Dave Hunt

When our goldfish outgrew its bowl we had to get a hyperbole for it. Dave

Our local bakery does a mean Portuguese custard tart. Un fortunately Hunt Towers is currently on a campaign to reduce the mass of its inhabitants so I can only look but not touch. Pah! Dave

The Hunt Towers roof situation is, with luck, in the throes of being sorted out. The guys who came to look at it yesterday have issued a report that has identified the work to be carried out, i.e., removing all tiles, replacing battens and felt, replacing tiles with upwards of forty needing renewal, refixing ridge tiles and renewing several broken ones, clearing out and recementing valley gutters for the sum of £3,500. All the work identified as necessary is backed up by photographs and videos. Until recently my BiL was CEO of the British Roofing Federation and his opinion is that this is a fair and reasonable price and since the firm have a very good reputation I have given them the go-ahead. So that's a few more Deltics off the roster. Dave

And the bean counters are eager to see an underspend at year's end so they can cut next year's budget as last year's obviously wasn't needed. When some cretin decided that the armed forces would have an internal market system and every unit, no matter how small, would have its own budget this sort of thing was endemic. Dave

There was an incident many years ago at Lincoln station when a woman had climbed over the side of the station footbridge and was threatening to throw herself onto the tracks. This would probably not have resulted in her death and what she was trying to do was unclear but all rail traffic was stopped, including the train that a disgruntled RAF NCO was catching. Eventually he got so fed up that he marched up onto the bridge, said to the woman, "For pity's sake just get on with it," and pushed her off. Apart from cuts and bruises she was unhurt but The NCO didn't catch his train since he was under arrest. I don't know what happened to him afterwards but by all accounts he was applauded by many of the other people at the station. Dave

The type of pencil used? 😋 Dave

As I understand it, that is exactly how it was done and I believe that tables were produced as well. E. S. Cox wrote a paper on it in, IIRC, the 1930s that I think owed something to the deliberations of the Bridge Stress Committee. Dave

Not an unknown happening with Avpin starters. They were vicious things but had the advantage that no external power or other assistance was required. Dave

Dynamic balancing that took into account the reciprocating masses was introduced in the 1860s and can be seen on many Kirtley 0-6-0s by the fact that the balance weights aren't opposite the cranks. The problem was that as well as opposing the reciprocating moments they also resulted in hammer blow on the track as they produced vertical forces. For this reason the reciprocating masses weren't generally balanced fully and most engineers settled on 66.6% balancing. Later experiments and trials led to some engines having the balance reduced to 50% and in the case of the LMS 8Fs for instances allowing some of the class being permitted over routes that the majority were banned from.

On occasions the starter wouldn't fire and you then had to carry out a dry start cycle to purge the combustion chamber before trying another start. The trouble was that the purging wasn't always successful so the next attempted start would result in a loud bang and a fire in the starter bay. The groundcrew had a large asbestos and metal gauntlet for patting out such a fire (in fact, a normal start would sometimes result in a minor starter bay fire anyway) and it wasn't much of a problem. There were, however, occasionally more serious fires that required more heavy duty extinguishers and at Tengah one day a Lightning caught fire following an Avpin starter fire and burned out on 74 Squadron's pan leaving a Lightning shaped sooty mark on the concrete. Dave

This afternoon I witnessed something that really p!ssed me off. Outside our local Sainsbury's mini market a police car was parked in a disabled parking slot even though there were plenty of other slots available. At first I thought its occupants may have been responding to an emergency but when they came out of the shop chatting and carrying sandwiches and drinks cans I realised that it was just idleness and a total disregard for the rules of decent behaviour. I went back to my car to get my phone and take a photograph but by the time I'd got it they'd driven off and being a numpty I hadn't taken the number. Is it just me or is that an appalling way for our guardians of law and order to behave? Dave

This is the third evening in a row that it has bucketed down and the pond that I was trying to keep topped up (fairly unsuccessfully I have to admit) is overflowing. The great kitchen rebuild is in day 2 and has led to a major session of head shaking. When some of the top cupboards were removed they revealed some damp patches with black mould growing on them so I rang a roofing firm to come and see whether there was a leak. The result is that the roof has 40 odd cracked and broken tiles, almost all the ridge tiles are loose, the valley gutters are in bad shape and the felt needs attention. We haven't had the estimate for fixing it all but I reckon more than a few Deltics will be involved. Turdycurses. So I'm in the right mood for a telephone consultation with the GP tomorrow morning about my sciatica. Think I'll have a nightcap. Dave

It was a great piece of kit to fly. Dave

Building bridges? Dave

Back in 1968 I took a Hunter as a static exhibit to a display at Teeside and the organisation (or lack of it) was unbelievable. There was little or no security and we had to stay with the aircraft all the time as there was no attempt to keep people away from them. When it came to departure time there were still people milling around the statics and I had to get a band of so-called security individuals to clear them away from my aircraft while I started up - after I had cleared a coke can out of one of the engine intakes - then an escort of four cars took me to the runway threshold keeping the public out of the way. There were people taking photographs from the side of the runway and it wasn't until the same cars drove up and down telling them to stay off the tarmac that I was able to take off. I and several other participants complained bitterly about the whole thing and I believe that the CAA took action over it. Dave

It was axle loading as well as weight per foot run that was used for setting limitations on a locomotive's route availability. Dave

I was asked recently if I’d like to attend the Cosford air show. My reply was along the lines of, “For three years I was involved with the flight safety of that event and I still have nightmares about it. No thanks.” Hope you enjoy it HH. Dave

Like Q we benefitted from the RAF sponsoring a financial advisor, not when I first joined but visiting stations in Germany in 1977 and as a result we took out two endowment policies for £25,000 that covered our first house purchase in Lincolnshire three years later (sounds unbelievable these days doesn’t it?). We still had to find the deposit but my parents helped somewhat. By the time I left the RAF in 2005 we had progressively increased the mortgage but it was still only something like £60,000 and we paid that off when the policies matured with decent profits and I received my RAF gratuity. I hate to think of young people these days having to find the means to buy houses in the £350,000 plus bracket first time of asking. Dave

How about a compromise (in good old British fashion) whereby you let us know on this thread that you have made some more progress and provide a link to your FDM turnout printing thread? Dave

If they're thriving it's because they're thieving. Dave

For the first time in ages it is tippling down at Hunt Towers. This has not come as a real surprise as this afternoon Jill watered her pot plants and I topped up the pond😐. Dave

I had to give them a mid-course correction though. Dave

I like bridies and Scotch pies too. Dave

I'll give you jellied eels and lasagna or pizza with chips but pasties (good ones anyway) and crisp butties? Food fit to be up there with the bacon butty as ambrosia. Dave

We had a combat simulator installed in the late 80s that had a Silicon Graphics running it; the installation required a room of its own. Dave