Honey I Shrunk the Trailer

Few people know it ~ and shame on them ~ but trailers designed for shipping containers are telescopic. Incidentally in the US they are called semi-trailers, on the pretext that they are not self-supporting without a truck tucked underneath at the forward end. I view that as a technicality, but it’s not worth falling out over.

We enjoyed a recent discussion of container sizes, didn’t we, over in Trafford? Well now if you’d like to take out your exercise books we’ll discuss why such trailers ~ called sliders or skeletons in the trade ~ can be shrunk or extended at will. If we forget about 30-foot containers, which most people seem too have done anyway, stock 20-foot and 40-foot boxes have a socket for a twist-lock at each corner to hold them in place on ships, trucks and trains. In Cuba they are used as houses as I write, and I guess you could use each of these points to pin them to the ground with the hurricane season in view?

With the 20-foot soon extended to 40-foot incidentally it was perhaps inevitable that we would want something larger again, but the constraints involved in manoeuvring anything much larger given existing infrastructure would mean limiting this extension to five feet. The 45-foot container however was created by leaving the anchor-points as they were and adding a 2’6” extension at either end.  Driving this takes a little forethought as it produces an out-swing at the rear during turns and much the same at the forward end; where for instance it might catch a gate-post during turns at a sharp angle.

Broadly speaking then the trailer is run extended and has attachments in the middle for 20-foot containers and at each corner for the 40-foot. The trailer has then to be shrunk in order to allow access to the rear doors of the shorter boxes. A minor point too is that it can also be shortened by around eight inches in order to shift the centre of gravity of the longer 45-foot containers forward a little, principally to satisfy the requirements of the anti-skid system fitted to the trailer.

This Westinghouse type of braking system is powered by the pneumatic lines from the tractor-unit, and if disconnected from it the brakes will normally be applied automatically in order to stop the trailer rolling away upon disconnection… although the extendable legs do prevent this to a large extent. There is also a manual plunger to release the trailer’s brakes before the get-go, and if the trailer is unladen and the surface wet, the truck will happily drag it down the road with the driver largely unaware: one reason for leaving the window open at the off in order to clock the squealing.

It is also a reason for not bouncing to tunes on the radio until established, because the first thing to alert you to anything amiss is generally accompanied by an audible tell-tale. For this reason I was not a fan of noise-cancelling headsets in airliners, and invariably flew with one ear exposed so as to able to chat with the co-pilot. It meant however that you were able to listen to the hum of those jet-engines like a parent the gentle breathing of a sleeping baby: those CFM-56s being yours.

4 - 4 - 2

The UK's Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is a ten year plan for how to defend itself, and the most recent envisages a proportionate allocation of funding divided among re-usable drones, kiss-goodbye drones and crewed platforms at a ratio of some 40, 40 and 20 percent... although the government has yet to commit to funding it to an extent it appears to require.

Of more concern to the more military-minded is apparently the fact the PM's urgent admonition that defence will involve all of us... appears to have fallen on deaf ears, and the chances are he's forgotten he ever said it himself.

It does though follow the great British tradition of never being ready: we even had a king called 'Ethelred the Unready' for a while. Accordingly it has been a case of, Oh look, it's the Romans... Oh look, it's the Vikings... Oh look, it's the Normans... Oh look, it's Napoleon and Oh look, it's the Germans.

Accordingly, Oh look it's the Russians should come as a surprise to no-one though I suspect the latter would have made a better job of fixing pot-holes in the roads than they are ever likely to.

For by and large we've always been fairly ungovernable by anyone except ourselves and barely that... which has ever been our best defence, and likely to remain so.

66.6 the Number of the Beast?

Start assembling the 66% scale models as per prior post in 10mm laminate backer-board.

The light fading, I drop to my knees in a navy-blue onesie to apply finishing touches to beads of adhesive...

...only to get reported by neighbours out back for involving youngsters in satanic rituals!

Ed. Altar-pieces are now available on our merch page.

Honey I Shrunk the Drone

I’d be the first to admit that we failed to get T-motor’s U7 and Flame’s shitty 80A ESC working at all. You’re disappointed, I’m disappointed and we’re all hurting. I’m off to a McKinsey wedding in a French chateau this summer though, and a classical strategy among consultants is to circumvent obstructions rather than spend undue time tackling them head on.

Accordingly there are currently two issues prevailing at the moment and these are the facts are that (a) an eBay bath is a cost-effective 67” Hearty Italian sub to test the the models with and (b) if electrical components must also be subbed then small is beautiful. 

Taking the measure of our hydro-static test-facility, which is how Archimedes got his big break, it would appear that a 2/3rds scale of what we have currently would suit both contingencies. With a centre-section 400mm or 16” wide it’s a comfortable fit and that would allow it to be upto 1500mm long or 60”, to fit lengthwise too: but bear in mind that both cat and bath slope upward at what will be the forward end.

By such means we can look at alternative suppliers of both motor and ESC, whose head we can hold a gun to pending such time as they get an RC transmitter to talk to the two of them.

It just so happens too that I used a pair of 10mm laminated backer-boards to panel the bath with during the renovation we all enjoyed in recent posts ~ and sufficient over to build a pair of centre-sections like the previous, except a little shrunken. I realise Elon Musk is probably not wondering what he can do with a left-over bath-panel and whether he might build a space-ship with it, but I'm cutting a wet-suit to suit our cloth here.

At the same time, the family sit here requires that the conservatory is co-opted as a means of entertaining guests instead of drones, the way the front rooms of my past were preserved for occasional visits by the vicar, and ready should ever royalty call.

It does mean the proj is relegated to the garage, which is where I'd already decided to locate the bath; not wanting to be considered (more of) a nut-job by neighbours. 

Let me take you then by your digital paw then as we plan and build one of the most spectacular test-facilities the UK is still able to muster!

Financial OVOtures

Sale of energy firm OVO to German company EOn, which already has a sizeable slice of the dysfunctional UK energy market, for a reputed £600 million; a sum that should help restore its founder’s fortune following his contribution to a newer venture altogether in the form of flying taxi developer Vertical Aerospace. The latter is something the UK government ~ in a desperate effort to place all its chips on one of the few remaining gambles less likely to decamp abroad at the first opportunity ~ is practically the only electrified form of flight that it has backed in a substantial way.

An obvious reason for doing so is that politicians rarely know anything much beyond the palace of Westminster and how to profit personally from it, and thus rely upon what they consider to be the safest bet. This is generally, and especially when it comes to defence, companies like BAE Systems that already enjoy financial backing from abroad… combined with the fact that companies like Vertical can afford the salaries of people either skilled in pursuit of government grants or otherwise skilled in kissing the asses of those responsible for signing them off. Back-handers may or may not feature, the likes of BAE proven to be expert in that department too.

The energy market is another thing that we have to thank Thatcher for, and is something that sticking-plaster socialist governments are unlikely to improve, which is why they are so unpopular ~ like so much of life in the 21st century, they (and it) stand for little else beside handouts, as it’s something simple that requires none of the imagination they lack anyway.

What struck me about it was around the time of the Covid pandemic they said over eighty had gone bust, the best-known of which was ‘Bulb’ although there are many shittier names than that, not least OVO… or new-biological OVO as we expect Germans to call it. This reflects the fact that whereas state-run entities like the electricity boards had to put an infrastructure together, what modern energy firms (and broadband operators) need is a billing system and a silly name. OVO garnered customers with a claim to only use green energy, which you may believe. You may also believe the Earth is flat and the Moon made of cheese, as I do.

If you watch the YouTube channel Economics Help, which is like WWE wrestling to the likes of me, you’ll see how the only real ways that the UK can dig itself out of long-term decline is either by printing money ~ which is like ordering beer during a party that you’ll never be able to pay for ~ or else flogging off the family silver to foreigners. 

As this great green hope has done ~ but who’d blame them when the house is folding?

Ed. More cheery posts soon!

Bathed in Glory

None of which is getting boats built, though this might well be!

Let me touch on it by including the CEO's latest press release:

"I'm delighted to have signed off last thing Friday on this, our first hydrostatic test facility, thought to be the largest in Europe if you don't count the hot-tub next door. It was built by Armitage Shanks, a firm well-known here in the UK for maritime test-facilities as well as gents urinals. And while it cost £16.15 on eBay on a buyer-collect basis, it will be essential in driving the proj forward at a sub-scale that I shall speak more of in the weeks to come. Amen."

Gaining Traction

What a spot on the M6 motorway!

It's an old Nuffield, a 1500cc beauty built in 1969.

Know this from the government's 'Tax Your Vehicle' website ~ so pleased I taxed it for him!