Things that make you :)

[KeithMacdonald]

Is it trouble with the Catalytic Convertor or a Catholic Conversion?

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Is it trouble with the Catalytic Convertor or a Catholic Conversion?

 

Probably trying to exorcise the ECU, before calling the AA...

 

[KeithMacdonald]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

Probably trying to exorcise the ECU, before calling the AA...

 

My wife's Peugeot 306 had that kind of Demonic Possession. Being reduced to 10mph on the hard shoulder of a busy motorway is a hellish experience.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Tim Dubya said:

Although, the council have done a far superior job of destroying the old parts of Bristol than the Luftwaffe ever could.

 

It was said that the motto of the Liverpool City Council Planning Department was "Completing what the Luftwaffe left undone".  They did an amazingly good job of it, if you thought that it needed to be done....

 

[The Johnster]

There were diversionary fires lit on Caerphilly mountain in an attempt to persuade the bombers to drop there instead of Cardiff, with some success as there are bomb craters up there.  This is a bit of a confused history, though, as there are similar pits close by from (illegal) coal cropping during the General Strike and the 30s Depression; the seams outcrop at the surface here, but the coal is of insufficient quality for commercial development.  Similar cropping pits can be seen on Mynydd Rudry, a mile and a half or so away to the northeast.

 

I suspect that such diversionary measures were of limited use where the targets were close to the coast or on big rivers, which reflect moonlight very effectively.  Though on a family camping holiday in Germany in '66 I spoke to the driver of the Kriegslok that was acting as station pilot at Bonn (I had little interest in following the 'rents to Bach' house museum), and he had been a gunner on the big 3-night Swansea raid in February 1941.  He stated that the intention was to hit the docks and Danygraig yards, but that the blackout was too effective for accurate aiming, with the tragic result that much of the town centre was destroyed and many civilians killed.  They were about half a mile off-target; of course, once the fires were burning, the following waves hit the same area in the belief that it was the proper target.

 

Another story regarding these raids was one I heard a few years later from a Landore driver while I was working on the railway during the 70s.  He was from the St Thomas area at the foot of Kilvey Hill, and told me of the local pervert, who on the evening of the first of the raids had followed a young couple who had taken an evening walk up the hill, for the usual purpose that young people take walks up hills in this part of the world, he'd promised to show her the lights of Swansea, bit cold in February for that sort of thing, but anyway, raincoat Ronnie follows them and hides in the gorse to watch the action, and comes across an equally furtive character with a torch, signalling in the Heinkels now visibly and audibly approaching off the Bristol Channel.  El Pervo and the now alerted couple ran back down to inform the St.Thomas residents, who promptly formed a lynching party and bludgeoned the fifth columnist to death.  This was of course murder, but the local constable wrote it up as an air raid casualty and no more was said; I doubt if any Swansea jury would have convicted!  I reckon quite a bit of this sort of thing must have gone on, mostly not talked about much.

[melmerby]

5 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

There were fake towns earlier in the war, near to towns that had already been bombed, with patterns of fire to represent still burning buildings, to attract subsequent raids away from the real thing.

 

There were fields full of wooden aircraft to fool UK based Nazi spies

[The Johnster]

Just now, melmerby said:

There were fields full of wooden aircraft to fool UK based Nazi spies

 

The Spitfire I referred to earlier being an example.  They were pretty realistic.

[kevinlms]

51 minutes ago, melmerby said:

There were fields full of wooden aircraft to fool UK based Nazi spies

Wooden plane, wooden engine, wooden fly!

[The Johnster]

They'd have probably glided fairly well, though...

[kevinlms]

6 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

They'd have probably glided fairly well, though...

Why, they only had to LOOK like planes from a distance, doesn't mean that they had to work like one! An aircraft is properly engineered to fly.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

There were fields full of wooden aircraft to fool UK based Nazi spies

 

I believe that the spies we had turned were allowed to see them so that they could report back to their former masters...

 

[Vistisen]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

There were fields full of wooden aircraft to fool UK based Nazi spies

There is a car factory at Malvern still doing this.

[The Johnster]

38 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Why, they only had to LOOK like planes from a distance, doesn't mean that they had to work like one! An aircraft is properly engineered to fly.

 

No, they had to look good at close range.  These were not the inflatables and wood/canvas D-day decoys, intended to mislead aerial reconniscance, but to be visible to 5th columnists on the ground, close to.  They were often parked close to perimeter fences for this reason.  And, as I can testify, they looked the part; ailerons and rudders were separate parts that moved a little in the breeze for example.  And they were ballasted down so that they wouldn't blow away in gales, as of course tying them down would have given the game away, so if the weight was towards the front, they might well have been functional as gliders, not that anyone ever tried it I suppose.

Edited April 19 by The Johnster

[Sidecar Racer]

49 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

 An aircraft is properly engineered to fly.

 

 Well who'd have thought that .   

[KeithMacdonald]

I know of some people down on the south coast who are making a brand-new (and rather wonderful) wooden aircraft.

 

https://www.peoplesmosquito.org.uk/

 

Got the T-shirt 😀

[30801]

[Stanley Melrose]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

An aircraft is properly engineered to fly.

It would seem that Boeing have tried to disprove that recently . . .

[PhilJ W]

In the North Africa campaign they used quarter sized aircraft and tank decoys.

[KeithMacdonald]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

In the North Africa campaign they used quarter sized aircraft and tank decoys.

 

OK, I'll bite. Why quarter-sized?

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

OK, I'll bite. Why quarter-sized?

 

AIUI, it was to mislead enemy pilots making low-level attacks as to their true altitude, in the hope they would fly themselves into the ground.

 

Edited April 20 by Dunsignalling

[Ozexpatriate]

8 hours ago, Stanley Melrose said:

It would seem that Boeing have tried to disprove that recently . . .

Their recent problems are related to manufacturing and quality control rather than engineering.

 

If all the bolts are installed and tightened they do fly.

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Their recent problems are related to manufacturing and quality control rather than engineering.

 

If all the bolts are installed and tightened they do fly.

But that's basic engineering, to install and then tighten bolts!

 

Cars don't generally have bits fall off them as driven down the road, even quite old ones.

[uax6]

On 18/04/2024 at 21:48, Sidecar Racer said:

 

I wonder if the fake bomb originally had a little flag attached to it with the 'Bang!' on it, like in those comedy guns?

 

Andy G

[Sidecar Racer]

This photo was taken in 1946. This guy was Ken Shimizu. He was 35 years old that time. He has 2 children. Shimizu never runs. Sleeps late. Eat whatever he wants. Even drink beer instead of water. Eat dinner with different kinds of food every night...What does Shimizu do to get such a body? Shimizu doesn't have any secrets. Shimizu is the person sitting in the bottom left corner of the photo... As for the man standing in the middle, I'm not sure. Very inspiring...

 

[Hroth]

5 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

The poor pooch looks elderly.

I'd suggest a vibrant Orange.