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Old 6 Mar 2016, 20:28 (Ref:3620630)   #30
SidewaysFeltham
Racer
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
United Kingdom
UK and France
Posts: 419
SidewaysFeltham should be qualifying in the top 5 on the gridSidewaysFeltham should be qualifying in the top 5 on the gridSidewaysFeltham should be qualifying in the top 5 on the grid
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Originally Posted by Mike Harte View Post
As I took and passed my test in July 1963, I can totally agree with Sidesways Feltham and it was carried out on the streets around the North London suburb of London, Hendon, which included driving on both single and dual carriage way roads which and no speed limit then.In fact there were a number of other things in the test that young people just laugh at nowadays, the most obvious being the use of hand signals. This meant that regardless of the weather, the driver had to keep his window fully open so that you could indicate with your right arm completely out that you were slowing down or turning right. Mind you, I can't remember who was holding on to the steering wheel whilst you doing that and changing down gear at the same time .

And the car that I took my test in didn't have a synchromesh gearbox, so it was double-declutching, a skill that I would guess is not possessed by many youngsters. And as Sideways says, tyre technology has moved on hugely over the decades; the rain was just as wet 40 or 50 years ago, and we didn't have the advantage of modern patterns and compounds which help to keep cars, on the whole, on the straight and narrow. But what I have noticed is that the older generations seem to have better road craft skills when ice and snow are around compared to youngsters; maybe it's because we learnt how to drive on the older style tyres that gives us an edge. Obviously, there are exceptions.
Mike: when I am not in that paradise for drivers, Northern France where it is so much like the 1950s, I have the misfortune to live in Essex: the driving standards in Essex and East London are utterly appalling, as anyone who uses the A127, A130, M25 etc will know well.

Fortunately I learned and even taught, selectively, for a while, Defensive Driving skills. Boy do I need those skills now!

Perhaps young Essex drivers suffer dementia?? Since they have clearly forgotten all they were supposed to know?

On De-Skilling, it is an inescapable function of present Western society: whether it is driving, piloting airplanes, operating a centre lathe, whatever.

Last evening, I watched the engaging young Guy Martin who was involved in a project to rebuild an early Supermarine Spitfire, which crashed on the beaches near Dunkirk. For me, the section where they team had to re-size the precision steel pins used to fix the wings to the airfame was absorbing. Ensuring the pins had a 2 thou clearance through the dural fastening plates reminder me of hand reaming mounting holes. How many could do this today? How many actually own fixed and expanding reamers anymore? How many know how to use them?

Also most interesting was to consider, Reginald Mitchell designed a central monocoque (The airframe) and the Merlin engine was mounted on a small subframe bolted onto the monocoque bulkhead, identically to a D Type Jag or a Lotus 25 in the 1962 season. All other serious single seaters soon followed on: albeit, 26 years later!
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