Whacky Signs.

[ikcdab]

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

That white partial circle on the right looks like the wheelchair symbol indicating the real ramp.

Haha yes you've rumbled it.  But the sign is in the wrong place and should be on the opposite wall pointing to the right.  As it is, the sign does point directly down the steps. 

[jcredfer]

14 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

It may be flyable, but is it landable?

 

As the RN pilot replied, it would certainly be "fast" and given it was a Phantom, quite possible / likely to burst a tyre or two.  Flapless landings are certainly not common, due to RAF servicing standards, but not unheard of.  Dependant on what runways might remain available, possibly also overrun, off the end / into an arrestor net / onto an arrestor run off area {If you're lucky enough to have one of either}.  Other possibilities included landing on motorways, with obvious attendant risks.  His point was that he was better off taking his chances giving it a go, rather than sit, waiting for one of the buckets of russian sunshine,{supposedly} en-route.

 

If you can walk away, it's a good landing.....

 

 

[The Johnster]

Bucket of sunshine, never thought of it like that!  Goes well with the concept of radiation being only cancer-flavoured air, or magic moonbeams. 

[KeithMacdonald]

18 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The idea behind this was that, if the airfield came under attack, ground or air, they could jump into the nearest aircraft, start it up, and take off in it, in the hope that they could find somewhere safe to land it, and the hope that they could actually land it, as with airfields under attack it would be needed.  Seemed a bit unlikely to me; imagine having had an afternoon in a Chipmunk with an instructor a few years ago and then having to fire up a £6million Tornado and flick all the corrent knobs and switches to get it airborne!  Might have worked in WW1, but now?  Don't think so!

 

Completely agree with the concept - and sometimes it actually worked!

e.g. the RAF ground crew engineer that unwittingly took off in a Lightning.

 

Quote

On 22 July 1966 Walter "Taffy" Holden, an engineer in command of No. 33 Maintenance Unit RAF with limited experience flying small single-engine trainer aircraft, inadvertently engaged the afterburner of a Mach 2.0-capable English Electric Lightning during ground testing. Unable to disengage the afterburner, Holden ran down the runway, narrowly missing a crossing fuel bowser and a de Havilland Comet taking off, before taking off himself.

 

Taking off is one thing, how about getting down in one piece?

 

Quote

Flying without a helmet or canopy, the ejection seat disabled, and the landing gear locked down, Holden aborted his first two landing attempts. He landed on his third approach, striking the runway with the aircraft's tail as he adopted in his landing technique of a taildragger aircraft. The aircraft returned to service, and was subsequently acquired by the Imperial War Museum Duxford.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden's_Lightning_flight

 

[Michael Hodgson]

6 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Completely agree with the concept - and sometimes it actually worked!

e.g. the RAF ground crew engineer that unwittingly took off in a Lightning.

 

 

 

My father was a Navigator during WW2.

Once his pilot had become incapacitated by enemy fire, he decided it was a good idea to land the Mosquito himself.

I wouldn't be here if he hadn't.

 

[jcredfer]

52 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Completely agree with the concept - and sometimes it actually worked!

e.g. the RAF ground crew engineer that unwittingly took off in a Lightning.

 

 

Taking off is one thing, how about getting down in one piece?

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden's_Lightning_flight

 

 

At the time, there was quite a bit of debate about, quite how unwitting the gentleman's trip really was, as many thought that simply closing the throttle, or HP Cocks, {Fuel cut-offs} would have prevented him from having to take all that trouble, in the air...  {???} He was, after all qualified, Lightening" for carrying out ground test engine runs {ie. firing up and controlling the engine testing runs}.  He would have to be very familiar, indeed, with the control process before he got that qualification.

 

He had, apparently,  also taken a flying course, available for some Engineer officers, which took them through to get their Wings, so was rather better qualified than Wikipedia would suggest.  The idea being that they would make better Engineers, if they, properly, understood what went on in the air, as a result of their work on the ground.  My Wg Cdr in Berlin was one such qualified Engineer Officer, wearing  his Wings with justifiable pride.

 

I'm not for coming to firm conclusions on "conspiracy theories", but even a "Frightening" takes time to run down the length of a runway.....    That said, I wasn't there, so the possibility of jammed levers, throttle gates, confusion in the moment, things happening too fast to think properly...   Who of us might put their hand up and swear that they would have been able to think clearly through massive noise, acceleration, vibration and G forces, that two afterburners would cause.....   

 

.....   Not me.

 

Julian

 

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

e.g. the RAF ground crew engineer that unwittingly took off in a Lightning.

A baggage handler stole a turboprop airliner at Sea-Tac in 2018. More than an hour later, he ultimately nose-dived it (intentionally) into an island in the Puget Sound.

[Michael Hodgson]

I recall hearing of an incident many years ago when a youth stole an unattended loco in the Newport area and managed to drive it along the S Wales Main Line to somewhere near Severn Tunnel Junction before being forced to stop, don't remember the details.

[Dagworth]

I seem to recall some drunk (I think railwaymen) missing the last train back from Bury St Edmunds to either Newmarket or Cambridge so decided to take the 08 out of the yard and drive that home. 

[Titan]

Well, as part of my training I got to work at Strawberry Hill when the Networkers were being commissioned. Now we had a test path between the service trains on the Shepperton Branch.  There was also a couple of withdrawn DEMU power cars coupled back to back in the yard in working order, and even better the batteries were not flat and they had fuel...

 

So we found a Driver and claimed that they needed a test run, contacted the signaller to say we had a test train ready, and half the technical team went on board for a joyride in a 1000hp 2 car DEMU to Shepperton and back!

[jcredfer]

28 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I recall hearing of an incident many years ago when a youth stole an unattended loco in the Newport area and managed to drive it along the S Wales Main Line to somewhere near Severn Tunnel Junction before being forced to stop, don't remember the details.

 

Perhaps as well before a number of possible disastrous consequences occurred, things like boiler water levels, boiler temperatures / pressures, or lack of, other traffic {presumably someone raised the alarm and alerted controllers, various, to keep that risk down??}.  Just how does anyone get to think that's a good idea?

 

[F-UnitMad]

13 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

My father was a Navigator during WW2.

Once his pilot had become incapacitated by enemy fire, he decided it was a good idea to land the Mosquito himself.

I wouldn't be here if he hadn't.

 

I've read that it became an unofficial 'standard practise' amongst the heavy bomber crews for the pilot to give some of the crew - usually the Flight Engineer, who was next to him - some rudimentary flying instruction in case the pilot was injured or killed, so they could at least get back to England, and they could bale out, if not actually land the plane.

[Vistisen]

11 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I recall hearing of an incident many years ago when a youth stole an unattended loco in the Newport area and managed to drive it along the S Wales Main Line to somewhere near Severn Tunnel Junction before being forced to stop, don't remember the details.

I blame train simulator. I would love to take a joyride in an HST 😁

[Nick C]

There was another one a few months back, a guy in Katowice, Poland, stole a tram, and drove it to the neighbouring city, picking up and dropping off passengers on the way...

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours ago, Vistisen said:

I blame train simulator. I would love to take a joyride in an HST 😁

 

t the time it was more likely to have been a 47 or a 37.

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, Nick C said:

There was another one a few months back, a guy in Katowice, Poland, stole a tram, and drove it to the neighbouring city, picking up and dropping off passengers on the way...

 

I could do that.

Gis a job.

[KeithMacdonald]

19 hours ago, jcredfer said:

That said, I wasn't there, so the possibility of jammed levers, throttle gates, confusion in the moment, things happening too fast to think properly...   Who of us might put their hand up and swear that they would have been able to think clearly through massive noise, acceleration, vibration and G forces, that two afterburners would cause.....   

 

Complete empathetic agreement. I have enough trouble in my own car, with 90% of the buttons and controls that I never need to touch. And then when strange things start happening, there's a few seconds of confusion ... WTF did I just press that I didn't mean to? ... By which time (I imagine) in a Frightening you are already airborn and needing a change of underwear.

[Johann Marsbar]

6 hours ago, Nick C said:

There was another one a few months back, a guy in Katowice, Poland, stole a tram, and drove it to the neighbouring city, picking up and dropping off passengers on the way...

 

No mention of picking up passengers, even if Tramwaje Slaskie do run a 24 hour service on some lines......

https://polishnews.co.uk/katowice-chorzow-he-stole-a-tram-from-a-depot-to-stop-the-self-proclaimed-driver-they-had-to-turn-off-the-traction-current/

Zawodzie Depot is to the east of Katowice, so he did well to cover the 6 or so miles to Chorzow!

 

There was also this one in Maryland  last year where someone - actually a 21 year old and not a "kid" as it says in the video - drove an MTA switcher out of the Glen Burnie workshops and up the line - until he hit an LRV coming the other way....

 

 

Edited January 21, 2023 by Johann Marsbar

[KeithMacdonald]

6 hours ago, Nick C said:

There was another one a few months back, a guy in Katowice, Poland, stole a tram, and drove it to the neighbouring city, picking up and dropping off passengers on the way...

 

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I could do that. Gis a job.

 

That's in Liverpool.

I'm desperate Dan.

[Dunsignalling]

18 hours ago, jcredfer said:

 

Perhaps as well before a number of possible disastrous consequences occurred, things like boiler water levels, boiler temperatures / pressures, or lack of, other traffic {presumably someone raised the alarm and alerted controllers, various, to keep that risk down??}.  Just how does anyone get to think that's a good idea?

 

 

Six or eight pints of Stella?

[luckymucklebackit]

Not sure if this should have been in the Football forum.....

 

[The Johnster]

Can't vouch for the veracity of this, just a story I heard when I started on the railway in 1970.  Apparently, so the story went, a year or so earlier a Traction Trainee (cleaner) who had been sacked for some misdemeanour and had his *rse in his hand about it walked into Canton depot over the footbridge one late afternoon wearing overalls over smart clothes, climbed aboard a Western, inserted a stolen loco key, drove it up to the exit dummy and went on the phone to the Panel to ask for 'light engine to Old Oak Common, please', which they duly gave him, why shouldn't they?  He drove the locomotive to Old Oak, left it running on the siding directed by the shed foreman, and, leaving the overalls in the cab, went out for a night on the tiles up the West End.  His debauchery complete, he got a taxi to OOC, climbed aboard his loco, put the overalls back on, and slept it off, driving it up to the exit dummy and asking for 'light engine Canton, please' at about lunchtime.

 

Around this time, Canton discovered they were missing a 68-foot 108 ton loco, and enquiries were underway, revealing that OOC were also by now missing a similar loco from Canton that they hadn't asked for in the first place, and two and two were put together.  Our hero was put on to the down platform at Swindon where the BTP were waiting for him along with a Swindon crew to take the loco back to Canton.  He'd conformed to rules (except those concerning theft of locomotives and double manning of light engines), speed limits and signals throughout this adventure, used the correct lights, and not caused any problems for anyone, returning to Cardiff on the cushions with a burly BTP sargeant accompanying him, but not cuffed, having called 'fair cop, guv' and promised to be a good boy.  First offence, night in the cells, magistrate's court in the morning, 6 months suspended, a bargain for a night on the tiles up the West End...

 

Loco keys at Canton were kept in a locked cupboard after that, and were signed out by the drivers along with the repair book.

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

No mention of picking up passengers, even if Tramwaje Slaskie do run a 24 hour service on some lines......

https://polishnews.co.uk/katowice-chorzow-he-stole-a-tram-from-a-depot-to-stop-the-self-proclaimed-driver-they-had-to-turn-off-the-traction-current/

Zawodzie Depot is to the east of Katowice, so he did well to cover the 6 or so miles to Chorzow!

 

There was also this one in Maryland  last year where someone - actually a 21 year old and not a "kid" as it says in the video - drove an MTA switcher out of the Glen Burnie workshops and up the line - until he hit an LRV coming the other way....

 

 

Passengers are mentioned in the follow up article:

 

https://polishnews.co.uk/katowice-chorzow-he-took-the-tram-from-the-depot-to-stop-the-self-proclaimed-driver-they-had-to-turn-off-the-traction-current-arrest-for-three-months/

 

And on TVP:

https://tvpworld.com/64249726/poland-man-steals-tram-drives-to-neighbouring-city-picking-up-passengers

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

12 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Passengers are mentioned in the follow up article:

 

https://polishnews.co.uk/katowice-chorzow-he-took-the-tram-from-the-depot-to-stop-the-self-proclaimed-driver-they-had-to-turn-off-the-traction-current-arrest-for-three-months/

 

And on TVP:

https://tvpworld.com/64249726/poland-man-steals-tram-drives-to-neighbouring-city-picking-up-passengers

 

 

 

Interesting - Hadn't realised he took one of the newer ones either, I was expecting it to be a Konstal 105Na or something like that!

He obviously knew the procedure for changing the electric points en-route as well, though they haven't stated which way he went.  The trunk route past the Silesia City Shopping Centre and Stadion Slaskie would be the easiest.....

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

There was also this one in Maryland  last year where someone - actually a 21 year old and not a "kid" as it says in the video - drove an MTA switcher out of the Glen Burnie workshops and up the line - until he hit an LRV coming the other way....

A friend (now retired) worked for the MTA and operated that motor many times; one thing that he told me about it was the the cab light bulbs gave off more heat than the cab heater!