Leonardo Di Craftio

The announcement largely unnoticed, it follows a pattern that has been observed over many decades in the UK whether related to cars, aircraft or indeed steel and much else viz. the focus being on jobs as it's the quickest possible fix in order to satisfy votes in forthcoming elections. 

The way the playbook proceeds thereon calls for ongoing reduction in the number of jobs under whole or majority foreign ownership, succeeded by eventual closure that we'd like to think won't happen in this case. What is significant here is that of three firms bidding for this medium-sized helicopter project, two withdrew participation.

This led to a take-it-or-leave-it decision with a focus one imagines moreso on jobs and less-so on helicopters; it also guarantees the bulk of funding for autonomous helicopters is to be guided toward existing firms instead of start-ups: a practise in MIC circles that reduced US contractors to five.

I once demo'd a security system I'd developed ~ backed by the British Technology Group ~ to Margaret Thatcher's Minister for Technology at the National Exhibition Centre... and that's a lot of capital letters. At the end of the demo he turned partly toward the collected cameras to ask. "And it's all about creating jobs, isn't it?".

To which remarkable restraint stopped me from replying, 'Yeah, press this key and jobs stream out the back.'

Happily I just discovered Kenneth Baker is still alive at ninety-one and sitting in the House of Lords. I plan to drop by and say "HELLO KEN, IT'S THE NICE MAN FROM THE EXHIBITION WITH HIS FUNNY BIRO AGAIN."

Ed. Due similar restraint a recent post was given the title 'Leonardo Di Carpio' while the author preferred 'Leonardo Di Crapio'.

Big Day Out: Hereford

Introducing a new feature to the 'blog, the first in a series of one in which I take you by the virtual hand for a walk-through among Britain's most famous features, country towns and attractions. Many of you around the world will not be so lucky as I am in being able to hop into an eco-friendly vehicle to navigate the highways and by-ways of this wonderful land but... don't worry, we've got you covered!

Accordingly sit back, relax and let the captain guide you among the streets and back passages of Hereford, the county town of Herefordshire. If you ever need to guess a county town, incidentally, simply drop the 'shire' off the end of it and you're there!

We stayed at the historic Green Dragon Hotel in the heart of town, didn't we, which I prefer to the riff-raff at the Premier Inn ~ this one full of widows, vicars, retired colonels and weirdos like me. Nell Gwen stayed here with the king, so I checked the bed for stains. They still have a letter of complaint from Sir Edward Elgar, and out the back you can see where once were kept coach and horses!

From the hotel it's a short walk to the bridge across the River Wye, which floods to the base of its parapets periodically. It appears the years 1946, '47 and '48 were a real pisser, although 1998 was even worse, the river returning for an encore!

Re-tracing our steps back toward the centre of town, here a home for retired nurses provided by a local philanthropist. Nowadays as they are thrown on the scrap-heap instead the building is fallen into disuse, but is listed due its heritage until such time as a teenage vaper sets fire to it!

A delightful view of the cathedral that they started building nearly a thousand years ago, and the builders have said they'll be back next month to finish it. It contains a 'chained library' that was implemented to stop people from nicking the books, and it also contains a copy of the Mappa Mundi: one that you'd not want loaded into your sat-nav any time soon!

No high street would be complete without an Oxfam shop full of tat, although I felt obliged in this case to add 'Shags locals in places like Haiti' to that list of to-dos in a permanent marker!

This nice man was clearly foreign as he knew how to play the accordion. He wasn't overly keen on a pic ~ in case I guess he thought the revenue might have advanced to facial recognition ~ but he had to relent when I pointed out I'd given him 50p. Afterwards he was kicked senseless by Immigration and Customs in flak jackets!

Nonetheless the sound of the accordion supplied a gay backdrop to the atmosphere at the street market, depicted here. The space is reserved for pedestrians, the car here only being used to take out as many as possible, as is the tradition nowadays!

Nothing I like more than a bit of mongery in public, and all hail to this example a little further beyond the street-market. What I like even more is the fact that have not even bothered to put the name up there. It may well feature on Google's maps but you can check that for yourself!

Herefordshire is famous for its cattle and there's a life-size statue of the eponymous bull at the tail-end of the market. Frankly if I had a scrotum that size I'd spray it in gold and walk around with no trousers on all day. Most statues round the world are burnished gold in parts ~ the mannekin's penis in Brussels for instance ~ a trend we could extend to this guy's meatballs!

Nothing I like more than a gaily-coloured eatery, of which Hereford has many and among them this one containing tapas. Ole!

Beyond the market-place is a modern shopping-mall that includes a public lavatory in its multi-storey. To access it requires an elevator announcing 'Have a nice day!' as you enter it, though I'd have preferred something culturally relevant like 'Stop dicking around and get a move on!'. Free however and a delightful amenity.

You can drink coffee in Hereford and do so sat on a Vespa, though the word means 'wasp' in Italian and you don't want a scrotum anywhere near one of those during a cappuccino!

There are seagulls in Hereford as elsewhere though this one has shit himself waiting so long for a smashed avocado on sourdough!

I prevailed upon a young lady to take this 'portrait of the author as a young man' as I stood next to someone who fought in WW1... and I thought they were shorter in those days? Anyhow he had to put up with being gnawed by rats whilst sleeping in a trench full of water, and in fairness my latte could have been hotter!

Reason for me being here being to take the long view when it comes to a university that junior can attend, although I'd been disappointed by the scarcity of young folk lying wasted on the streets at break of day. This is the country's newest, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering, me here for open day. Doing great things, though I'd prefer a higher class of biscuit at the intro! Asked 'Why Hereford?' it's because they never had one, which is reasonable!

It was an exciting day to be here as the match at the football stadium must be won in order to assure the club's survival in the Northern Premier Football League. Why it is in the Northern and not the Southern is a mystery, though they told me it was something to do with the chairman, who got rich at Red Bull Racing and gets to pick and choose who goes where... and the Northern is the second oldest league!

Here advertised on the wall of the stadium itself, a reminder that whilst you've got Taylor Swift, we've got the Mindboggler. I gave him five pounds and he told me I was thinking of the one on the left in K-Pop Demon Hunters and that I'd like to shag her. Amazing, though he did say the same to the next three guys in line!

Ed. We apologise for the excess use of exclamation marks in the text, this merely a desperate attempt by the author to whip up a little enthusiasm.

Float On

Slip the waders on and slide the cat on the tail-gate in a trice these days to update the static test with the displacement strips in place, and while they don't appear to have elevated things overly the trim is ideal. The forward bulkhead practically clears the water with that at the rear submerged to the base of each battery-pack, which is next to nothing by way of an impediment.

Gut feel is it is likely to be underpowered, but proof's in the electrical pudding and there will be plenty of scope for upgrading the packs, motors and propellers as this should swing a couple of 24" props with the axes set here 25" apart.

A good sesh and in fact one of the frames ~ which could almost have been painted by Monet at Giverny ~ is good enough for the website, where it now hangs for the public to adore.

Hang Loose

The first prototype is hung from the rafters where I plan on it staying while I work upon the second in order to prove that it cuts the mustard as a vessel of any kind: a reason being that wiring four motors up for any sort of vertical lift is an expensive pain in the ass that leaves you reliant on experts who'd rather do something else.

You can see here how those uPVC extrusions are overly flexible, though it's not so much of a problem in the fulness of time as (a) it provides shock-absorption in an industry wholly lacking it and (b) skis of all types have evolved from planks of wood to composite engineering marvels and there's no reason why these shouldn't too.

Fortunately the second prototype ~ aimed at motion under displacement and on the plane ~ has wooden hydro-skis which as ever are provided by Cheshire Mouldings.

I told them that I'll rate them for maximum velocity on smooth water for a fee, and the best thing is they're from down the road here in St Helens.

Think global, buy local, eat pies.

Going Postal

Here two ways in which Royal Mail, recently flogged off to a foreigner like all else in the UK and the Royal Family surely likely to follow... Our Dominions eat Dominos.

But the historic post-box, each of which bear the initials of whichever monarch was reigning at the time, has been given a makeover with a camera, solar panel and wifi with which to allow for the electronic dispatch of physical letters... which Denmark has given up on entirely.

Ironically the only people who post letters are older than I am and lacking means to read the instructions along with the time, I like them bought a stamp and used the conventional type sunk into a brick wall further along the road.

What we should really do is maintain systems that would continue to operate in the event of a war, as they did in the two previous. When it comes to aerial navigation, ask yourself why the US decided not to scrap ground-based aids which run whether the internet does or not*.

Rather more successfully altogether the Royal Mail recently trialed Beta's electric aircraft around the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, requiring a fraction of the fuel and maintenance of the fossil-fuelled version.

* VHF Omnirange. I've booked a hotel in order that the family can enjoy a visit and picnic at beacon 'BHD' on the south coast. During my Instrument Rating I organised a visit to the non-directional beacon we'd used all week, though sadly I was the only one to turn up on the day.

The Seventh Seal... ed Laminate.

Always give the Boat Design database in the US first dibs when it comes to dropping the latest issue, and here the revised pattern for construction of the catamaran. The monoski still gets the bulk of the views, but it's early days and my commitment to a cat instead is unwavering in view of its practicality in transporting men or materials. Or women, LGBTQ+ community and Uncle Tom Cobley though not all at same time.

You know the reasons why, so you can just keep quiet. It does though mean that in view of the nice weather it'll be waders on and back to the pond for a sneak peek.

The weather in the UK and specially the northwest is worryingly how meteorologists predicted... in the UK we don't dismiss climate change as fake news or shoot politicians who say so, the reason why so many people from the US are swarming all over the Cotswolds like locusts.

What it has meant is that like the binary weather of the prairies we suffer a winter of non-stop rain that turns on a dime into shorts weather. What it means for boat-building therefore is a winter of groundworks intent upon stopping the garage floor from flooding, and instead diverting water into a much-anticipated static test-tank.

The post title refers to the fact the foam-sheet is now sliced like seven eggy soldiers albeit the last is split further into two narrower slices for displacement strips.

It is also the title of a film by Ingmar Bergman about the pet seals he kept at home in Sweden, and their eventual encounter with a Grim Reaper.

Tele Drone

The London Marathon is though the world's most valuable one-day charity event and likely so because from the start it has ~ like the Parkrun ~ been organised by volunteers largely without government involvement, which would kill it stone dead.

And if you don't believe that, France effectively banned the staging of park runs on health and safety grounds, and because it prevented Europeans from getting obese.

This man though has run five marathons dressed as a phone-box in aid of a brother with muscular dystrophy.

I have put in for the free ballot and ensuing draw, more in hope than expectation. I did so last year too, and escaped only narrowly when a further draw was made at a local running club for someone who'd made the cut but couldn't make the race.

It cut the odds to nearer Russian roulette ~ 'Oh dear' I said upon missing out again.

St Oswalds, Winwick

What do you see that I do? What should scream at you is the fact the spire's a later addition: restored in 1869 while the rest of the church dates back a thousand years.

In fact it is England in a nutshell, appearing in the Domesday Book of 1086; lodging Cromwell's troops during the civil war of 1648; altered by architect Pugin when not working on Parliament; hosting the Titanic's captain marriage in 1887 and where I drove by in 2026.

Ed. The fine for use of a mobile phone whilst driving is £1000, tho' this was taken with a flat-cap-mounted hands-free device that live-streams the author's life 24/7.

Wed-ded to Excellence

In recognition of the man behind waterproof pre-laminated foam panels, join me now if you would in today's first hymn, accompanied today by organist Fatboy Slim:

We've come a long long way together

Through the hard times and the good

We have to celebrate you, baby

We have to praise you, like we should.

Marathon Man-ish

Hold onto your hats here because Sebastian Sawe just ran a 1:59:30 marathon in London, which itself is set to break the world record for the number of finishers.

Less heralded was Honor's world-record breaking efforts earlier this month in the Beijing half-marathon, and here's the thing: it finished in 50 minutes whilst just a year previous the fastest robot did so in 160 minutes.

Honor researches and manufactures phones, whose components are responsible as much as any for the robot's success. And here is one reason the world is advancing at a dizzying pace, for innovation stands on the shoulders of prior product. Thus it was that computing was developed from components incorporated in telephony and television, stemming in turn from telegraphy.

The difference with smartphones was that (a) the world's population already ran to billions and (b) everyone wanted one, for they represent the epitome of the human need to communicate... which itself made us the primate of all primates.

What is significant here is that we expect artificial intelligence to rein supreme in a digital world, but we're not quite ready for it to do so in a physical world ~ the joke always being that should Daleks invade the planet then all we'd have to do is climb the stairs.

In fact when Honor achieved this remarkable feat (assuming it is not AI generated like all else nowadays) with a gait that in itself was reminiscent of the great Michael Johnson... few people were cognisant of it; tho' when Roger Bannister broke a four-minute mile the nation celebrated.

In fact I posted Honor's achievement to a running group where it got zero feedback, whilst anyone achieving practically anything that improves on a prior performance is liked to within an inch of their life.

Why is this? I think it's for the same reason that people are applauded for achieving great age: a recognition that someone not unlike you achieved something against all odds, as it's not so much a wonderful life as a fairly shit one much of the time.

Robots don't wake up one day to hear their days are numbered by cancer. They do not have bills they cannot pay. They don't have Keir Starmer as prime minister. They don't have a partner who gets the house.

But reflect here if you would on that team of individuals ~ and those who preceded them in human entrepreneurial endeavour ~ to consider how they made a world-beating robot, whilst being not that different to you or I.

Ed. Someone in the background is not watching a once-in-a-lifetime event so much as holding up the phone to do so... whilst the robot can't hold the trophy, as it has no hands.

Backer Board of Inquiry

Been a gnawing pain these past weeks and during a visit to the doctors, as he's old school he inquires into my background and whether I design maritime drones.

'And like James Dyson goes on about 100% suction 100% of the time, don't you like to use 100% of the material 100% of the time?' he queries.

And fact is he was quite right and recommended I apply 160g of laminated foam to each ski as per his prescription!

For don't you remember how we used a half-dozen strips from the original backing board, and lay aside the remainder?

Well in view of yesterday's flotation test I think we can alter the pattern to provide eight strips of foam instead of six, and I know exactly where to fix the extra pair.

So make yourself comfortable and we'll begin, but no talking please!

First off we'll remove one of the laths attaching the ski to the fuselage, and see how easy it is now we can stand the boat on each side:

Next up we need to flip the craft over and fix the same lath to the other side:

Turn it once more and see we've formed a picture-frame to apply adhesive to:

To pop the surplus foam into for an extra kilo of extra buoyancy on either ski:

Add a bead of adhesive or silicone along the foot of the foam to hold the ski straight along its length, using a knife to create a filet as with your bathroom furniture. Next a brush of undercoat to seal the upper edge, prior to spraying it in 'naval' grey.

And remember how we'd want to pop the pontoons off for storage or replacement? Well ideally this requires a form of shear-web to keep things square in the absence of the box-structure, and we've got that right here in this stretch of foam!

Amazing what you can do off the back of a cream tea.

Tank Trap

Engineering have been on again to say they're gagging for the test-tank they claim will be the biggest in Europe, albeit because nobody uses them any more... adding as a teaser it qualifies for a government grant to spend on fast women or slow cars.

I do break off for a tour of the site, when I imagine I must look to the neighbours very much like Elon Musk did whilst being solicited by Texas.

My principal concerns are two-fold during the assessment, the first being where the wheelie-bins are going to go and second, how locals will react to withdrawl of what until now has proved to be a very popular amenity. I am also pissed off by the fact I spent forty quid at Decathlon on a pair of waders: but you go on, ignore the budget. 

It is however tough at the top, and decisions like these are what I'm here for.

Today's post was sponsored by Harvey's Ales ~ 'That's 4.2% ethanol in YOUR tank!'

Ploughshares Into Swords

As we move toward power-up I repurpose the IKEA dining-table with a remaindered door from the lumber-yard that makes the perfect work-bench. With a rubber-foot at each juncture it can be substituted in a trice, so that at one moment you can be building maritime drones, the next hosting dignitaries for a fish and chip supper.

I view it as doing my bit for war-time Britain, though MI6 have warned me it marks me out as a natural target and that I may get home one day to find that my knob's been Novichok'd... which honestly is something I normally have to pay for.

New Wave, Old Dog.

Maritime drones appear to be gaining traction, and I'm indebted to YouTube channel  'One Wingspan Above' narrated by a New Zealander (?) with a voice that's ideal for drifting off to if you're struggling. He highlights three newish projects among many that are falling over themselves to ensure the sea is littered with drones as well as land and sky.

Top left is Levanta, who've invented what they call the 'hover foil' or hydrofoil with a dome-shaped outline into which they pump air to raise it to the surface. Though it's an imaginative leap and does what it says on the tin, I would suggest that hydrofoils do anyhow get craft up there fairly sharply once underway. They also suggest theirs is the first float-fly-float drone ever, though quads with floats for alighting on water date back practically to Roman times. Nonetheless, wish them luck and Godspeed.

Also out there in the US is Poseidon, at bottom left, based in San Fransisco instead of Missouri and counting among its staff any number who've worked on Amazon's delivery drones... and therefore not to be sneezed at. They are pioneering more of a regular seaplane that could nonetheless be controlled by computers to stay within the regime of ground-effect in order to do more for range and endurance. There is nothing new here besides, but often that's the key to success: Regent's sea-glider has been pranged from time to time endeavouring to manage the hairy intersection between hydrofoil lift and aerofoil.

Finally there is Airship, which draws upon the reverse wing layout pioneered by the same guy who did the same for delta-wings during WW2... but which like so many other WIGs (wing-in-ground effect and not the hairpiece) never took off, or at least figuratively.

The number one reason I can see for the failure of ground-effect efforts in the past is that (a) if they were boat-shaped they only worked on smooth seas and (b) if aeroplane-shaped, kept catching a wingtip on the waves before crashing... which seaplanes and flying-boats have done since time immemorial.

The one thing I want you to take away from this being that this is why my boat is boat shaped, but boat-shaped in a way that does not exclude flight in ground-effect due the potential to make it a fraction of the weight of traditional watercraft, beside enjoying advances in electrical propulsion ~ print that out and put it where it can be seen when you wake each morning.

But back at Airship ~ suspect PR as it instantly conjures up images of people falling to their deaths from a burning Zeppelin ~ the takeaway from this is that the private sphere works best in the US, but only really the public sphere in Europe. What that means in effect is that in the former small teams of individuals can develop projects and then source funding from VCs for a leg up, whilst in Europe they are destroyed by regulation and bureaucracy before being sold off like Lilium and Volocopter to the Chinese... who also know how to develop and industry.

Accordingly Airship is a cross-cultural effort amongst a variety of universities around Europe, funded by the EU over cappuccinos in Brussels. It is unsurprising then that unlike Dr Lippisch's clean-lined prototypes, it looks like ground-effect-by-committee.

So meantimes we plough our lonely furrow here, don't we Gromit?

And now if you'll excuse us, we've a toilet to fit.

Flash Mob

The cat in the car-park (above) and on holiday (below). Too nice a day to forego a quick check in water, and fact it floats level saves me from having to build a test-tank in the garden. It will of course be able to run on ice, as I intend for the local rink in due course.

And with no opposition from anglers or locals I withdrew my threat to block access to the pond, which in my view has a great future.

Shock and Awe

In the days leading up to a photo-shoot and possibly after reviewing CCTV footage, operators of the local playing-fields imposed a height-restriction at the entrance of the car-park that the platoon had identified as the perfect drop-zone for a PR shoot.

Taking a leaf out of Napoleon's book at Austerlitz, Gromit and I rose before dawn to load the vehicle and raise it to working temperature before departing in a cloud of AdBlu. Within minutes and in sight of the entrance, the 4x4 scaled the grassy knoll alongside like a Panzer unit in the Ardennes. With not even a dog-walker defending its ramparts, we had successfully invaded the car-park.

Ed. The author's grandfather and great uncle served in Gallipoli and are turning in their graves.

Let's Do the Space Warp Again

The timber yard around the corner sells a set of flags like this with which to stylishly pave the back garden... a circular table at its centre perhaps for the glass of Pimms in the sunshine. 

This tho' is the heat-shield from the top end of Artemis 2, adorning the ass of the uppermost capsule that contains the astronauts and which they rely upon during re-entry.

The figure to remember should anyone ask you about re-entering the atmosphere from a trip to the Moon is twenty-five. You'll be travelling at 25,000 m.p.h. and the temperature of that surface will be around 2,500°C... and what lies between you and that super-heated sauna is 25% plastic.

What most strikes you about space-flight is the level of near-perfection required in its attention to detail. The far depths of the oceans and farthest reaches of the sky are as unforgiving in physical terms as anywhere on the planet; as the losses of the Titan submarine and Columbia space-shuttle attest.

I always figured these tiles were ceramic, so that for future commercial off-the-shelf builds you could drop by Home Depot to search among kitchen and bathroom tiles.

What they are instead is a sort of cake-mix of epoxy resin, plus glass microspheres and silica fibres. These are popped into a form of baking-tray in the shape of a steel hexa-comb like honey-bees make, and then popped into an autoclave on low temp while you join friends at the pub for pre-meal drinks.

Artemis 2 (crewed) was preceded by Artemis 1 (uncrewed), with which they would experiment with a single-skip entry to Earth's atmosphere ~ like a pebble on a pond ~ with which to help reduce the speed. Except what it meant was that gases crept into the seams of the tiles and expanded upon re-entry to blow parts of the tiles off.

What they told the crew prior this month's re-entry therefore was that they'd go for a 'ballistic' or full-on entry instead. Which is one reason why what the astronauts do is sit down with the kids and the household paperwork, explaining what to do with it should tiles designed to a 1960s recipe fail.

Incidentally the difference with moonshots is that unlike a return from orbiting the Earth, there's an extra 8000 m.p.h. to dispose of; and the best way of imagining it is that the gravitational pull of the planet acts not unlike a coin-vortex. What you're on is effectively the solar system's biggest roller-coaster, because it's all uphill for a small part of the way leaving the Moon, and accelerating downhill for the remainder.

Used to tell my own child at amusement parks how coin-vortices were ideal means of visualising the warping of gravitational fields as suggested by Einstein; he turning to me as often as not to say "Yeah right, loser."

Completely Floored

They said it would need adhesive but as I said to the vicar, it fit like a condom.

On the strength of replacing this toilet end-to-end I have bid for the upgrade to the facilities on Artemis 2, which failed spectacularly only recently.

The bid required a name and they accepted 'Moonshine' only after rejecting my first suggestion, which was 'Moonshite'.

Transferable Skills

Used on the drones for many years since, an ideal way to drive holes through dodgy sheet material like alloys or carbon-fibre... or indeed vinyl flooring. To make holes for the piping, pre-drill a block and centre it over another before driving a spade-bit through. Access for pipes enabled here by running a Stanley knife from the edge.

Carpet Bombing

Blog's going great guns and there's even a faction out there with a forum discussing aspects of replacing bathrooms suites by my own methods. And whilst I could have patented this one here, it is intended purely for the benefit of humanity and funded by my philanthropic foundation.

Lacking the necessary carpet-fitting skills I found a get-around in the shape of this giant paper template of the bathroom, for a cut-out-and-keep vinyl floor using the bargain-basement off-cut that I shall soon be running around on naked.

There's a book out there somewhere about a man who planned to make a 1:1 scale map of the world, and once the floor is down I shall be offering this life-size map of the bathroom which ~ stitched together with your own contributions ~ can be used to bring his dream to life.

As I said to that pizza-delivery guy, 'It's all about what you can do for others' and 'Where's the fucking mayo?'.

Captains Blog Stardate 21-APR-26

Need to get the drone over to the car-park at the local playing fields for a PR shot for the website, but they've put a height restriction in at the gate. Options, re-design for a six-inch shorter cat or find an alternative way in... which looking at it on the way home yesterday evening looked eminently possible.

Thereafter it is waders on and over to the local fish-pond for a static flotation test ~ if the locals are still as hostile I shall threaten to block the straits. Expect the craft still to float nose-down at rest, which can be solved with more weight at the rear in shape of battery-packs. For aerodynamic reasons I do not want the C of G migrated rearward unduly, so shall look at options to up the buoyancy at the forward end.

On the domestic front in preparation for the new toilet ~ and you don't get pulled off projects for that at Lockheed Martin ~ I've put new flooring down myself at a cost of just £50, undercutting the original quote by nearly 90%. Yes, Elon Musk has done that with launch-vehicles... but can he do it with vinyl flooring?

Merchant Mania

A brief but honorary mention for one of my own favourites in the form of the Vickers Vanguard, it's sibling the Viscount in the background. The latter was altogether the more successful, its turbo-prop engines bridging a gap between stressed-out pistons and the jet-engine in the 1950s. Arriving too late on the scene, therefore, it proved altogether more popular flying freight at night when re-purposed for the role by the Canadians. Called the Merchantman, it was loudest airliner I ever heard as it taxied past our humble Shorts in the dead of night at Coventry Airport.

Ed. the airport is set to close after ninety years as a part of a government scheme to ready British society for a possible war with Russia, and who knows who else.

Mud Lark

My travels took me yesterday to the banks of the Mersey Estuary, its only traffic a pair of small craft circumnavigating a far-distant sandbank. They may or may not have been hovercraft, the nearest RNLI station known to operate at least one in the circs. The fire-service at Liverpool's airport appear not to employ one, though they did at Heathrow in view of the fact that you might come down in the reservoir at the end of its westerly runways.

But if you were going to deploy a drone hereabouts you would want a boat that may fly at least a short distance, and subsequently be able to unload its skids in order to plane with as light a tread as possible, if not skim the surface with clear air beneath.

For instance there's a drop of some ten feet from the quay here to the mud-flats, a place you don't want particularly to travel on even in shallow water: it conceals any number of obstacles like discarded scaffolding tubes that would hole a hull. A boat with lift- and cruise-motors could launch from land here and down to the mud-flats, where it could travel in ground-effect before entry into the water to plane or troll: a combined operation of helicopter, hovercraft and boat.

It has to happen, really, in one form or another but if you look at the introduction of anything new it invariably follows from the action of one (or two) individuals that fly literally in the face of scepticism or ridicule... whether it be search (Google), social media (Facebook), flight (Wright Bros), space (-X), reciprocating engines (Watt, Diesel) or automobiles (Mr and Mrs Benz).

And I've a horrible feeling that when it comes to the go-anywhere boat it may fall to me and ~ as I told every employer ~ I'm the last person you'd want to rely on.

The inset shows (lock-gates intact) that the quay here was once a dock, this being near the original crossing-point established by local monks with a ferry. I wondered if the people digging it thought: Fuck, it'll be filled-in eventually anyway?

It Is Rocket Science

The recent trip around the Moon did not arouse much interest in me at the time, it having been a case of been there ~ not personally you understand ~ done that as I recall being allowed to stay up late on a Sunday evening in 1969 so as to watch the red carpet event.

What is of note however is not so much the physics as the economics, this time. In 1969 it was the rush to prove the tech could improve on Soviet efforts, whilst now it is as much about conquest as anything else. Apparently a focus of attempts among a number of nations involved is the south pole of the Moon that may contain water, albeit in frozen form. This in turn might provide the means for a permanent station, from where to both mine mineral wealth beside stopping for a sandwich enroute to Mars.

So forget the thrust and consider the numbers. The Apollo program sucked up five percent of the federal budget, whereas now they get by with ten times less. Part of the cost-cutting involved includes the fact that Congress requires them to repurpose the original engines from the Space Shuttle, developed over fifty years ago: a little like planning to wheel the E-type out for a drive instead of the RV.

There are two aspects to this, the first being that much like your cappuccino stirrer these engines are single-use. The second is that all-in they cost between 100 million dollars and 140 million, whereas Elon Musk's reusable equivalent (pictured) costs a fractional half-million. You read that right, one individual and modern methods and means can reduce the price by a factor of some three hundred times.

It is interesting to note that even as regards space, the world is getting smaller in so far as we are making do in various arenas whether drones or satellites with large numbers of units taken effectively off the commercial shelf. With space-flight being the case that once you've developed an engine ~ no mean feat ~ the easiest way to scale is to simply fit more and more of them. The Artemis space-launch system uses four principal rocket motors, but I'll leave you to count how many Space-X use from the pic.

From our own point of view here in the UK, we can I think take pride in the fact that when polled a full half of the population said they would not wish to go to the Moon even if offered a free ride. In contrast we are the biggest users in Europe of mobility scooters, whose use has expanded by four times in the last five years.

It was PM Tony Blair who said prior invading Iraq that as a nation we look to the far horizons, though nowadays these stretch only so far as Gregg's for a bacon roll and Wetherspoons for a pint of lager to wash it down.

If you were confused like me by the fact the Artemis crew ventured further into the final frontier than ever, as we'd already been to the Moon, this is because they flew a further-flung orbit. I say 'we' because they also serve who only watch on TV over a bacon barm and a pint of lager.