Tag Archives: travel

Tornados and a Jag – My Old Handling Buddies

In my days in the aerodynamics department at Warton, I spent time working on the current aircraft handling section. This included a number of types but the main focus was on jaguar and Tornado work. When we were walking around the hangars at Duxford, there were examples of both jets on display. The Tornado was a big part of what I worked on and I had always loved the jet as it was coming in to service at the time I was getting interested in aircraft. The GR4 version is on display.

The Jaguar had been around a long time when I was getting into planes and the Tornado ended up replacing the Jaguars in the RAF Germany strike role. The jet continued for a lot longer though and got some decent upgrades late in life. I had a great time climbing over a jet in the hangar at Warton as we were looking at clearing a new store on the overwing pylon. A lot of fun!

Gastown Steam Clock

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One of the tourist attractions in Gastown in Vancouver is the Steam Clock. Sitting on a street corner, this looks like a giant grandfather clock with steam whistles on the top of it. It was surrounded by tourists and the number of selfies being taken was substantial. We were there close to the top of the hour so we waited around to see what happened. Below is some video of the lock striking the hour if striking is the right word.

Not Sure This Bunker Would Have Survived

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Perched above the beach at Lepe in Hampshire, overlooking the Solent, is an old bunker. It is surrounded by fencing and there is signage about the purpose of the bunker. You can see the hatch to access the bunker as well as some of the vents for the space below. I’m not sure what the bunker was designed to survive. It is close to a huge oil refinery and close to the headquarters of the Royal Navy. In a shooting war, there would have been some large detonations nearby. I doubt it would have provided sufficient protection to its occupants.

London from the Air

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Digging back in to the archives today. Back in about 2005, I was heading back to the UK for work. Our flight arrived in to Heathrow early in the morning and the approach route took us across the center of the city. I was sitting on the right side of the aircraft so was able to get some good shots of the city. My favorite shot was as we turned over the top of Waterloo and looking down at the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament.

I also got some good views from other areas. A nice view across the city which shows just how close everything is within the cities of London and Westminster. We also came south of Kensington which gave a good view of the museum complex and Hyde Park – an area where I lived for three years as a student. The next shot is of Kew Gardens. The glass house and the pagoda are both visible. These have been sitting in the archive for a long time but finally make their way to the blog.

Heavy Lifter

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In a visit we made to Seattle in the mid 2000s, we took a boat tour around Elliott Bay. One of the more impressive ships in the harbor was one that is designed to lift heavy loads and carry them long distances. It will sink to allow the load to be floated on to the hull and then it will lift back up and leave the load on the deck. You can see the markings for sinking the hull on the superstructure.

The most impressive view of the ship was from the front as we passed ahead of it. The beam was something special to see. It had a very muscular look to it. These are the sort of ships that have been used to moved smaller ships when they have suffered damage. The Royal Navy had a destroyer that hit a reef in the South Pacific once that was moved this way. Quite an impressive capability.

Northrop Grumman Firebird

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Northrop Grumman brought the Firebird to Fairford for RIAT. RIAT is a big public show but it has developed a significant trade element to it and Firebird was clearly aimed at that audience. It is a Scaled Composites design (with Northrop Grumman having bought Scaled a while back) and, while it has a cockpit, apparently it has the option to be flown unmanned. I don’t know whether this is well tested or not. Nor do I know the state of production examples. I believe the one at RIAT was the prototype.

It was parked in the static park for a portion of the time I was there. I did see it getting towed across to the north side at one point, presumably so it could be parked in a hangar rather than left out. Supposedly, there is a US Government order for some of these and I imagine they will be fitted with some interesting systems. Whether I shall ever see one is a different story.

Trafalgar Anchor

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If you are used to a modern shape of an anchor, particularly one for a large ship, the old style of anchors in the days of the early 1800s will be rather strange looking. They look like a giant version of the sort of anchor you would see on a small boat. This example sits on the seafront in Southsea and comes from a ship that fought in the battle of Trafalgar. It seems in pretty good shape. I wonder whether that is a feature of the materials used or the result of lots of bits of it being replaced over the years.

Cruising Out Under Lion’s Gate Bridge

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Cruise ships are a regular feature of Vancouver Harbour. Pacific Place has a terminal where two ships can be berthed at any one time. One evening, as I was hanging out on Stanley Park, one of the ships set sail – presumably for a trip up to Alaska. I watched it pass close by where I was and took a look at what I could see happening on the decks facing the shore (including one chap in a bathrobe on a rear balcony who probably didn’t think he was visible. Then the ship headed out under the Lions Gate bridge as the sun was beginning to go down.

The Original Doctor Yellow

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The Tokaido Shinkansen service requires regular inspection of the track to ensure it is up to the high standards required of high speed service. JRC operates an inspection train called Doctor Yellow. It is a highly instrumented version of the current trains. I have seen the current Doctor Yellow when I was at one of JRC’s maintenance facilities. However, the original Doctor Yellow was based on the Series 0 trains. It is now preserved in the SC Maglev museum in Nagoya along with many of the other Shinkansen designs.

Nagoya Bridge

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When I headed south out of the center of Nagoya to go to the museum, my route took me down to the docks area. A highway along the water obviously needed to clear the route for the larger ships so a pretty impressive bridge had been constructed. It is called the Meiko-Chuo Bridge. I could only get a good view of it from the train but it was in the background when you were at the museum. I thought it looked pretty spectacular.