looks: very handsome compared to very pretty. |
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// easily rival Spitfires for looks // |
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No, not with the big radiator airscoop underneath, and (mainly) the square wingtips. |
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If you can find something that flies that's more beautiful than Mitchell's elliptical wing, then you can plait sand. |
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well, there's always Shenstone's elliptical wing. |
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The bellyscoop on the Mustang added panache to the design. |
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I agree with the Borg. The Mustang is sort of a generic-
looking WWII fighter, which makes sense because it is an
amalgam of most of the things that worked best in all of
the different planes that came before it. |
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// The bellyscoop on the Mustang added
panache to the design // |
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No, it just makes it look eggbound. |
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Step this way, the oil and the faggots are
prepared… |
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//amalgam// you mean "amalgam" in the sense of "it has a pilot and an engine and guns just like the rest of them" ? |
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The laminar flow wing was one of the defining attributes of the Mustang. |
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The P-38's engines size was limited in the sense that the charging and cooling arrangements couldn't handle a bigger engine, ie: they'd have to be redesigned too. |
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// You can have your prettiness all you like...
looks don't win battles // |
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In 1940, the Krauts came buzzing across the
Channel in their ugly,crop-winged, boxy
ME109's.
As soon as they saw a Spit, they felt inferior;
any pilot would. |
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And then, they might get on the tail of a Spit
and every airman's instinct would cry out, "I
can't harm it, it's too beautiful…" and in that
moment their quarry would escape. |
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// The laminar flow wing was one of the defining
attributes of the Mustang. // |
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True, as was the Meredith radiator, please forgive me
overlooking those two innovations, but everything else
was cherrypicked from other successful Allied designs. The
ram-air arrangement came from the P-40, the collapsible-
strut undercarriage and the cross-tensioned fuselage came
from Hawker, the gun bays were lifted directly out of the
P-47 from the moment the decision was made to mount
.50s, the core engine was entirely British, etc. I'm
not
saying that's a bad thing, I just think that so many
different elements brought together in one airframe made
for a pretty homogenized appearance. In terms of a
distinctive look, the Mustang sits near the bottom of the
stack. Doesn't mean it couldn't fly fucking rings around the
opposition. Remember, a P-51 was the only fighter
credited with an ME-262 kill. |
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// The P-38's engines size was limited in the sense
that the charging and cooling arrangements couldn't handle
a bigger engine, ie: they'd have to be redesigned too. // |
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Yes, thank you. I knew I'd read something about why the P-
38 couldn't handle a more powerful engine. |
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I recall reading of one pilot who said, "If you needed
to take evasive action in a P-47 you just took off
your harness and ran in circles around the inside of
the cockpit." |
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It's the largest and heaviest single engine aircraft in
history. |
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That sounds about right. The one I rode in at Duxford was a
two-seat trainer of course, which has significantly less
than double the cockpit space of a single-seater. At 6'3", I
only had to squeeze a little. My head didn't even touch the
canopy. |
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Hey [Alterother], have you been doing any welding in hangars lately? [link] |
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Sadly, I'm not to blame. Haven't been doing any welding at
all, for a little over a year. It'll be a little while, yet. |
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P-47: //It's the largest and heaviest single engine aircraft in history// [UB], you'll need to add a number of qualifiers to make that a true statement. |
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The Spitfire does stand quite apart on my all-time favorites list as a genuinely good-looking aircraft. For some reason, most of my faves are as ugly as swamp roadkill - the Warthog, the Phantom, a whole series of 'Forts - the only other "pretty" plane on my list would be the Vulcan. |
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Guess it stands to reason, though - who but a Brit would think to fly a piece of art into a war? |
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I've always had a special place in my hardware-lovin' heart
for the Harrier. Amongst other features, I love how the
cockpit splits the duct in front of a single giant turbine.
Whenever I see one in a museum, the docents have to
come and chase me away. |
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Actually, that's the case with a lot of things I see in
museums. |
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F22 hypoxia - "The defence secretary has also asked for a back-up oxygen system to be put into the planes, with the first of these due to be installed in December." Beeb news today. |
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Well, no point in rushing these things is there? |
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Hang on F22 , kabbadi, is there a link? |
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You could do it with other planes, too - the Tiger Mothra, the de Havilland Planet, the Big-29. |
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>That foam incident occurred at Eglin.. |
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and nobody made a snowman? |
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[Alter] was working as a welder at Eglin, that day? |
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I wondered why he wasn't allowed near welding
machinery for a while. |
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//a 1/3 scale radio controlled Spitfire has been flown across the English Channel//
Thereby prompting French air-traffic controllers to strike, and the Armée de l'Air to surrender to the bemused aeromodeller. |
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You can buy (and pilot) a 9/10ths scale Spitfire for $210,000 (see link). |
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//hereby prompting French air-traffic controllers
to strike, and the Armée de l'Air to surrender to
the bemused aeromodeller.// |
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Gotta say, that's just damned good satire. I can
picture the Monty Python guys playing the scene
out with outrageously stereotypical French outfits
and accents. The guy at the radar wearing the
beret and striped shirt throws down his grocery
bag with the baguette sticking out the top and
yells "Mon Dieu! Ve are under ze attack! Zees is
not within ze terms of our collective bargaining
agreement! Ve strike at once!" then cut to the
French Air Force command center. "Ve are under
attack! Raise ze battle flag!" then smash cut to a
white flag being raised while the La Marseillaise
plays in the background as the little buzzing
model flies by. |
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By the way, I retract the above if any French
people are reading this. Absinth started it. |
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//You can buy (and pilot) a 9/10ths scale Spitfire//
Yeah, but where are you going to get 0.2727 bullets and 18mm cannon shells? |
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.28 caliber handgun rounds are commonly available on the
open market, and 18mm autocannon shells, while
uncommon, are used by the South African Army and the
IDF. The Japanese used to use 18mm quads, but have
recently converted to 20mm AA guns of American design
(made right here in Maine by General Dynamics), so
perhaps they have some surplus belted 18mm frangibles
and tracers. |
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// I wondered why he wasn't allowed near welding
machinery for a while. // |
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[UB], I have plenty of my own welding equipment, and go
near it
whenever I want. I lovingly fondle my Miller 4600 and long
for the day when I can once more bolt it to the back of my
deuce-anna-1/2 to go out and fix some busted forestry
machine or create a custom-fabricated masterpiece to go
on the front of a jacked-up Chevy. |
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Anyhow, you weren't here last summer, so I'll catch you up
on some history that was big news around the Halbakery
for about 7 minutes and has been the source of obscure
inside jokes ever since: last May 27 I hit a Teleporting
Deer*
head-on whilst I was riding my Kawasaki KLR 650 (which
was demolished in the crash) and was thrown 40 yards,
bouncing off of the pavement at least twice before landing
in a bog, resulting in a
shattered left scapula, fracture of my left clavicle, three
ribs, my L5 vertabra, and my left tibia, a moderate
concussion, as well as complete disconnection of every
tendon and ligament in my left ankle. After three
surgeries, the most recent being 3 weeks ago and entailing
the removal of a bone chip that was embedded in my
upper sciatic nerve only 5mm from my spinal cord, I am in
the final stages of recovery from these injuries. Hopefully,
this will explain to you why I haven't done any welding
work for the last year, and also why I spend so much time
lurking on HB. |
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* aka Blink Deer or Cervus Displacia |
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not wishing to seem hard-hearted, but how about the deer? |
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//I spend so much time lurking on HB. |
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I have such excuse, except it's much more fun than trying to work out what part of a Japanese text is <FONT FACE="MS Mincho, ＭＳ 明朝, monospace"> out of the other 100 or so possibles... |
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We call motorcyclists either "temporary citizens" or
"organ donors", depending upon the mood of the
day. |
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Sorry, but I've no sympathy for people injured in
motorcycle accidents. You knew better and did it
anyway. |
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//but I've no sympathy for people injured in motorcycle accidents//
Not even the innocent bystanders, hit by cycle parts, or flying organ donors?
Shame on you. |
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If motorcycles were invented today they would be
immediately banned, throughout the civilised world. |
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// If motorcycles were invented today they would be immediately banned, throughout the civilised world. |
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Blah blah blah Royce Creasey blah blah Malcolm Newell blah..blah FF Kawasaki z1300..160mph..don't get wet blah crashed it..broke one finger blah Phasar blah blah Quasar..1970's..sure criticise the stupid traditional motorbike design which just won't die, but some of the other designs are quite survivable |
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// throughout the civilised world // |
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Still be legal in Oz, then… |
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I knew better and did it anyway. I'll do it again, too. |
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I wasn't looking for sympathy. You wondered why I wasn't
welding, that's the answer. I gave you all the gory details
not so you'd feel bad for me but because long experience
with injurious calamity has shown me that many people
will keep asking questions, so it's best just to tell the
whole story at once. It's habitual for me at this point. |
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Plus, it gives you plenty of material for cracking jokes at
my expense. Everyone else has been, I see no reason why
you should miss out on the fun. |
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Around my part of the world, an Organ Donor is a
motorcyclist sans helmet.
I like 'temporary citizen', though. I'll have to remember
that one. |
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Now, if only this had been a giant seagull spitfire, with a mechanical gorilla attachment you could retire on the buns alone.. |
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// giant seagull spitfire, with a mechanical gorilla attachment // |
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Giant custard-fuelled seagull Spitfire, flown by a mechanical gorilla (dressed as a pirate) playing a jam-filled banjo, and armed with precision guided beehives aimed using an orrery ... |
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[nmrm], the deer didn't make it. I heard later that a Game
Warden tracked her a short distance and put her out of her
pain. Quite sad. |
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I thought you would be all healed by now. Good grief.
Sad situation all around. |
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I thought so too; I actually was, for a few weeks this
winter, and I even got out for the best of the
ski/snowboard season, but then this tiny bone chip found
its way into my sciatic nerve and laid me out again. I'm
probably going to have another surgery next week, but
after that it will be over. The good news is that the
recovery and PT from these micro-surgeries is very quick.
I'll be out there making trouble again before the summer is
out. Maybe I'll buy a used Spitfire and take up air racing. |
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// the deer didn't make it. I heard later that
a game warden tracked her a short distance
and put her out of her pain. Quite sad. // |
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[8th], that link is great. |
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I'm sorry, all. I didn't mean to take up so much space with
my
personal stuff. |
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If I do "make it into the digest," I'd rather it be with
something HB-related. But I'll take that as the joke that it
is. |
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Thank you. Everyone here has been really supportive of me
through this, and I appreciate it. All the jokes are great,
especially since I always try to find the lighter side of
misfortune in my life. I know I've said it before, but it's the
real sense of community here that sometimes causes me to
cross the line and treat it like a social site; the genuine
well-wishes and sympathy I've received from so many
HalfBakers are part of that. |
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Okay, I'm done now. Nobody say anything to set me off on
this topic again. Let's talk about fuckin' airplanes or
something. |
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Airplanes-super large orifice I'd imagine. |
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That was pretty much inevitable. |
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