brack

Saw HMS Ocean today, a bit of a surprise as we went to the national glass centre. A shame she's on the way out but I understand this is due to her essentially being built on the cheap in order to undercut swan hunter's bid. QE may have been delayed unnecessarily by politicians but at least she's been built properly and hopefully her hull and systems are such that she will last more than 20 years.

I'd have thought a blimp is a dead duck in any shooting war where the enemy has relatively fast jets - too slow to get out of the way. I'm still unsure that rotary wing aew is the best solution.

True, but amicable discussions wandering around several related subjects are the lifeblood of forums. Otherwise every thread would be one question, one answer like a FAQ section. I understand when a build or layout thread gets sidetracked it is irritating, but on hypothetical threads a bit of divergence is a good thing.

Now don't go knocking Burrhus Skinner's finest hour. I always enjoy enlightening students about the pigeon guided missile when we look at behaviourism and conditioning. Probably a slightly better idea than the soviet anti tank dogs, which got frightened at the sounds of battle and ran back to their own lines. Of the first 30 they released, 4 exploded near the german tanks, but 6 exploded when they ran back to their trainers in the trenches causing quite a few casualties. The other problem was that they were trained using russian diesel powered tanks and there are recorded instances of them smelling the nazi tanks with petrol engines, sniffing the air and then heading towards their own sides armour. Even that was a better idea than the invasion dogs for the japanese islands project which the US spent money on in WW2

surely the ski jump at the end would help stop it in time on QE? Might make up for the 280m length. In fairness if you modified the Hercules to XFC-130H configuration as per Operation Credible Sport you can get it off the floor after 100' of ground roll (not metres - to put that into perspective the plane itself is 99' long) and provided you fired the arrester rockets at the right height and time you can land and stop the thing in about the same. Of course it might make scorch marks all over our nice new ship's flight deck...

Well it would seem that having secure dry undercover storage, a coherent plan or sufficient priority funding to do anything with said loco in the next 5 years are not factors which are part of the selection process. The idea that we might have preserved too many attractive pregrouping 440 for the nation is not a new one, the notion appears to have been popular in 1967 scotland too.

I'd be surprised if they can get credit for them, their inflation rate is about 40% and they're still in dispute with creditors from their last default - better not dock them abroad or they might be impounded. Even if they did get them 5 patrol boats with 3" guns might be considered a convenient target for a carrier group, to use a popular phrase. I don't think there are any real designs on the Falklands but if there was to be a shooting war I suspect all ships of value would be kept out of the way as per last time - you'd be stupid to go toe to toe with a far better equipped force (yes we have our problems, but superpowers aside we're pretty far up the ladder. Others may have more hulls but they're not that capable or current)

Empty spaces with blue heritage plaques telling us that a certain loco lived here between the following dates?

Bulleid wasn't the innovative visionary from the LNER. That man should've been Vincent raven. Without raven and geddes being borrowed by the state and without the interruption of ww1 we'd have seen main line electrification half a century earlier.

The Russian carriers have traditionally had plenty of anti ship missile capability, but have been rather useless as an actual carrier. If you look at the last voyage of the kuznetsov and it's accompanying salvage fleet it was essentially pointless - they ferried a couple of aircraft to somewhere that Russia already had land based planes operating from an airbase, and those planes could have flown there on their own in a few hours instead of being carried around. Making a statement is all its about. I'm not saying our carriers are unnecessary, they'll be very handy in the event of a Falklands (or Gibraltar?) incident and they're good at reminding people that we're still here or running military interventions like the Sierra Leone one (which was pretty much successful, non controversial and aside from liberty and peace gave us proof of the survival of some lovely locos). Like the nuclear subs, we have them in the hope that they never need to be used, they help us retain our position and influence (such as we have left after recent events) in the world and their existence reduces the likelihood that they'll be needed.

Indeed, they have very high starting torque. I'm not sure how successful the big bogie sentinel locos for Colombia and Argentina were, but there was a lot of interesting thinking in them that seems to have been a far better attempt at a post Stephensonian loco than leader

It was ordered and specced up over a decade ago, so I'd expect XP or similar might be a feature of some of its systems (the newest destroyers and subs we have run a hardened version of Windows from a similar era, I'd suspect that the carrier's systems are broadly compatible or similar) It will be fine so long as it is air gapped, but I'd suggest that it probably isn't a bog standard XP build. This whole furore is based over what someone allegedly saw on a screen whilst on a tour around the ship, then decided to tell the world. It might not have been XP after all (I used to have a cut down version of XP skinned to look like win 7 on one old netbook and I know of one it professional with a screensaver that looks like win 3.1), but I hardly expect the MOD to come and and tell us exactly what it runs for security reasons.

Indeed, plus a walrus flying into a headwind can hover or fly backwards just as well as any rotary wing craft.

A friend's father in law unloads them off the ship (among other things). His views on their build quality are not printable. He told me that originally they'd drive them off the ship but they had one batch where too many had no oil left in them when they arrived (and consequent problems) that they had to switch to towing them with a sort of triage station to check things through before they'd start them up. Obviously that kind of knackers the unloading time/schedule. Hopefully they weed out/fix them before it gets to a forecourt and seen by a customer, and not all shiploads would be like that, but he wouldn't touch one. Doesn't stop us suggesting it every time he thinks about getting a new car though.

If you ask nicely you might be able to take it home with you.

Seems strange to haul it across the country in order to put it on a ship for China when it's mined pretty much in a harbour. I know Redcar can handle pretty much any size of ship but it does seem daft. Presumably the size of ship they have in mind wouldn't fit in Workington and building a deep water loading facility is uneconomic.

The principle of dumping or giving away our heritage is the problem. A 30 year or more lease would be preferable, but retain title and ownership. I understand the nrm get first refusal if swanage want to dispose of it, but that assumes that those in charge of the nrm at such a point in time actually care about preserving the nation's heritage or whether it'd fit in with the novelty coffee shop with locos narrative they're pursuing at the time. I know this seems like overreacting, but perhaps if you look at what happened to the paddle tug reliant in the national maritime museum you see the potential. Someone decides something isn't needed, or that they only want one paddle wheel and before anyone can do anything about it a significant part of our heritage is gone forever. The locos in the national collection are not the property of the curators or museums, they're saved for the nation's heritage and should not have that status rescinded. Lease for 100yrs for 50p so they can be used and restored elsewhere, but don't give away what is ours.

It's hardly the first nationally owned object to be shadily given to a private company and have assets stripped...

Sorry, I thought this thread was about the nrm's gift giving policy...

Indeed, they need one for the ecml motive power sequence. The NRM have a continuous line from 1870 to the present (assuming a 91 goes there as planned). The fact that they have a prototype doesn't preclude them having a production loco too - look at the deltics.

If nothing else, dropping cylindrical neodymium magnets down copper pipes and waiting ages for them to come out the bottom is just fun. Even when you know how it works and you've done it plenty of times your brain doesn't like something that falls too slowly.

Beyer peacock sketched up some garratt designs within the British loading gauge that would've put the 9F to shame. But given that in the steam era a freight was generally unfitted loose coupled 4 wheel stock and the loops/siding issue you mention, there wasn't that much point.

The cab corners they've removed on Lyd mustve been very heavy then!

I'd put a small gear motor across the centre of the chassis and drive both axles by delrin chains, at least that was my plan. Using a similar motor in 00 on my 3d printed y7 it managed to pull over 800g piled on an unlucky wagon in my rice pudding skin test, so I expect a similar motor in a 7mm 48ds would manage to shunt half a dozen 7mm wagons. It's even vaguely prototypical to use a central sprocket and chains.

Started, but then the je 4mm kit came out with rumours of 7mm enlargement, then other rumours of 7mm rtr, so I decided not to bother.