Big Day Out: Portsmouth

It would be churlish to depart the South Coast on such glorious summer days with no excursion around the many museums that illustrate the history of our foremost naval port since the days Henry VIII lost his flagship thereabouts: it preserved here too, or what's left of it.

(A positively Proustian sentence that has left me exhausted.)

Sailing in you cannot miss one of the two carriers the UK possesses, looking with its marquees like it's being prepared for a tea-party, though it's attributable here to its ongoing maintenance. A problem with conventional navies is that at any one time a significant portion of its inventory is laid up in this way: a dilemma drones will go a long way to rectify.

The best overview of the harbour however comes from atop the Spinnaker Tower, the UK's tallest observation tower (although that at Brighton might elevate the eyes that bit higher).

At the various museums that comprise the historic naval dockyards (available on a single ticket that lasts a year, even though everyone knows you'll never be coming this way again), you can see HMS Victory along with the spot upon which he died in a kiss-me-quick-Hardy hat.

More impressive perhaps is HMS Warrior or the first iron-clad sailing-cum-steamship that was built in 1860 and could fire cannon-balls over the horizon at a range of five miles and as a consequence was untouchable. Most intriguing perhaps was the fact it appears to have within its bowels a spare propeller-blade, seen top row third left.

Alongside we've moved on to the Submarine Museum over on the other side of the harbour and without leaving the car-park there's an exhibit in the shape of one such propeller adapted for such vessels. These have to be as undetectable as possible, so they feature any number of bizarrely-shaped blades designed to reduce cavitation whilst they turn at a lethargic pace.

In the 1960s there were apparently sixty-two subs harboured here, and now there are none beside a fascinating post-war relic that you get to do a tour of, and which served in both the Far East and afterward the Arctic as the War got Colder. We've now a handful of nuclear submarines instead based in Scotland, and some of which will be undergoing maintenance (see earlier comments) at any one time. Worryingly when one of these test-fired one among its Trident missiles, it didn't work properly.

Check out however that first pic on the bottom row and tell me whether you've ever seen so magnificent a set of push-rods?

We've mover on however to the Munitions Museum at neighbouring Gosport, that is renamed 'Explosion!' in the hope of attracting the younger visitor. Worth a visit in order to get the set if nothing else, it includes fabulous exhibits like a wooden model of a design of naval gun that sadly would only feature on-screen nowadays, touched only by way of a mouse.

It's been a jolly day out as ever though, and topped off by encountering this 1930s steam-wagon on the high street beyond. Fully restored with local naval engineering expertise it ferries passengers around from pub to pub in the sunshine... something I imagine happens to us when we get to heaven.

And to cap it all off, a two-seat Spitfire is doing the rounds of HMS Daedalus if you are able to afford the £3,250 required for a quick-ish spin; although you can settle for a cup of tea and a Victoria sponge-cake as I did on the day. Daedalus is in fact an airfield and not a ship, naval personnel calling anything that moves or does not a 'ship' for reasons best known to themselves.

This constitutes the 1500th post appearing in the blog, which overall has attracted a third of a million views and as many as 3,000 in a single day. Recently I suggested its apparent success might be attributed to AI bots scraping it for material and this appears to be a clear and present danger. Accordingly the next 1,500 posts will be about how the moon is made of cheese, so Google offers it up to genuine enquiry.

DC Comic

Probably said so before but this is among the most popular of my uploads to Digital Commons, where it goes by the tag of Drone for Human Carriage. It's true that the tag alone might have acted as clickbait, but I think there's room to consider it might be the long-term feasibility of the arrangement that attracts 116 of this last month's 163 downloads for example.

The premise as ever was flat-packability but the main attraction was the fact PAVs or personal air vehicles of the kind simply grow in weight. HEXA for example over in the US was supposed to conform to a regulatory 250 pounds of (basic?) weight, though it would be relaxed by 200 pounds by the FAA at last count. For prototypes designed to fly all have a thing in common ~ they grow in weight.

This seems to be true even as the underlying tech moves in the opposite direction, for electrical aircraft that hover like these all suffer from lack of range or endurance and whenever batteries and motors get lighter, more of them are simply added so as to redress the balance.

This here then was an attempt at a drone that could lift its weight into position and have a pilot step into the resulting space; the harness doubling as a platform able to mount flight controls. This would have been drawn up to waist-height like a pair of underpants (to use the technical term), or else would have been open at the rear in order that the pilot could step into place and strap in. It also serves to bolster the uprights in support of the weight overhead... and those are 10-kilo weights you see.

Hope it happens some day but I had to abandon the proj in favour of boats because they were simpler, safer and ~ critically ~ cheaper to prototype. You would have to add too that it would be altogether easier to pioneer in the US, China or even other parts of Europe than here, where so many of us are employed in regulation and are tasked daily with finding things to regulate.

Proud of the pic though, and as the pioneer of rocketry in New Zealand was to point out, it does not matter so much if something proves not to work in practise so long as it works as art...

...as it does here.

Strip Show #8

Here though is where we left off, and it seems like a lifetime ago but that trip across the sea has been an inspiration to us all. It was so calm enroute Cherbourg that the sails of yachts were reflected as if by a mirror. It was an all-female crew at the helm and as what I guessed was the Second Officer stepped from the bridge for a smoke and a check on her DMs, like Noel Coward I said "Tranquil pour La Manche, non?" in an O-level French accent before we both shared a few 'Ahaaars'.

But as those farmers banding together to create a ferry-line must have asked, what do we want from this? Well at my age that is something of a moving target and the benefit of stepping away from the vehicle as we have done is that it gives time for us ~ like a tiny ocean ~ to do a bit of reflecting at the same time.

And right now I think as much as pioneering new shapes for maritime dronery, it is about building something I'd like for myself and which I figure we can do better. By better I mean more bangs for your buck and I think for our sakes and the planet's we need stop looking at horsepower and thinking about a new formula for boats ~ and this is my invention and I patent it and no backsies ~ that relates to knots per kilowatt or kts/kW as I like that there's lots of 'k' in there as much as anything. 

Sadly ~ an excuse Airbus have been known to use at weekends ~ the timber yard is closed on Saturday afternoon and so what I tend to do is either walk round what we have or set up a chair and stare at it for long periods: the reason small children are advised to avoid my driveway.

But we wanted something very narrow and very planar, and then realised it would roll over the second we sat in it. This is something marine architects like to avoid at the get-go, and so we needed something to stabilise it without adding too much in the way of mass or frontal section... which is when we added wiiings. These lie here inverted on the garage floor, as they have the past two weeks awaiting the caresses of their creator. Mwah-ha, mwah-ha, mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Looking at them, you like I will be asking what shall we go for: levity, ease-of-build or modularity? A recent news report stated Russia produces fifteen million drones per annum, whilst the UK inventory stands at around 70,000; frankly am amazed at that latter figure and wonder whose garden's big enough? But wasn't it the lesson we took away from Kursk, how manifold T-34s were able to overrun mighty Tigers?

And looking at this through urine-coloured spectacles, I think we should go down a modularity route as it combines ease of production and I'm lazy (as I said it in the Powerpoint presentation to the board). What we'll do once the timber-yard opens therefore is to reproduce each of the side-decks that we see here, and attach them at ninety degrees so as to form pontoons.

If these were hinged or snap-on unitary parts then the frame could be flat-packed for storage, but at the prototyping stage you needn't be ashamed to be fixing things permanently. It makes for the strongest construct, the simplest manufacture and a lighter framework than otherwise when it's about iteration, failure... and reiteration.

Costa Coffin

The new Netflix doc on the Costa Concordia shipwreck is instructional, if alone from the light it sheds on hitherto details that ~ whilst easily overlooked ~ may well have proven to be decisive. The most telling of these is the fact that in the given situation the captain ordered a turn in one direction that the helmsman pursued in the wrong direction for over forty seconds.

Regular readers will recall how ~ and it wasn't me that discovered this ~ the brain is divided into two hemispheres connected by something surgeons tell each other not to cut through no matter how inviting it looks. This is thought to lead to the left-versus-right confusion that has plagued aircraft accidents from the get-go; although it is less commonly referred to in maritime accidents that tend not to have been analysed in the same sort of forensic detail.

One reason it may have been overlooked for centuries at sea is for being considered something that was simply not done or a failure of character. You may recall though how one among the founding fathers of what is called 'human factors' in aviation was inspired by flying bombers line astern down the Bay of Biscay to ferry them to North Africa: the one in front turning right and never being seen again.

Besides this, it is obvious that Costa were either active or passive witnesses to 'sail-bys' during which you waved to your mistress, and not least because they'd either have enjoyed such forms of showboating themselves or else considered it to be the 'right stuff'.

in common with the airline industry the captain, helmsman and four others aboard were charged while management would 'tut-tut' their way to daily lives. My guess is the helmsman would have been charged for turning the wheel the wrong way, the way we used to hit kids at school if they'd made a mistake.

But can you think of another accident that might have involved such an error? Yes, that of the Titanic! There's a suggestion the captain's order to turn to starboard may have been confused with a conventional 'tiller' order commanding a lever connecting the rudder conventionally to be driven to the right so as to steer the ship to the left.

We're here to think about design in general and boats in particular though aren't we and more taken by the fact that 'Full Reverse' reduced the effectiveness of a turn in either direction? For this I'll need to take you over to the kitchen worktop, for that's what it's for, to examine our scale model of the ship where you'll see that unusually it had three propellers, one of which dedicated to 'washing' the rudder to maximum effect.

'Full Ahead' might therefore have avoided the 'berg as experts suggest, though had the engines been able to be telegraphed separately then 'Full Astern' on the mains and 'Full Ahead' on the central would have had them doing doughnuts around it.

Most experts thus agree nowadays that had Colin designed the Titanic, we'd all be a lot happier.

Ed. The title of this post is the author's pathetic attempt at a riff on Costa Coffee, a brand begun by the Costa brothers in London and later sold to Whitbread breweries. For years he'd travel to Waterloo station on the train, where commuters knew they had arrived because of the smell of beans roasted beneath the arches by the bros.

Artichoke Points

Life however is a vale of tears and it is time for us to return to these beleaguered shores, doing so on a Brittany Ferry across the English Channel. Where exactly the Channel starts or ends is a moot point and the French dodge the issue by calling it the 'Sleeve'.

But the origin of their ferries between Britain and Brittany in France is instructive and shows what can be done when you try, especially by the French. It is French countries that are charged with building our nuclear power stations now we have neither the expertise nor the inclination; and as former chancellor Jeremy Hunt has pointed out, the same station costs twice as much to build here as it does there due the planning regulations we cherish (and versus South Korea it's a factor of ten).

But what neither you nor I were aware of was the 'artichoke crisis' of the 1950s when in brief, there turned out to be more than even they could eat. This led to a collapse in prices and the knock-on effects it had on farmers, who together founded a ferry firm to export excess artichokes and onions (you read it right) to the UK too.

And what you get is one of Europe's most successful ferry systems, which you and I used to ferry ourselves between Poole and Cherbourg, and afterward St Malo and Portsmouth, in order to attend the wedding of the year.

But we're back to life, back to reality as the song goes, although on the way there is as ever an incursion of drones for those who look carefully enough. As one such boat arrives in Portsmouth ~ our most historic port in view of its naval connections ~ what is that we see passing through her wake? Only a pair of the UK's unmanned drones, albeit followed by a crewed mother-ship to ensure they don't collide with a boat-load of wedding-guests and artichokes!

(The development of maritime drones is centered upon the naval dockyards of both Portsmouth and Plymouth, partly for historic reasons and partly because politicians haven't the imagination to look elsewhere. Nor do we have the imagination to base their development on anything other than the sort of inflatables and motors we'd use for picnics at the seaside.)

Imagination is not something the French have ever lacked, however, and among the cabins of the vessel transporting our precious selves back home, no less than a view of the future inspired by Regent's electrification of (flying) boats over on the far side of the Atlantic!

Wedding Post, Post Wedding.

I'm not going to say where, as I don't want it becoming a shrine to the amount that I drank on the occasion ~ though suffice it to say there are few settings so suited to pretending you're Hugh Grant just for one day, working the throng in a Panama hat.

Working ~ or gliding ~ left to right and top to bottom, staff prepare the courtyard for canapés, champagne and oysters in the aftermath, whilst over at the parterre celebrants gather whilst the Grande Dames retreat to the shade where they and I discuss how Paris was never the same after the death of Marcel Proust.

Meanwhile the MC hammering the decks has flown in from Ankara for the occasion, where not far hence he did the same for Aston Villa following victory in the Europa League... they drank, he adds, until eight next morning. I ferry him from the hotel to the venue, which was likely the low point of his day.

The bride had farther to process than you'd expect from the average aisle, where temperatures would equally be unlikely to hover at thirty-five degrees. But on to the ceremony, brief enough for the assembled not to wilt faster than a bouquet. During this the couple recited in English how they met, and what they meant to each other. Neither are native speakers, English though having displaced French as language of love... as I suggested prior to being removed.

Thereafter it was on to the relative cool of the chateau, where for the moment I was lost in the world of Brideshead Revisited and its bright young things: languishing in the quad prior a louche progress toward the hall, with bow-ties discarded during an equally leisurely culinary procession.

Ed. Google tried to re-spell it 'Birdseed Revisited'... an altogether better treatment so far as any budgerigar reading this will be concerned.

eBrits

Come with us, do, on an eBike ride through rural Brittany? The legal age for riding a machine of this sort in France being fourteen, we ace the age requirements and set off from a rental facility in the midst of nowhere run by a Dutchman who met a wife and stayed. He has a wooden wheel on the workshop wall, made in ways they used to have to prior the invention of spokes:

The Bretons who occupy the region of Brittany share many cultural norms with the denizens of Cornwall in the UK ~ both culturally annihilated by the capitol and each preferring devolution from the centres of power. They speak a language essentially Celtic, and do stuff like wrestling and folk dancing they'd probably each recognise. Their lands are granitic, the chalk cliffs of the south of England and north of France giving way to igneous types, which explains the preference for stone builds over the use of clay for bricks:

It's a place many Brits retire to, or did so at least until the UK left the EU when it became altogether more complicated. France is wholly more rural than England and not least because it occupies an altogether greater area. It is thus replete with the ideal types of holiday or 'forever' home, offering substantial upgrades to weather and cuisine. The Victorian art critic John Ruskin used grand tours in Europe to pass by abodes you'd imagine living in, knowing that you'd never actually do so... and here is one such, where in fairness they're probably bored senseless:

The overwhelming takeaway from these perambulations around the country lanes of Brittany are the feeling everyone is growing corn (on the cob, as distinct from wheat as the English know corn to be) and that there's a stone cross on every corner and in every village. There used to be many more in Britain too, that disappeared into people's gardens when they ceased to believe in anything beyond IKEA and online gambling:

Put your linens on, however, as we've a wedding to attend...

Brit-ish

Arrive in Brittany for the wedding I promised you back in the day that you could come to as well, which I'm beginning to regret. The French region of Brittany shares a name with Britain itself, stemming from the fact ancient Britons were here as well as there... where they'd be pushed to the margins by Anglo-Saxons. The people of Brittany thus share a language and cultural norms with those of England's most southerly county in the shape of Cornwall.

Arriving at a barn-turned-Airbnb the place is clearly aimed at off-grid nature freaks, being without wi-fi, air-con or TV. It means that until we've found a SIM card we've to communicate as a family, which is horrendous and gets my Bordeaux opened sooner than planned.

After an airless night it's on to Mont Saint-Michel: an upmarket version of Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall, so clearly the guy got around. I won't bore you with postcard pics here, but instead a glimpse of the woodwork that went into the steeple.

Had these medieval carpenters designed a maritime drone like our own, it would ~ as I suggested to a passing abbot ~ have undoubtedly been 'les testicules du chien'.

Few tourists admired the underlying construction of either the steeple, or else the barrel-vaulted roof in the refectory... instead taking selfies with a seagull (inset).

Berry Head VOR

Take time out for a family trip to Berry Head VHF Omnirange navigational beacon on the south coast of England, which I must have traversed once or twice in the cruise, though I cannot recall headed for where... maybe the Canaries via the longer route?

But if you plan a family trip of the sort yourself, recommend looking no further than the Berry Head Hotel, just a walk from the beacon and the sort of place that Agatha Christie (who lived locally) might have used to set a murder. On a summer evening, pink gin on hand, there is no better place on Earth.

Suitably restored, we could set off early for the expedition to the navigation beacon itself, which didn't disappoint: set in a nature reserve and in a clearing among the trees, there is even a nameplate containing a brief description for the benefit of the tourists being irradiated.

Likely combined with a DME and clearly a doppler version, I was able to expound on the benefits of solid state ground-based aids as against the rotating variety... which my son will surely be keen to share with school-friends at the soonest opportunity.

One tho' for the family album, or rotating sequence of images on the breakfast bar!

Ed. The Berry Head Hotel was built in 1847 as a residence for clergy, now likely to occupy an Airbnb instead. It was here the hymn 'Abide with me' was written, sung by crowds at FA Cup finals for decades. In view of the fact no-one remembers the words it is lately sung by celebs, although the FA plan to replace it altogether with The Prodigy's 'Smack My Bitch Up'. 

Phil's Spectre

Watch the Netflix doc to learn this was the LA DA's first success in forty years in the prosecution of a celebrity, and how it took two attempts to succeed. On a day the US team's top scorer in FIFA's World Cup benefits from them overturning a decision on a ban in the way they'd done in the run up for Cristiano Ronaldo, son if you ever read this, remember money buys you justice. We have it here in the likes of David Beckham, who pays for the best viz. most corrupt lawyers to get him off speeding prosecutions that the rest of us would accumulate a ban for.

Great British Sell-Off (cont)

News today of the takeover of one of the UK's few remaining independent airlines ~ albeit started by a Greek shipping rich-boy in London ~ to US capital alongside ITV or Independent (ha ha ha) Television Studios.

At the outset of television some Scottish guy invented it, although his system was a bit crap and was rapidly improved upon by GEC in the US, as here. But the British were among the first to public broadcast, albeit with a crappy dancing puppet that no-one in their right mind would watch. Then at the outset of war, we figured radar might be the more useful pursuit.

But the start of TV in the UK was with the wholly-government sanctioned BBC until we decided we ought to have two channels. Yes, you read that right. Independent TV was thus born, and funded by commercials instead of the licence nobody pays for anymore beside me.

It was replete with colourful characters like a fat Jewish man called Lew Grade who we loved for being larger than life. Best joke being someone calls Lew as soon as carphones are introduced to say that they've got one too, so Lew in his limo says he must go as someone's on the other line. Nonetheless his like would go on to give us, for instance, the world's longest-running TV soap viz. Coronation Street.

I used to fly its regulars between London Heathrow and Manchester's studios, its busty barmaid (played by Sally Lindsay) catching a captain's eye across a crowded departure lounge. Reader, as Jane Austen used to write, I could have had those tits.

Cards on table, I watch their remarkable drama content and view the remainder as plebeian shite... which will alienate at least 10% of my followers. Nonetheless it was free-to-air, which Comcast assure us will be so 'til 2030 when it will be up against Netflix.

But you're talking here to a Netflix acolyte who likes nothing more than to watch docs on box-of-frogs Americans shooting neighbours or ripping babies from another's womb, instead of using dolls like normal people.

Ed. Tonight's post was sadly sponsored by Aldi Steffanof Vodka and Coca-Cola Zero. Below, the legendary embonpoint, posted here at considerable risk to the author's testicles. Tho' lager and tits... what's not to like? Sally went on to a successful TV career, Colin drives containers around Liverpool Docks.

Strip Show #7

With both of the lats attached ~ which help support the mighty hydro-skis ~ and a bead of silicone finishing off the buoyancy packs, this baby's good for bed for now.

Foam provides not just buoyancy but the shear-resistance to keeps things in shape. Remember we've yet to fit fasteners to each deck, and as yet it's held together by leftover adhesives that were lying round the 'shop.

You can still smell the pinewood resin off those booms, which is nice, and as things dry off the laterals will come to love the shape their in, as timbers do in time.

We'll be using this mock-up for three separate tasks:

(1)    Tidying up our patent drawing, which is decidedly ropey.

(2)    Undertaking static flotation tests, sadly with my waders.

(3)    Fitting the motors and props for static run-ups in the ARPs*.

Also we need something to look at besides a sketch, to know whether or not we can live together in a loving relationship; for boats are not for Christmas, they're for life.

Jury's out on whether we'll need a tensioner like that spar at the front end, because the lats will want to pull the booms apart. This however will be compensated for by the hydro-skis, which act like joists in the perpendicular plane, and by the fact that the seat will bind the whole together.

Those booms will need trimming too... but that's probably a job for a rabbi.

* Not sure what they are, but used to be quoted a lot in briefings at RAF Finningley.

Strip Show #6

I like to finish things off as I have done here with a wedge or two that has been lying around the garage. Eventually this will be 3D-printed... but not in wood.

There's an argument for extending the size of these at the prow in order to provide buoyancy at the forward end; they would not need much material at all to do so, given the leverage at that distance from the centres of buoyancy and gravity.

We're talking moment arms here, aren't we, beloved by both aviators and mariners?

Strip Show #5

At this stage we need to provide clearance for fitting lateral spars and I like to sing that well-known hymn, You raise me up, so I can stand on lengths of scant... at this stage of the game.

The spars are fixed with screws down the side of each deck, and should ideally be glued as well but as I explained to our quality guy, I couldn't really be bothered.

Strip Show #4

Here I've popped a stretch of extruded (not expanded) polystyrene insulation in the 'picture-frames' that'll form the deck of the catamaran: together they displace over sixteen kilos or thirty-five pounds.

We're moving away from the fixed volume of 'vessels' here that has held sway since the first dug-out canoes, offering the punters a choice of thicknesses of foam resulting in a variety of displacements.

To fix them in place I ran a bead of silicone round the margins, and spray-glued the remainder. As this is 25mm foam within a 20mm base, too, later we shall run a filet of silicone around the margins topside too in order to neaten things up, and to prevent scuffing.

Recticel ~ which sounds like a colonic complaint ~ is a firm in Belgium which started out in 1778 by making gunpowder. Turning to peaceful pursuits like lining walls and floors, they'll probably be annoyed at me using the product in maritime drones.

I've also fixed a temporary spar at the far end in order to keep things aligned. 

FIF...Arsing Around

In a shock move after discovery of a little-known sub-clause, FIFA announce that in the event of a referee sending off a player, hosts are to be consulted with a view to overturning the decision with the remaining fixtures in prospect.

In a fix-frame Cristianus 'Bigus' Dickus, red-carded for merely killing defenders with a gladius, sees the decision reversed by a downturned thumb on the part of FIFA's Emperor Infantino.

Holy Batshit, Robin!

Like me you'll have been thrilled during the spectacle Mexico v. England was, with a glimpse of a less-heralded success story from among these shores!

To a menagerie that features a brush-footed spider-cam (see previous post tho' not sure where in this phantasmagoria of a blog) we can add a batcam; sadly grounded by adverse weather on the evening in question.

The company based in Epping combines the talents of one man and his drone, with one with a background in broadcast... areas in which the UK is considered to excel.

Their means of aerial footage ~ check the website ~ has been the go-to choice for practically any event that's been any event at all.

As we saw earlier, flying drones are disallowed from within the stadium itself; used instead for those dramatic aerial shots of it during the pre-amble.

They'll have been grounded by the team in view of thunderstorms in the area that present two conspicuous threats to a drone. They can produce downdraughts that will bring down an airliner, and lightning strikes that whilst rarely discombobulating airliners  ~ I've known several ~ would likely knock out a drone.

This is not least because an airliner is effectively a Faraday cage on the one hand, and includes electronics tested to the Nth degree ~ as yet luxuries among the fledgling aerial drone industry.

Ed. The author can still recall practically every member of Brazil's team from the '70 World Cup at the same stadium, though the less said about his 'World Cup Willy' the better.

Strip Show #3

We'll go in from topside in the fulness of time and drive screws in, but here I slap PVA glue around the margins and set the spars back in place to fester overnight... we are working on the underside at this stage of the game.

Nowadays this kind of thing would be done in an autoclave, but we don't need that shit do we Gromit?

Ed. Plus you can't work out with an autoclave.

Strip Show #2

We'll do the planform first, laying out the 2' by 4' ply once cut in half, and adding spars to form a 'picture frame' to either side.

Those are the lateral strips parked there alongside and I thought about insetting them within the ply to make things look a little neater, and then couldn't be bothered; thus we can set them to one side for now.

When the Titanic was built the outline of its cross-sections would be chalked up on the floor at full-size in the shipyard for the workers to base the metalwork on, and so I feel we're recreating the glory days of shipbuilding here in our own tiny way. 

British Acquisition Enterprise (BAE)

Developing drones the quickest and cheapest way, by buying up the companies who do so. This is Callen-Lenz's Nyan, which judging by the extent of carbon-fibre can't be at all cheap.

Drones in the Ukraine, where they're undoubtedly most advanced, are developed in garages and put on sale on commercial websites. Whilst procurement in Britain has long been pursued on a revolving-door basis, lobbying its most important arm... BAE often investigated for the brown-paper envelopes that are a stock-in-trade.

Accordingly, try to find out anything about who Callen or Lenz might be or where all the cash for this came from is practically impossible... transparency not something we do in the UK.

Then again their effort is based in Salisbury, a place best known for its Novichok'd door-knobs, so perhaps it's no surprise.

Ed. Colin was quietly ghosted by the NWAA or North West Aerospace Alliance, not least because BAE is among the region's principal employers. He did say however that he'd never join a club that would entertain his type as a member.

Strip Show #1

I have a desultory kick around in the garage and figure we've enough material left over to build a lookalike for patent purposes if nothing else at half-scale viz. eight feet long.

From left to right, spars from a deconstructed drone for the cross-bars, and then a strip for the lateral supports, another for the hydro-skis and another for the booms respectively.

Atop all this is a light plywood sheet and another in laminated foam... albeit cut into pieces for a build at half-scale again, but which I am confident I can re-construct.

What I call a 'look-and-feel' is important for projects of this kind, and it's what I was arrested for at a meeting of my acolytes in the Nevada desert.

Jet Pack

Lovely shot of a low-loader at Hilton Park services of a summer evening, but what's inside? Well checking out the shape, my guess is a jet engine being shuttled from an airport down South to Manchester or farther afield?

The largest ever robbery in the UK, I think, will have taken place at Heathrow when a gang entered a compound and intent on something else, spotted a pallet of gold bullion. It had not, as I recall, been able to fit through the door... something that I find endearingly British in a Keystone Cops sort of way.

But while I plied my trade as a heroic captain thereabouts, someone actually drove something like this airside and with accomplices, forklifted one such onto the flatbed and was never seen again. British Airways ~ bailed out as ever by our good selves ~ barely gave a fuck.

But stripped for spares, my guess is there'd be a value on a par with that of the bullion.

Ed. Police are searching for a man photographing a truck on the M6 before coshing its driver.

Concrete Post

Much controversy here in the UK over the development of 'smart' motorways, which are basically ones where the inside lane ~ once reserved exclusively for breakdown ~ has been opened up for use. Instead, every so often there is a lay-by to pull into instead.

I've a lot of sympathy for this as I always considered that inside lane could be used in this way now that cars are altogether smarter and less prone to breakdown. The problem is, people are altogether less smart than they were in the days tyres blew, fan-belts broke and electrical points became corroded by sparking.

Now instead people sit in whichever lane at point of stoppage like zombies, unable to fix anything and rarely if ever assisted by anyone else now that we live on-screen lives... and as a result die in the inevitable shunts due to being rear-ended by drivers messaging at 80 m.p.h.

My favourite unintended consequence though is the bridge just south of Sandbach services southbound on the M6; a place I intend to organise a trip to should your numbers warrant it.

For driving back northbound some years ago at around 02:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning I was intrigued to see a truck separated from its trailer, whose contents of fruit and veg were spilled over a half-mile of carriageway. This closed it for the next six hours, whilst Police made a reality TV program... meaning people who'd set off to fly from Gatwick thinking that they were ever-so-clever, missed it instead.

Reason being, when that stanchion supporting the bridge was built, it was separated from the roadway by a 'hard-shoulder' width, whereas now it's adjacent. This means foreign truckers (as they all are at 02:00 a.m. except for muggins), understandably half-asleep, swerve to avoid a drift toward the edge: and tho' the cab makes it, the front of the trailer goes its separate ways.

This I think you will agree, is obvious from a close-up of the edge of that concrete casting? Funny thing is, they only added the stripes about four years later and after the accident had been repeated over and again ~ the edge of the bridge fading-to-black at night-time.

So we've smart motorways in the UK, but nobody smart with a tin of white paint.

Ed. The author has since been jailed for pretending this came from his dash-cam.

A (do) RON (ron, ron, a do ron ron)

South Korea's maritime agency first to certify an aircraft optimised for surface-effect operation but capable of free flight, beside trolling around on the sea. All you could hope for, a boat with a sort of car on top and wings on either side (though not fitted yet as it appears here).

That nice man Paul Dutch with his ground-effect channel attributes a revival of wing in ground-effect types (WIGs) to Regent kick-starting the process in the US with an electrified passenger type (the type and not its passengers) beside military demand in and around the South China Sea for rapid, inexpensive and low-observable forms of aircraft or watercraft.

To the extent special forces specialists Patriot3 in the US have co-opted a licence for use of the Aron-80 elsewhere in the world.

The initiative grew out of government research of a sort that Japan's MITI is known for in an effort to grow consumer electronics, or indeed China for its domination of the global EV market.

There's nothing comparable in the UK, which is why I'll be in the conservatory later with a tool-box instead.

Altered Towers

Do you remember that unfortunate instance at Alton Towers, when they lost power and we lost the plot, again back in May when it seemed it was never our day?

Well they stepped up and went the extra mile, providing both refund and tickets for a return visit, and it's ever credit where credit's due here on the 'blog.

I've discussed this with myself at the breakfast bar, pointing out you were all quite disappointed at our not being able to afford our 'big day out' at Sheffield, where I was to be celebrated as perhaps the university's most philanthropic benefactor.

Well I listened, and shall take you all to Alton Towers instead at a forthcoming date yet to be decided... but clear your diaries for the whole of September whilst I dwell on it.

Meantime as one of the UK's foremost influencers can I recommend a day out at the Towers followed by a pint of pale ale at the Cat and Fiddle on the way home?

I'll do the house, my son the rides. As a retired pilot at Blackpool Pleasure Beach all I could do was to wonder, 'And if it comes off the rails... now?'

Park It

Do you remember that time back in May when we went to the Cat and Fiddle? Among England's highest pubs and legend for bikers throughout the North, but how upset we were at receiving a parking ticket subsequent?

Well the nice people at Smart Parking have waived all charges, and so as I learned from night-stops in Bangkok, everything really does have a happy ending.

Ed. His address here in Palm Springs has been redacted to protect the stupid.

Spider Cam, Spider Cam...

... does whatever a spider can. Many of you like me will have been thrilled with the performance of the overhead 'spider-cam' during coverage of FIFA's World Cup.

Like me you will have wondered what that shadow was darting about the pitch... was it another Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon?

We saw recently how aerial drones transformed coverage of the Winter Olympics, so like me you will have paused the action to check if drones were in action again here.

Apparently not. The spider-cam, which for years in the US has been pulled this way and that by tethers at four corners of the stadia, is still with us... like Lionel Messi.

The reason drones are not used principally relate to health and safety, the chance of a stray ball bringing one down and, say, taking out a Lionel Messi, is considered too great a risk.

I would add physics plays a part. Larger multi-rotored drones used to follow sports like rowing or horse-racing have a good deal of inertia; something that does not trouble our spider-cam with its super-powers.

The alternative is a sub-250g type like that used for downhill ski and snowboarding events.

These though make a horrible noise, beside triggering PTSD breakdowns in veterans watching the match and wondering if friends were about to spill their intestines into a popcorn bucket.

Ed. Spiders have eight legs and not four but members of the Brush-Footed Butterfly family do fit the prescription and we've asked the MLS to refer instead to the 'brush-footed butterfly-cam'.

Sell Out and Sell Off

If you listen to DJ Fatboy Slim on the recent long-running BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs you'll hear how he went to Reigate Grammar School, where he was in the same class as Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Keir established a reputation for not being able to stick to any single initiative he announced with the exception of adding sales tax to private education.

When I was at school, state education was selective so that for instance Keir and I would pass an exam that meant we went to a grammar school of this kind instead of what were variously called secondary modern or comprehensive schools. Around the time I was there, however, the Labour government ~ most of whom attended private or grammar schools themselves ~ abolished the system. It was something my lifelong Labour supporter at college described as having been rescued, and then pulling up the ladder.

Wind on a generation and they have done the same for what remains of free choice in education by effectively upping the fees that private schools have to charge by some 25%. It did appear this would barely alter the status quo, and this was correct in so far as it effectively eliminated any chance of working-class parents continuing to benefit in that way.

I'd like to believe the revenue gained would be steered exclusively toward the state education system, but then I'd like to believe that the Earth is flat. The upshot however was that aside from the richest schools catering to the wealthiest, like for example socialist politicians, the remainder have been decimated.

A side-effect is that any number have been bought up by Chinese concerns for who-knows-what reason: the best guess of mainstream media is straightforward asset stripping. Accordingly, Galaxy Global Education whose website is down at 9:10 on a weekday morning (see me after class) is in the process of closing down Malvern St James established in 1893, Ruthin School founded in 1284, and Robotics stars Durham High School for Girls... clockwise from top left.

It is I guess a part of Labour's ongoing efforts to eliminate any trace of either labour or initiative in the UK, though there are great hopes for Keir's replacement, local lad Andy Burnham... yeah, right. Important thing is, meantimes it helps sell off the last of our silverware before the proper Soviets arrive.

I've no particular axe to grind though regards politicians, and like most of us living through the arse-end of a civilisation, loathe all of them equally.

* Ed. Well that's going to get us a grant, isn't it?