h a l f b a k e r yFewer ducks than estimates indicate.
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For the disenfranchised.
You would tell this company as much or as little about yourself as you like. The more you tell them the more effective they'll be. You send them a monthly fee and on Christmas they make a prediction as to what you don't have but want and send it to you. A thoughtful, personalized
gift annually. Much funner than just shopping for the item.
[link]
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// a prediction as to what you don't have but want and send it to you. // |
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Will it be gift-wrapped ? It will need a substantial amount of paper to completely cover a Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX... |
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I'm all alone. There's nobody beside me. |
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"[chronological], return to the bomb bay ..." |
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//a substantial amount of paper to completely cover a Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX// |
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Fabric, lightly doped ; little roundels pattern. |
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That would be fine for a Hurricane, but a Spit is all-metal. |
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However, if the offer is a Hurricane, that's equally acceptable ... |
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Or a Mustang. Anything with a Merlin engine. |
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Why is there not a backyard workshop somewhere in
Birmingham still making Merlin engines? |
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It's in Derby. RR still make them. |
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Don't confuse high tech with mass production. Merlins were made by the thousand, not the million - their production was, and is, a craft process. A very, very skilled craft process, using the very finest materials and superb machine tools, but essentially all aero engines are hand made. |
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GM and Ford knock out engine blocks by the hundreds of thousands. TRW (formerly Lycoming) make them in dozens and hundreds, and the standards are commensurately higher. |
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If you order a con-rod or a skew gear or a main bearing cap, the procedure hasn't changed since the 1930's - someone gets a blank casting off a shelf and painstakingly machines it to very tight tolerances, then it's checked, and checked again. When the shelf is empty, they order some more blanks. The latest Trent engines are still built in exactly the same way - put together by hand, one piece at a time. CNC machining centres speed up the process, but the total number of high-bypass fanjets (including the ones passing back and forth along the repair chain) is only a few hundred of each variant. |
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Having said that, there are indeed little wizened men in dirty overalls and flat caps, working away in sheds and backstreet machine shops, who can and will rebuild just about anything - even a Me 109 engine - back to flying standard. |
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