Kick Those Shoes Off and Relax. It's the Delta 2017 Tea Break

[Colin McKay]

I would have thought that drawing a portrait of the President was to be commended, not criticised.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

It’s not April 1st again, is it?

“Some viewers may find images below offensive”.......

Good old Beeb- reporting all the important world news as usual! Or as Sir Terry Wogan would say after a bulletin- “not a slow news day, by any chance, is it?”

One despairs about the rubbish that is classified as "news" these days.

As for the aerial illustration - just contrails. That's al the needs to be explained to kids. Faulty satnav would be my guess for an excuse.

Probably hacked by the Russians via Tesla and an AutoPilot update.

[356sc]

Or if you believe the conspiracy theorists, the contrails are in fact chemical trails...we are being poisoned......sigh!!

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by grantp

One despairs about the rubbish that is classified as "news" these days.

As for the aerial illustration - just contrails. That's al the needs to be explained to kids. Faulty satnav would be my guess for an excuse.

Probably hacked by the Russians via Tesla and an AutoPilot update.

Do you ever see the nonsense put out by Huffington Post as news? I thought they'd hit rock-bottom with the headline 'Man leaves adorable note on car windscreen', but no doubt they can do much worse.

According to them, yesterday's mid-air collision near Aylesbury took place in dense woodland!

[delta]

License renewal arrived this morning

[grantp]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

Do you ever see the nonsense put out by Huffington Post as news? I thought they'd hit rock-bottom with the headline 'Man leaves adorable note on car windscreen', but no doubt they can do much worse.

According to them, yesterday's mid-air collision near Aylesbury took place in dense woodland!

None of the media seem good with aerospace stuff.

The Flybe plane that had to circle for a couple of hours and then return to land at Belfast a few days ago, after the front wheels had a problem and advised they would not deploy on landing, was quite clearly a small twin engined propeller powered aircraft.

Reports I read referred to it as a "jet".

Even real "news" is fake if the most basic information provided is so inaccurate.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by delta

License renewal arrived this morning

Funny that! They obviously heard us talking........

Med booked for next saturday.

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by 356sc

Was this one of you lot?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/42032629

I hope the pilot was commended for such accurate flying skills

[Mike Bell]

Talking of 'aircraft', the 'flying bum' is in the news again....

I like the fact that the headline is... 'World's largest aircraft crashes as roads closed', but reading on.... 'A spokesman for Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd, which owns the aircraft, said it was not flying at the time and was on its mooring mast.'

Bit of a contradiction there.....

[356sc]

And the BBC states....Owner Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd said it appeared the Airlander broke free from its mooring mast, triggering a safety system which deflates the aircraft.

Confused.....?

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by 356sc

And the BBC states....Owner Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd said it appeared the Airlander broke free from its mooring mast, triggering a safety system which deflates the aircraft.

Confused.....?

Shock horror- that actually makes sense.....

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by 356sc

And the BBC states....Owner Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd said it appeared the Airlander broke free from its mooring mast, triggering a safety system which deflates the aircraft.

Confused.....?

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

This created carnage.
As if it was the end of the world

[Mike Bell]

That could almost have been written by whoever pens sniff petrol’s stories!

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

That could almost have been written by whoever pens sniff petrol’s stories!

If "words of advice" were in fact offered as surmised one wonders what they might have been.

Presumably the chap remembered the case shortly after he got off.

Luckily for him the bus was still at the stop. Absent the panic and even if the case (and the bus?) had not been blown up as a precaution, it would no doubt have taken him days to recover the thing as lost property.

One wonders what adice might be offered n such circumstances.

I don't suppose he was Russian was he?

Did the police check that it was indeed the claimant's case? How do we know that this was not some sort of nefarious stolen secrets exchange?

Or people smuggling?

What next? Close the M25 because someone thought they saw a suspicious Leaf?

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Shock horror- that actually makes sense.....

Well it does but seems like a damaging way of running an (accidental?) safety test.

6 flights, 2 accidents, albeit this one when not flying.

One has to wonder how that compares with more conventional developments and whether potential operators might be a little concerned about their investment collapsing in a heap like that.

Insurance policies should be interesting.

I'm all for fun innovation but the commercial reality has to come into projects like that at some point - I can't see these as objects of desire that people would buy and then keep stored somewhere to look at once in a while and await an appreciating value.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by grantp

6 flights, 2 accidents, albeit this one when not flying.

One has to wonder how that compares with more conventional developments and whether potential operators might be a little concerned about their investment collapsing in a heap like that.

I'm all for fun innovation but the commercial reality has to come into projects like that at some point.

Have to agree, Grant. Personally I can't see this particular project becoming a commercial success.......

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Have to agree, Grant. Personally I can't see this particular project becoming a commercial success.......

It might end up like the hovercraft.

The Russians perceived some situations where it could work for them and redeveloped the idea accordingly.

If I recall the US military pulled out of the flying bum project a few years ago (Navy if I recall correctly) having a change of requirement or perhaps more basically some other options that seemed to be more viable at the time.

Maybe the Russians will find a good use for this too?

If the Chines don't copy it first and make use of it in their new territories in Africa - where I could see it being quite useful for delivery heavy loads over long distances providing air conditions are suitable and roads are not.

[Mike Harte]

Grant, I think that you are being slightly unkind about the hovercraft. They, and other similar craft manufactured by other companies (still), are used to this day around the world. Current users include the RNLI, the UK's armed forces as well as some in the USA's military.

Having used them on many occasions to cross the Channel many moons ago, I can understand why they were not even more popular. The ride was pretty bumpy, even on a calm day, and it was blooming noisy in the cabin. But for a speedy crossing, there was nothing to touch it and you put up with it's deficiencies.

[Mike Bell]

I think one of the main failings of the hovercraft was / is the cost of running them commercially. Not such a problem for military or rescue services. I still remember the cross channel behemoths, but sadly never got to travel on one!

Russia was very keen on hydrofoil craft for commercial use, and I believe still is. Also the GEV Ekranoplan aircraft such as the Caspian Sea Monster. That was cool......

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Grant, I think that you are being slightly unkind about the hovercraft. They, and other similar craft manufactured by other companies (still), are used to this day around the world. Current users include the RNLI, the UK's armed forces as well as some in the USA's military.

Having used them on many occasions to cross the Channel many moons ago, I can understand why they were not even more popular. The ride was pretty bumpy, even on a calm day, and it was blooming noisy in the cabin. But for a speedy crossing, there was nothing to touch it and you put up with it's deficiencies.

I didn't denigrate the hovercraft as such but as your list of users illustrates the ultimate users are specialist and non-commercial by and large even though there were significant attempts to make them more broadly commercially based devices. Your cross channel service examples were probably the primary commercial deployment of the time but the Russian took things further over all, commercial development or not.

I think the flying bum could end up in a similar niche market situation although scaling it for working in bespoke applications may not be so easy.

[gary396]

We (me & the future Mrs C) went on one of the cross-channel hovercraft in 1980 (trip to Paris). It was quite an impressive machine to board and luckily the weather was reasonably calm but I do recall getting a bit queasy at times due to the strange sensation of motion - bumpy as Mike mentioned.

Had a nice time in Paris though - got engaged whilst we were there!

[Mike Harte]

Time saving was the greatest attribute in the service. Not only was it a much faster crossing, but loading and unloading took a fraction of the time compared to the ferries.

I used it mainly for shortish skiing breaks as I discovered that, on average, I could drive down to places like Les Deux Alpes (south of Grenoble) faster than flying and picking up a hire car. On a good trip, I could get from Hertfordshire and be on the ski slopes in about 10.5 to 11 hours.

Don't think that I would fancy doing that nowadays, even if traffic allowed.

[justracing]

I remember returning from the Le Mans 24 hour quite some years back with a caravan in tow and having camped overnight near Calais we boarded the first crossing back to Dover. The sea was flat calm and their was a slight fret coming off the water as we slipped down the ramp, quite eerie. More to the point, the journey took only 22mins mainly due to the calm conditions, absolutely astonishing. In the right conditions it was incredible but in anything but perfect weather it was the most uncomfortable ride.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

I think one of the main failings of the hovercraft was / is the cost of running them commercially. Not such a problem for military or rescue services. I still remember the cross channel behemoths, but sadly never got to travel on one!

Russia was very keen on hydrofoil craft for commercial use, and I believe still is. Also the GEV Ekranoplan aircraft such as the Caspian Sea Monster. That was cool......

Ah the Caspian Sea Monster. In fact they built a few of them. Used ground effect in reverse to 'fly". Very impressive but Ultimatley useless since they were stuck in the Caspian.

We only took the cross channel hovercraft once on a trip to Spa. Yes noisy but I didn't notice it being particularly bumpy. Very quick bit of course the Shuttle is equally quick these days.

[gary396]

I didn't realise that these fancy new gas / electric SMART meters actually cut the amount of gas used. Ours was installed a few weeks ago. It seems to have cut our gas central heating bill dramatically as it's currently indicating we've only used £2.48p of gas in three-weeks. Impressive or maybe it's not that smart after all.

After numerous phone calls, online 'chats', emails & Tweets to our supplier they've assured me that it will provide correct readings when it 'wakes up' by the end of the month. I'm not convinced....