In honor of April Fools Day . . .

. . . I thought I'd share with you my favorite April Fool spoof.

On April 1st, 1957, the BBC broadcast a Panorama documentary (narrated by the prestigious Richard Dimbleby) which included a short description of gathering the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. Viewers were reminded that this was, of course, on a relatively small scale compared to Italy, with its "vast spaghetti plantations in the Po Valley"!

The program was so realistic that some viewers wanted to know where they could get their own spaghetti plants for their gardens! (The BBC reportedly advised callers to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best"!). Others tried to book holidays to the spaghetti-growing regions of Europe. It's on my all-time "great pranks" list.

Here's the video.





Peter

I think Texas already has something like this

A news report indicates that the Indian Army is about to introduce a curry grenade.




According to the report:

India's weapons development experts have developed an eye-watering spice bomb, packed with a potent mix of red chilli and pepper which will be used to smoke out militants during counter-insurgency operations.

. . . scientists from India's Defence Research and Development Organisation have discovered that the spices which make your curry so hot can also bring an enemy to his knees in seconds.

They have created an 81-mm grenade packed with red hot chilli, pepper and phosphorus to use in Kashmir where Islamic separatists linked with al Qaeda are fighting a long-running insurgency war.

. . .

The mix of spices and phosphorous chokes the enemy's respiratory tract, leaving targets barely able to breathe for a time. Their eyes, throat and skin burn and sting.

Army scientists have also discovered the "curry bomb" can be used to block enemy attacks by creating a smoke screen and preventing snipers from using night-vision devices and thermal imagers.

From being fired by a grenade launcher, it creates an effective smoke screen ninety metres away within five seconds.

The curry bomb will be used both as a hand grenade by police and armed forces, and as a tank-mounted device.

Fortunately the US already has such a weapon. I encountered (and experienced) it during my last-but-one visit to Texas. The locals called it "chili" . . .

Peter

P.S.: Do note the date of the news report!

Book winners of a different kind

I'm delighted to learn the results of the latest Diagram Prize for Oddest Title Of The Year. The competition began in 1978, and has had some interesting entries. Appropriately enough, the results are released annually on April Fools Day.

This year the five runners-up, from low to high place, are:

6. People Who Mattered In Southend And Beyond: From King Canute To Dr. Feelgood.

5. Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues.

4. How To Write A How To Write Book.

3. Cheese Problems Solved.

2. I Was Tortured By The Pygmy Love Queen.

And this year's pièce de résistance and Diagram Prize winner:

1. If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs.

Er . . . ah . . . yes, well, quite!

Mr. Horace Bent, who is the "diarist" for The Bookseller and the "custodian" of the Diagram Prize, observed earlier:

I confess: I have been anxious that as publishing becomes ever more corporate, the trade’s quirky charms are being squeezed out. Lists are pruned, targets are set, authors are culled. But happily my fears have been proved unfounded: oddity lives on. Your submissions for the 2007 Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year were as rich and varied as ever. Drawing up the six-strong shortlist was a fraught and wildly controversial process.

I must pay homage to those books that narrowly missed out on a shortlist place. These were, in no particular order: Drawing and Painting the Undead; Stafford Pageant: The Exciting Innovative Years 1901–1952; and Tiles of the Unexpected: A Study of Six Miles of Geometric Tile Patterns on the London Underground. All sound like they are positively thrilling reads, and I do hope that the authors will try again next year. Honourable mention should also go to two titles that were ruled out because they were published too long ago: an unlikely-sounding HR manual called Squid Recruitment Dynamics, and the fascinating anthropological tome Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear of Alaska Sea Hunters.

Peter

Beer commercials

I've been idly scanning YouTube in recent weeks, partly for amusement, partly looking for videos to go with my Weekend Wings series and other blog posts. I've found a number of beer commercials that have tickled my funny-bone. I've already shown two in a previous post, so here's another selection.

WARNING: Some of these are emphatically NSFW. Use discretion if viewing in public.

OK, here we go. Let's start with one from Guinness.





Toohey's:





Budweiser:





Ariana:





Hahn:





Brahma:





1664:





And last but not least, Moosehead Light:





Peter

Back from Texas

I'm back home after this weekend's bloggers rendezvous. A lot of fun was had by all, and it was great to see old friends again. Holly's and JPG's three hounds welcomed me like an old friend, which was nice of them (rather than eat me on sight, which two out of the three are very well-equipped to do if they feel that way inclined). The biggest problem was to keep them off the blow-up air mattress on Saturday night . . . they seemed to think it had been inflated solely and entirely for their benefit!

I made my usual raid on the local used bookstore. There's an unusually good one near H&J, and I seem unable to prevent myself dropping a Franklin or two into their coffers whenever I'm nearby. It's the same when I visit Oleg in Nashville and mutual friends in Knoxville - there are excellent used bookstores in both cities. I'll be in Tennessee in May, all being well, but this time I'm planning to take several boxes of books up with me. I'm busy with a cull of my library, trying to cut down from about 5,000 volumes to around 3,000. It's like pulling teeth! Still, it'll give me trading material instead of having to spend too much money.

Ah, the joys of being a bookworm bibliophile . . .

Peter

Weekend Wings #13: The Spitfire - The Legend Lives On

In the first part of this three-part series we examined the initial development of the Spitfire and its operational service through the Battle of Britain in 1940. In the second part we looked at its further development and operational service through the rest of World War II. In this final part we'll examine the maritime version of the Spitfire; the Spiteful, Seafang and Attacker developments; and the final versions of this classic fighter to see service.


1. The Seafire.

The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy expressed interest in the Spitfire very early in its development, but the urgent need for operational aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF) meant that no attention could be spared to develop a more specialized version suitable for aircraft-carrier operation. In one sense this was a blessing, because by the time such attention could be given the Spitfire was already in its Mark V version with a more powerful engine and armament. The "Sea Spitfire" was quickly renamed the Seafire by collapsing the two words into one.

The Seafire Ib, the first production variant, was a converted Spitfire Mark Vb equipped with an arrestor hook. It soon exhibited very serious problems in the carrier environment. The aircraft had never been designed for the hard landings encountered on an aircraft-carrier (which are essentially a controlled crash onto the deck), and the relatively narrow undercarriage wasn't strong enough to stand up to repeated landings of this sort. The fuselage was also too weak to take the strain of such abuse, for which it had never been designed.

The Seafire II was soon introduced, with reinforcing strips riveted around weak areas, catapult spools and other equipment making the aircraft more suitable for the maritime environment. Unfortunately this had the effect of moving its center of gravity further back, making it more difficult to control in low-speed flight. The aircraft also lacked the large landing flaps found on other carrier-dedicated aircraft such as the Grumman F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat and Chance-Vought Corsair F4U. These problems led to many landing accidents. Furthermore, neither the Ib or II had folding wings, which made it difficult to store the aircraft aboard carriers.

The Seafire F.III was the most developed Merlin-engined Seafire variant. It incorporated double-folding wings (folding at the tips and near the roots in a reversed Z shape) and addressed many of the shortcomings of earlier versions. It proved to be a little slower than its Spitfire progenitor due to the added drag of the tailhook and additional maritime equipment, but still satisfactory in overall performance.




The Seafire saw its first major operational service during Operation Torch, the invasion of North-West Africa during late 1942. It flew from HMS Furious, a full-size aircraft carrier, and from smaller escort carriers whose confined decks weren't really suitable for the combat operations of high-performance aircraft. Several aircraft were lost to operational accidents due to the relatively light, low-strength airframe - a perennial problem with early Marks of Seafire. This would be even more in evidence during the Salerno landings in southern Italy in 1943. Out of over a hundred Seafires covering the landings from escort carriers, more than 40% were lost due to operational accidents and still more required an excessive amount of maintenance and/or repair.

The Seafire F.III design tried to address these problems, but the FAA wanted a more significant improvement. Jeffrey Quill, Supermarine's Chief Test Pilot, was given a temporary commission as a Lieutenant-Commander and spent five months at sea on Royal Navy carriers, flying Seafires in all weather conditions and sea states and getting a clear idea of what was needed to make the Seafire as superb a performer at sea as the Spitfire was on land. When he returned to Supermarine he was able to inform designers of his experiences and pass on lessons learned.

This would bear fruit in the Seafire F Mark XV, a Griffon-engined variant which entered service in 1944. Its more powerful engine gave it significantly better performance, and its fuselage and undercarriage were further strengthened. This version would see combat against Japanese aircraft in the Pacific theater. It was basically similar to the Spitfire Mark XIV. Just as the latter was was developed into a flush-fuselage version with bubble canopy, the Mark XVIII, so the Seafire was developed into the Mark XVII, shown below. Note the unique double-folding wings, at the tip and near the root.






Four aircraft-carriers plus a supporting fleet of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and a Fleet Train moved into the Indian Ocean during 1944, carrying out air strikes against Japanese installations in Malaysia en route to Australia where they would be based. In 1945 they joined the US Navy in operations against Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The British carriers were tasked with interrupting the flow of Japanese aircraft replacements through minor islands, freeing the larger US carriers to support the landings and resist kamikaze attacks.

British carriers could accommodate fewer aircraft than their US counterparts because of their heavily-armored decks, which weighed far more than the wooden decks of US carriers and took up much more internal space. On the other hand, during kamikaze attacks the British armored decks withstood the impact of enemy aircraft and bombs far better than their US counterparts. In one famous incident a kamikaze crashed abreast the island on a British carrier, making a large dent in the armored deck. It was promptly filled with quick-drying cement, and within ninety minutes the carrier was in full operation once more. US Navy officers observing the incident were amazed, saying that any US carrier suffering such an impact would be out of operation for months and require major shipyard repairs.

The FAA and Royal Navy Carriers also operated with the US Navy carrier task forces against mainland Japan. The Seafires still had the same limited range of their Spitfire forebears and couldn't carry as much ordnance as the larger, more powerful US aircraft, so they were usually assigned to Combat Air Patrol over the carriers to protect the ships. They performed very well in this role.

After World War II a final version of the Seafire, the Mark 47, was produced. This was the highest-performance variant of the entire Spitfire/Seafire family. It had a Griffon 87 or 88 engine driving a contra-rotating propeller with six blades. It carried 152 gallons of internal fuel, giving it a greatly extended range compared to earlier versions. This version saw action from a Royal Navy carrier early in the Korean War.






2. The Spiteful.

The elliptical Spitfire wing was very effective, but as aircraft speeds increased with more powerful engines it became clear that it produced too much drag. Supermarine engineers designed a new laminar-flow wing similar to that of the P-51 Mustang to overcome this problem. They took the opportunity to widen the track of the undercarriage. The new wing was tested on a Spitfire Mark XIV in 1944.

While the new wing was being developed the Griffon-engined Spitfires were experiencing directional stability problems. To overcome these a larger tail unit was designed. The opportunity was taken to mate this with the new wing and a flush fuselage with bubble canopy, similar to that on the Spitfire Mark XVIII. This effectively produced a completely new aircraft, which was named the Spiteful. The Air Ministry ordered 150 of the new design, but due to the higher performance of jet-powered aircraft only a few were built in 1945. They were never taken into service.




3. The Seafang.

The Spiteful design was not adopted for service, but the FAA wanted a faster, more powerful fighter for carrier operation. The Spiteful was redesigned with an arrestor hook and folding wings. It was also fitted with a contra-rotating six-bladed propeller. In this naval version it was renamed the Seafang. Eighteen prototypes and initial production aircraft were completed, but its low-speed handling was not as good as the competing Hawker Sea Fury. Also, its performance was essentially the same as the Seafire Mark 47. Further production was therefore cancelled and the Seafang never entered operational service.




4. The Attacker.

The advanced laminar wing design of the Spiteful and Seafang was adopted by Supermarine for its Attacker jet fighter design for the FAA. This first flew in 1946 and entered service in 1951. 183 were built, but its tail-wheel design led to numerous problems in service and it never saw combat.




5. The Last Versions Of The Spitfire.

Towards the end of World War II the Spitfire Mark 21 was produced. This had severe handling problems, so much so that the RAF's test pilots recommended that no further development of the Spitfire family be undertaken. However, Supermarine still had faith in its aircraft and worked hard to eliminate the problems. Meanwhile, the Mark 21 entered service in 1945. Only 120 were completed before the end of the war terminated production.




A later development with a flush fuselage and bubble canopy, the Mark 22, was produced in larger numbers after the war.

As mentioned above, an enlarged tail unit was designed for the Spiteful to provide greater longitudinal control. This was adopted for the Spitfire, along with a larger fuel capacity and provision for launching rockets. The final Spitfire version, the Mark 24, incorporated all these improvements. Only 84 were built and it served with only one squadron (plus reserve units).

Spitfires continued to serve in the Royal Air Force and many other countries after World War II. They saw combat in the 1947 Indo-Pakistani War and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The last combat flight of the Spitfire in the Royal Air Force occurred in 1954 in Malaysia, an air strike against Communist guerillas. The last RAF Spitfires were withdrawn from service in 1957, but some air forces continued to operate them into the 1960's.

In conclusion, what can we say about this magnificent aircraft? It saw service from the first to the last day of World War II and in every theater of operations: Britain, Africa, Sicily, Italy, the Normandy invasion and assault on Germany, the Russian Front, Australia and the South-Western Pacific, the assault on Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan, and operations in the China-Burma-India theater. Including the Seafire variants, well over 22,000 were produced in total. That makes the Spitfire family the third-most-produced fighter aircraft in history, behind the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 and German Messerschmitt Bf-109.

Unlike most other aircraft companies which produced new aircraft designs at frequent intervals (e.g the Hawker Hurricane-Tornado-Typhoon-Tempest-Fury/Sea Fury range), Supermarine chose to keep developing the Spitfire. I think this may be due to the premature death of its designer, R. J. Mitchell, in 1937. His successors actively sought ways to continue to improve his design rather than replace it with something new. Furthermore, Mitchell's basic design was so advanced, so superb, that it allowed for such development.

It should also be noted that the Spitfire achieved the highest speed ever attained by a propeller-driven aircraft. In high-speed diving trials conducted at Farnborough in England during late 1943 and 1944 a Spitfire Mark XI achieved a true air speed of 606 mph. Another Spitfire, a Mark XIX, reached an altitude of 51,550 feet in 1951, which is reportedly the highest altitude ever attained by a single-engined propeller-driven aircraft. In descending, this aircraft entered an uncontrollable dive during which it is calculated that a true air speed of no less than 690 mph was achieved. The aircraft landed safely. The Spitfire's ability to achieve such speeds in a dive was due to its wing, which had a Mach limiting number of 0.9 - the highest of any Allied aircraft in World War II.

Overall there has never been a more successful fighter aircraft than the Spitfire in operational service in any country. It established a record that is unparalleled and unsurpassed, and to this day remains iconic of the Royal Air Force in World War II. The surviving Spitfires draw huge crowds at air shows to this day, and an Australian company is even producing a kit version of the Spitfire to 80% and 90% scale for home-building!

In closing, let's remind ourselves that the Spitfire can still surprise people. The following video clip illustrates this perfectly. Warning - the reporter's language is Not Safe For Work.





Peter

A Gathering Of Bloggers

Light blogging tonight, because Holly, JPG, Lawdog, Phlegm Fatale and yours truly all gathered at the home of the first-two-mentioned for a day of fun.

We shared a monster breakfast (well, more like brunch) of eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, potatoes and all the rest (courtesy of Holly's cooking), and then raided the Fort Worth gun show in a massed body, enjoying a couple of hours of wandering the aisles and getting various bits and pieces. We got back home a few hours ago, spent a couple of hours in hysterics at one another's stories (you have a lot to look forward to on Lawdog's blog - we got enough stories of mayhem and mishap to keep him going for several months!). Thereafter we adjourned to a local restaurant for a splendiferous supper, and we've just got home.

Various bottles are now being opened and uncorked, and we're settling in for another mammoth session of stories, reminiscences and fairy-tales. I'm not sure when (if?) we'll get to bed tonight, but it promises to be fun!

To give you something to enjoy in the meantime, here's another Japanese game show for your edification. They call this "Human Tetris" - if you go to the YouTube home page and do a search on those words you'll find a number of fun videos.





Peter

Laws for laughs

I've been enjoying reading about old laws in England that today make no sense at all, but are still in effect. Some examples:

• Ladies who bare their breasts in public in the city of Liverpool are exempt from prosecution - if they work in a tropical fish shop.
• Women are permitted to bite off the nose of any man who kisses them without permission.
• King George I decreed: "The severest penaltys (sic) will be suffered by any commoner who doth permit his animal to have carnal knowledge of a pet of the Royal House." So, even if your pampered pooch is pedigreed, if he gets into the wrong sort of Royal petting he's in trouble - and so are you!
• A 1307 law assigns ownership of the head of any dead whale found on British beaches to the king. The queen gets the tail (for whalebones for her corsets). No word on who gets the middle bits.
• Edward VI ruled that anyone cracking a boiled egg at its sharp end would spend 24 hours in the village stocks.
• In the city of York it's still legal to kill any Scotsman found within the city walls, provided he's carrying a bow and arrows.
• In the city of Hereford, on Sundays, you are forbidden to shoot a Welshman in the Cathedral Close using a longbow. (Presumably a crossbow - or a firearm, for that matter - is quite OK. No word on shooting at nationalities other than Welsh, either.)
• And finally, it's treason to stick a postage stamp bearing the image of the British Monarch upside down.

A bill has been introduced to repeal 328 such obsolete laws from the British statute books. Personally, I'm not sure that's a good idea . . . the utter daftness of some of the laws cited above makes them worth keeping for the amusement value alone!

Peter

On geneaology and Presidential candidates

Readers have doubtless noticed news reports (like this one, for example) about the ground-breaking study by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, demonstrating long-distant links between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.

It seems that Barak Obama is a ninth cousin of Brad Pitt, while Hillary Clinton is a ninth cousin twice removed of Angelina Jolie. No word, of course, on whether this has brought the two Hollywood celebrities together in a more Democratic relationship . . .

Furthermore, Mr. Obama is related to no less than six current and former US presidents, including George W Bush, his father George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and James Madison. He's also the eighth cousin of Vice-President Dick Cheney. (An Obama spokesman, when asked about the latter, allegedly commented, "Every family has a black sheep.")

Mrs. Clinton doesn't appear to have so prominent a presidential pedigree, but through French-Canadian descent on her mother's side she is a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette.

I'm not so impressed by the claims of past ancestors. I've known many scions of blue-blood families who ended up in jail, and others from the most common backgrounds who earned the title of "hero" in the truest possible sense. Genes don't seem to make much difference.

Of course, speaking of relationships, it's regrettable that Hillary Clinton isn't eligible to marry Senator Chuck Schumer. If she could (and he would) then she'd become, in name as well as by reputation (among the right-wing, at any rate), the Bride Of Chucky!




*gigglesnort!*

Peter

Casting frogs upon the waters?

Another interesting news report tells us of Nicolas the frog, found in a garden pond in England (and named, inevitably, for the current Prime Minister of France!).

It seems Nicolas tried to get through some netting covering his pond, and broke his leg. A diligent veterinary surgeon put it all back together and placed a cast on the leg, and the frog is now recovering from his injury.




What got me chuckling was the name of the veterinary hospital to which Nicolas was taken: "St. Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital".

Saint Tiggywinkles???

Good grief . . .

Peter

An unlikely rape (or two, or three, or four)

I was hugely amused to read about Arthur Ross Cradock, a New Zealand man who was sentenced to community service after claiming he'd "been left speaking Australian after being raped by a wombat".

In case you've never heard of the animal, a wombat is an Australian creature as large as a medium-sized dog (40-80 pounds), and is herbivorous.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer told the court that on the afternoon of February 11 Cradock called the police communications centre, threatening to "smash the filth" if they arrived at his home that night.

When asked if he had an emergency, he replied "yes", Mr Stringer said.

On a second subsequent call to the communications centre, Cradock told police he was being raped by a wombat at his Motueka address, and sought their immediate help.

He called police again soon after, and gave his full name, saying he wanted to withdraw the complaint.

"I'll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he's pulled out," Cradock told the operator at the communications centre, who had no idea what he was talking about, Mr Stringer said.

"Apart from speaking Australian now, I'm pretty all right you know, I didn't hurt my bum at all," Cradock then told the operator.

. . .

Judge Richard Russell said he was not quite sure what motivated Cradock to make those statements to the police.

Well, Your Honor, I have a few ideas about that. All of them involve bottles - minus most or all of their contents!

This reminds me of a couple of other unlikely mating stories. The first is about the hedgehog. Early last century the Times of London published a somewhat scatological doggerel submitted by a highly distinguished correspondent, Dame Margaret Cole. It caused a sensation and produced a number of replies (in verse, of course). It also appears to have inspired the Hedgehog Song of Nanny Ogg, a character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

The original poem ran:

Protracted and painful researches
By Darwin and Huxley and Ball
Have conclusively proved that the hedgehog
Can never be b*****ed at all.
And further protracted researches
Have still more conclusively shown
That comparative safety in Keble
Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone.

I've included hot-links for some of the names readers might not recognize (although no-one is sure who "Ball" may have been). There was a notorious scandal at Keble College, Oxford in 1913 involving homosexual behavior.

An American rejoinder noted:

Ingenious Yankee professors
At Harvard and Princeton and Yale
Have o'ercome the problem by shaving
The spines off the hedgehog's tail.

A British correspondent retorted:

The search carries on unabated
As eminent scientists seek
For a creature so small and so nasty
As to baffle the Cambridge technique.

This poetic to-and-fro may have given rise to one of the better-known riddles concerning American politics:

Q: Why is the relationship between the President and Congress like the mating of hedgehogs?

A: It's one p***k against thousands.

So much for the hedgehog. Another unlikely mating story is that of the relationship between the camel and the Sphinx. My father learned this doggerel in Egypt during World War II, and used to annoy my mother by singing it from time to time. It was apparently written during World War I, when thousands of British and Empire troops were based in Egypt prior to and during the Gallipoli campaign.

The sexual urge of the camel
Is stronger than anyone thinks.
One day, in a fit of frustration
He attempted the rape of the Sphinx.
But the intimate parts of that Lady
Are sunk deep 'neath the sands of the Nile:
Hence the hump on the back of the camel
And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile!

Finally, Holly sent me these pictures by e-mail. Since they fit in so well with this post, I just have to include them.












Peter

Just because I feel like it . . .

. . . here's an old favorite.







Peter

Grandma's got a machine-gun!

Two short videos from YouTube illustrate what happens when you put fully-automatic firearms in the hands of elderly ladies.

In the first case, it's a weapon of the paintball variety:





In the second, it's the real deal - an MP40 sub-machinegun:





Love her comment at the end!

Peter

And newts to you, too!

This is unreal.

Bureaucracy gone mad.

An English couple, the Histeds, have a million-pound house that suffered flood damage some months ago. They repaired the damage, to the tune of a quarter of a million pounds.

Last week, with the repairs almost complete, a blocked drainage ditch - not on the couple's property, but part of a motorway drainage system - caused their house to flood again. They now have to re-do much of the repair work.

They duly approached the Highways Agency to ask permission to unblock the ditch, so that they wouldn't get flooded again.

Would you believe it? The Highways Agency refused permission for them to drain the ditch - because it might (I emphasize might) contain Great Crested Newts (a protected species). They don't know for sure if they're there, so the Highways Agency will have to undertake a survey, sifting the water and mud by hand to see if they find any. That will take - wait for it - until autumn this year.

Meanwhile, the Histeds daren't waste any more money on repairs in case they're flooded out again: and they're forced to live in a travel trailer rather than in their house.

The mind boggles.

Y'know, I think there's a fair, rational, reasonable solution to this problem. The Government agency(ies?) responsible for protecting the Great Crested Newt should pay the Histeds the value of their house - a million pounds, and tax-free at that. The Histeds could then buy themselves a home wherever they pleased (probably as far away as possible from the nearest newts) and the Government agency(ies?) could use the nicely flooded house to breed as many Great Crested Newts as their dear bureaucratic hearts could desire.

To victimize the Histeds for damage to their home that's caused by a blocked State drainage system, and then add insult to injury by making them put up with all this crap . . . all I can say is, if it happened in my part of the world it'd be cause to get out the tar and feathers for those responsible for this insanity.

The arrogant, uncaring, domineering bureaucracy now running England never ceases to find new ways to astonish me. I think it's time to rewrite the chorus to the famous "Rule, Britannia!" anthem.

Oh, Britannia, you used to rule the waves:
But your bureaucrats have made you into slaves!

*Sigh*

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #13 and #14

Our Doofi Of The Day are two anonymous Canadians.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A war on gophers waged by two Canadian men went awry this weekend when a device used to blast the rodents in their holes sparked a massive grass fire in a rural area near Calgary, Alberta, causing more than C$200,000 ($197,000) in damages.

Despite a ban on fires in the tinder-dry area of Springbank, just northeast of Calgary's city limits, two men went into a field to kill gophers using a device called a Rodenator, fire officials said on Monday.

The device pumps a mixture of propane and oxygen into gopher holes, which is then ignited, and, according to the manufacturer's Web site, the resulting blast creates a shock wave that kills the gopher and collapses its tunnel system.

"We had a couple of acreage owners out taking care of their rodent problem with this device," said Captain Joe Garssi of the municipal district of Rocky View's fire department.

"They did a few holes successfully and then hit a hole that didn't go in very far. When they filled it with propane it over-filled the hole...and when they ignited it (fire) flashed out of the hole into the grass beside them."

The resulting grass fire scorched about 160 acres of surrounding property and destroyed a number of outbuildings. No homes were damaged.

"The way I look at it, it's 'humans eight, gophers one'." Garssi said, as the two men destroyed about eight of the rodents before sparking the blaze.

Revenge Of The Rodents?

Peter

More fun with Lolcats

Peter

Why We Serve(d)

Hat-tip to the Mad Rocket Scientist for bringing my attention to this incredibly stupid, dishonest, vapid bigotry on Daily Kos. I invite you to read it for yourself, but you might need copious amounts of antacid and brain-scrubber afterwards. Proceed at your own risk.

I simply can't understand the loony left. There's a perfectly rational, intelligent "left wing" in politics and society with whom I can conduct a normal conversation: people with whom I may disagree, but whose convictions I respect and whom I regard as Ladies and Gentlemen (with capital letters). They think, they're prepared to discuss issues rationally, and they're open to persuasion. I'm honored to call some among them my friends. On the other hand, there are those on the ideological fringe, such as (it would appear) the author of the article linked above, who are in-your-face dishonest, blatantly ignorant and have no clue whatsoever as to the realities of life, the universe and everything. They seem to live in a little bubble of their own imagining, viewing life through ideological lenses that distort, twist and mangle every reality that doesn't fit into their world-view.

(Pauses to spit vehemently into convenient cuspidor. There - I feel better now.)

I'd like to quote a few passages from that drivel article and show how "misguided" (for want of several more forceful words I'd prefer to use) the author proves himself to be.

Those of us in the reality-based community know that it's a myth created by the right wing that liberals and anti-war protesters ran around attacking soldiers returning from Vietnam.

Oh, yeah? Then why do so many of those veterans have so many stories of precisely such attacks? Are you telling me that they're all lying? And what makes your community "reality-based"? As far as I can tell it has about as much relationship to reality as I have to Mata Hari.

The author goes on to examine why soldiers enlist, citing at length a left-leaning source (without bothering to cite any source offering a different perspective - not that that surprises me, of course). He/she "demonstrates" that most of them enlist for economic and social reasons rather than any innate patriotism or commitment to the ideals that have historically motivated military personnel.

The article goes on:

What kind of country have we become when the only way for young Americans to be assured of the basic social safety net provided to citizens of just about every other advanced country requires them to risk death in a war that their fellow Millennials overwhelmingly oppose, and which many of the enlistees themselves view with ambivalence if not hostility?

You know, I'm a veteran myself. I mingle with veterans almost every day. I've worked with veterans from the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines for years, in more than one country - and NOT ONE OF THEM ever said that he or she went into military service in order "to be assured of the basic social safety net provided to citizens of just about every other advanced country".

I repeat. Not. One. Of. Them.

As for a war "which many of the enlistees themselves view with ambivalence if not hostility", I'm sure many servicemen and -women have their doubts about how the Iraq war was and is being handled. I have such doubts myself. However, those doubts aren't directed at the military services themselves, but at the top commanders and politicians running things. Politicians are notoriously bad military commanders, and the top commanders in any defense force tend to cover their asses rather than stand up for their men and women. When one gets crossways with the politicians (as General Shinseki did with Donald Rumsfeld concerning the forces that would be required to conquer and stabilize Iraq), the other top commanders all too often don't stand up to support their colleague, but duck for cover instead. (By the way, time has proved General Shinseki to have been absolutely correct. No apology was ever issued to him by Mr. Rumsfeld or his successors in office, needless to say.)

Our present Administration has screwed up mightily in Iraq, as I think any fair observer will concede - but our military has done its best under extraordinarily difficult conditions, and continues to do so. They did the same under the former Democratic administration of President Clinton, which screwed up just as spectacularly (albeit on a smaller scale) in Somalia and the former Serbia. They've done so despite political screw-ups since the beginning. (Ask veterans of World War II about some of the screw-ups by politicians and generals and admirals sometimes. The needless and very costly invasion of Pelelieu; the abominably bad generalship during the Italian campaign, causing immense casualties; the daylight bombing of Germany without adequate escort fighters, which led to catastrophic losses . . . the list will be a very long one indeed.)

You don't go into combat (or refuse to go into combat) because you agree (or disagree) with the cause or like (or dislike) the politicians concerned. When you join the military you take an oath to (among other things) obey the lawful orders given you. That's part of the deal. You also know that your life depends on your buddies, and their lives depend on you. You're a team, and you fight together - for one another, perhaps even more than for your country.

I don't doubt that one factor influencing many recruits who enter the armed services is economic motivation - "What's in it for me?" It's been that way since the dawn of time. However, economic motivation alone doesn't explain it. Anyone entering the military today knows that he or she is more likely than not to be sent into combat, or at least into a combat zone. It's the way things are. That being the case, I'm pretty sure that economic motivations aren't the primary factor in anyone's decision to join the military. After all, they'll surely be saying to themselves, "No amount of money or benefits will do me any good if I'm not alive to enjoy them!"

(Is it even possible that the author of that article can be so blind to reality that he/she genuinely thinks military recruits are so stupid that they can't see that little fact for themselves?)

A final quote from the article:

To repair its stature among young people, the Military needs to be viewed by young women and men as a institution prudently employed to protect America, and not a plaything abused by a reckless administration and it's Republican supporters. The military can easily survive and thrive in the presence of a New Deal that ameliorates the economic and life pressures currently afflicting the age cohort targeted by military recruiters, but only if we end our disastrous war in Iraq.

Oh. I see.

Well, ducky, for a start I don't think the military's stature among young people needs repairing (except, of course, in the case of your unfortunate children, who couldn't choose their parents and thereby escape such indoctrination). The fact that recruiting goals are consistently being met tends to demonstrate that quite conclusively, I'd say. Your complaint that such goals are only being met because of added incentives is puerile. The military is in competition with the rest of society for its recruits. If the attractions of life outside the military are too great, people will opt for the greater reward. If the military has to up its ante to compete, guess what? That's capitalism. That's the free market at work.

As for "a New Deal that ameliorates the economic and life pressures currently afflicting the age cohort targeted by military recruiters" (what a mouthful!), those economic and life pressures will afflict them whether or not they're in the military. Life happens - or had you forgotten that little fact? If we're ever unfortunate enough to have your socialist-wet-dream "New Deal" inflicted on us, it'll be inflicted on all of society and we'll all benefit or suffer equally (I suspect the latter). That won't change the reality of military service.

As for ending "our disastrous war in Iraq", you basically mean cut and run, don't you? You might want to ask the ordinary Iraqi man and woman in the street about that. You'll find they view the prospect very differently. Almost all of them who've been interviewed by objective, rational, reliable sources (I suggest Michael Yon and Iraq The Model as good places to start) have indicated that they want American troops to stay, because they offer the best hope for peace.

Indeed, so "oppressed" are the Iraqis by the presence of US forces that some detainees are refusing to be released from US-run detention camps! They're getting better education and training there than they ever got from their own government, and they don't want to cut it short by being kicked out. So much for Abu Ghraib. That admittedly unacceptable incident is now clearly demonstrated to have been an aberration, a blot on the landscape - but hardly the norm for the behavior of US forces.

That puts a rather different spin on your blinkered, blindfolded, indoctrinated blathering, doesn't it?

*Sigh*

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now. Sorry for the rant - but sometimes idiots get under my skin with their idiocy, and I need to work it out.

Peter

Felons fuss over foul food

Goodness me. According to Yahoo! News:

MONTPELIER, Vt. - When shooting suspect Christopher Williams acted up in prison, he was given nutraloaf — a mixture of cubed whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes.

Prison officials call it a complete meal. Inmates say it's so awful they'd rather go hungry.

On Monday, the Vermont Supreme Court will hear arguments in a class action suit brought by inmates who say it's not food but punishment and that anyone subjected to it should get a formal disciplinary process first.

Prison officials see nutraloaf as a tool for behavior modification.

"It's commonplace in other states as a way of providing nutrition in a mechanism that dissuades inmates from throwing feces, urine, trays and silverware," said Vermont Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann.

"It tends to have the desired outcome," Hofmann said. "Once the offender relents, we stop with the nutraloaf. That's our goal, to protect our staff and not have them subjected to behavior that the average Vermonter would find incomprehensible."

Those of you who haven't worked in a prison are probably shaking your heads and murmuring "Oh, the poor dears!" (Well, perhaps not.)

On the other hand, those of you who've experienced this environment (on the right side of the law, I hasten to add) are probably sniggering and murmuring "Suck it up, punk!" Me, too.

You see, there's a class of criminal that takes delight in flinging all sorts of stuff at passing correctional officers, psychologists, chaplains and others. Sometimes (if we're lucky) it's only food. Other times it's urine and feces.

Some of them even go so far as to wait until women staff are on duty, then strip naked and masturbate, trying to time their orgasm for when a woman passes the bars of their cells so that they can spray her with the effluent (and I use that word deliberately, as many of them test positive for the most nauseating diseases).

Charming characters.

If nutraloaf or other means can help to correct such behavior (and they don't in all too many cases, I'm sorry to say) then I'm all for using them. Yes, it's a punishment - and it's richly deserved. Believe me, inmates don't get put on this diet unless they deserve it. Furthermore, whilst it may not be very tasty, it satisfies all nutritional requirements: so inmates can't complain that their health will suffer from eating it and nothing else.

After all, what other punishments can we use? Send them to jail? They're there already!

Let me tell you a fairy story. You understand, of course, that This Never Happened and it's totally A Figment Of My Imagination. Right?

Very well.

Once upon a time, there was a prison. This prison had an Isolation Unit for the Very Bad Boys among its inmates. These Very Bad Boys were in the habit of behaving towards female staff members as described above, particularly concerning masturbation.

Lo, one day an outside (visiting) chaplain did arrive to provide counsel to the Very Bad Boys (not that they wanted to hear him, of course). During his visit some of the female staff did complain to the visitor concerning the actions of the Very Bad Boys and ask for advice concerning the matter.

The visitor did opine that he had noticed several cans of aerosol air freshener in the control room of the Isolation Unit. The female staff agreed, observing that since most of the Very Bad Boys didn't bother to shower and threw noxious substances around the Isolation Unit (and upon them) with gay abandon, such aids to breathing were all too frequently necessary.

The visitor noted, casually, that aerosol cans of brake parts cleaner (available from the Fairy Supermarket down the road) looked identical in shape and color to the cans of air freshener - at least, from a distance, and probably also on the television security cameras of the Isolation Unit. He further mentioned, casually, that brake parts cleaner was renowned for its deflationary and other effects upon tender portions of the male anatomy.

The visitor and the female guards did look upon one another and smile evilly . . . and the visitor took his leave.

When he returned a couple of weeks later he found the female guards much more cheerful, and the Isolation Unit much quieter than usual. The normal screams, shouts and imprecations of the inmates were strangely absent.

When he inquired concerning this unnatural stillness, he was informed that large quantities of "air freshener" had been employed to "adjust the attitudes" of some of the Very Bad Boys. Some of them had been very ungrateful about this, and had lodged formal complaints of assault and use of chemical weapons by the female staff: but video from surveillance cameras proved conclusively that only normal air freshener (an approved, non-weapon product) had been used in the Isolation Unit. The air freshener cans were recognizable by their shape and color, although the labels couldn't be read on the low-resolution pictures. The male members (and surrounding areas) of the complainants had been examined for evidence, but had shown only a nasty red rash (probably from rampant self-abuse). The complainants alleged that the rash was the result of the "chemical weapons" and demanded to know why no-one had reported their screams of anguish - but the security video cameras didn't record sounds, only pictures. Given the lack of evidence, all complaints were dismissed.

The visitor also noted that the female officers no longer bothered to bring spare uniforms to work in case they needed to change, and were now treated with great respect and obedience by the Very Bad Boys.

He smiled.

*gigglesnort!*

Peter

A couple of good posts

Found two good articles today in my blog reading.

Stingray, one of the two Atomic Nerds, confesses past sins. Fun.

And Lawdog rants about the sheer, utter stupidity of a police comment about a victim of violent crime. Not fun at all, but very, very important. The comments are also very important.

Go read.

Peter

It really can happen to you!

I was saddened to read this article in the Daily Mail by Tim Rushby-Smith, who was paralyzed after falling out of a tree he was pruning. I'm pleased to report that he seems to be adjusting to his new life, and I wish him every success.

The reason it struck a responsive chord is that something similar happened to me a few years ago. Until February 2004, I was a fairly normal male (well, that's a matter of opinion, of course!), reasonably active physically and enjoying the freedom of movement that one takes for granted and doesn't even think about most of the time (if at all). I'd hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail, driven thousands of miles over the course of a week . . . in general, I could do pretty much as I pleased, physically speaking.

Then, everything changed. I was injured in a job-related accident. A disc in my spine was herniated and put extreme pressure on the sciatic nerve in my left leg. From that moment onward I've not had a single day without pain. After some to-ing and fro-ing to get my injury accepted under Workers Compensation, I had two operations to trim the disc (which didn't solve the problem) and fuse my spine (which did as much as could be achieved). I've been left with a permanently impaired left leg and constant pain from the damaged nerve. I take a cocktail of drugs each day to control the nerve responses, keep the pain to a tolerable level, and deal with related problems.

I've had to medically retire, as I can no longer stand or walk for extended periods the way I used to do. I'm trying to build a new career as a writer, and have hopes of success in due course if I can find a publisher and/or agent (at least, much of the feedback I've received so far has been positive). Fortunately I'm eligible for a disability pension, which isn't much but is enough to keep me fed and clothed. Many in my position aren't so fortunate.

I'm not telling you this because I'm looking for sympathy - far from it. I can still walk short distances (albeit slowly) and I'm young enough to work hard at finding a new way to support myself that will be compatible with my physical restrictions. Again, many aren't so fortunate.

The reason I mentioned that article, and I'm telling you about my own injury, is that both Mr. Rushby-Smith and myself were living our lives without a thought for tomorrow - until tomorrow caught up with us. In an instant, both our lives were changed forever.

It can happen to you, too, dear reader.

I'd like to ask you to think about that, and do the following:

1. Be grateful for who you are and what you have. You never know when things may change.

2. Enjoy your life to the fullest. I'm not saying go out and do something immoral, or stupid, or anything like that . . . but while you're able to do things, do them and enjoy them. The time may come when they're beyond your reach.

3. Reach out to those who lose the ability to live as they'd like to. There are many people in your community who've suffered such injuries, or contracted a disease that has a similar effect. In many cases they're lonely, cut off from society. You can help them enormously by being there for them and trying to help.

4. Get involved with efforts to make sure that people have access to the help they need in such circumstances. I'm not talking welfare and social security here. In far too many cases (including my own) employers will try to make out that the injury wasn't job-related and that therefore Workers Compensation doesn't apply. For that matter, the Workers Compensation bureaucracy might drag their heels, insinuating that things aren't as bad as you make them out to be and trying to save money. In far too many cases employers and bureaucrats succeed in their efforts. I hope you'll talk to your politicians (local, State and Federal) and press them to make sure that genuine cases of injury don't go unaddressed because of bureaucratic red tape or employer obfuscation. I used to think that this wasn't much of a problem. Now, after my own experience, I know all too well that it is.

5. Finally, remember that in helping others today, you may be helping yourself or another member of your family tomorrow - because this can happen to you too.

Peter

Boys And Their Toys #1

I think a new series of posts is called for - something to go with Weekend Wings, Doofus Of The Day and so on. I'm calling this one Boys And Their Toys.

The reason will become self-explanatory as soon as you've read this post (or even before you finish it!).

I'll start with the boys of Top Gear, the BBC TV program. They're basically three adolescents who've never grown up (and flatly refuse to even try to do so), having as much fun as possible with things that move on (and sometimes off) roads.

They also seem to enjoy getting large military machines and guns involved in some of their shows.

Here are four video clips to show you what I mean. In the first, Jeremy Clarkson tries to run rings around a Challenger II main battle tank (and avoid getting shot by it) while driving a Range Rover.





In the next clip, a Lotus Exige sports car tries to make it around a racetrack without an Apache attack helicopter "locking on" to it with its fire control system.





Next, Jeremy Clarkson tries to make it through a sniper-infested village, using a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz, without getting "shot".





Finally, the Bugatti Veyron, the world's fastest production car, takes on the Eurofighter Typhoon in a drag race. The car will do a mile along a runway, turn around and come back. The Eurofighter will also cover a mile out and back - straight up and down. Let's see who wins!





Like I said . . . boys and their toys!

Peter

Weekend Wings #12: The Spitfire - the legend grows

Last week I published the first of a three-part Weekend Wings series about the Supermarine Spitfire, possibly the most significant fighter aircraft of all time in terms of its performance, versatility and operational record. That article examined the development and early versions of the Spitfire and its operational career up to and during the Battle of Britain.

In this second part of the series I'll examine the Spitfire's operations during the remainder of World War II, with reference to its ongoing development and new versions that substantially improved its performance. I won't go into too much technical detail about the various Marks of the aircraft, as there's so much information involved that this article would become no more than series of engineering reference notes. Those who'd like to learn more about the different Marks may consult the following references:

Brief summary of differences
between Spitfire Marks

Spitfire Variants, Part I

Spitfire Variants, Part II

Another article detailing Spitfire variants

Spitfire Performance Testing

Spitfire versions compared
to their primary German opponents

If you'd like to know more about the development of the engines that powered the Spitfire, consult these links:

Spitfire Engines

Rolls-Royce Merlin

Rolls-Royce Griffon

At the end of the Battle of Britain the Spitfire had captured the imagination of the British public as the savior of the nation, despite the fact that Hurricanes far outnumbered Spitfires in Royal Air Force (RAF) service and had shot down many more German aircraft. The higher-performance Spitfire had also earned the high respect of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, to such an extent that the German fighter leader Adolf Galland had famously demanded of Hermann Goering that his squadrons be equipped with Spitfires! (This did little to enhance Galland's short-term career prospects.)

Luftwaffe bombing raids on Britain continued, but were conducted almost exclusively under cover of darkness. Efforts were made to use the Spitfire, Hurricane and other single-engined aircraft as night fighters, but with the technology of the day and lacking (as yet) an effective airborne radar installation, these were unsuccessful. Twin-engined aircraft such as the Blenheim, the Beaufighter and later the Mosquito proved far more successful in this role.

RAF Fighter Command began almost immediately to engage in operations over occupied France. They were intended to develop an offensive-minded spirit and ensure that the Germans could not rest easy in their newly-gained territories: but the RAF was soon to find that these operations were costly in the extreme. All the disadvantages faced by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain now applied to the RAF. They had to operate short-ranged fighter aircraft over unfriendly territory, where they had only a limited time to engage in combat before shortage of fuel forced them to withdraw. The Luftwaffe, on the other hand, could now operate near many friendly bases and use its radar equipment to predict RAF incursions and respond to them. The loss ratio immediately favored the Luftwaffe and would continue to do so for some time.

In addition the RAF had to improve the performance of its aircraft. The Spitfire Marks I and II had proved equal to the Messerschmitt Bf 109E model they'd encountered in the Battle of Britain, but the Hurricane had been clearly outmatched by the German aircraft: and by late 1940 the improved Messerschmitt Bf 109F model (shown below) began to appear in squadron service. It was considerably superior to its predecessor - and to the existing Marks of Spitfire. (As always, click the picture for a larger version.)




Clearly, the Spitfire's performance would have to be improved to counter this new threat. Fortunately a solution was at hand. The Mark I/II airframe was fitted with the Merlin series 45 engine, producing 1,440 hp and giving a substantial increase in performance. In addition, a new type of Spitfire wing accommodating two 20mm. cannon and four .303-inch machine-guns had now had its teething troubles sorted out and went into large-scale production. The result was the Spitfire Mark V, the most-produced of any Spitfire model. It began to enter squadron service in early 1941 and proved a match for the Bf 109F.

The Mark V saw more widespread service than any other Mark of Spitfire. Many were sent to North Africa, fitted with an enlarged sand filter that reduced performance but allowed operation in desert conditions, as shown below (note the bulge of the filter beneath the nose).




More were flown to Malta to reinforce the aerial defenses of that island, including dozens that flew off British and US aircraft-carriers.




Mark V's were also sent to the Soviet Union to aid in its fight against Germany after Operation Barbarossa commenced in June 1941. Britain would supply a total of over 1,300 Spitfires of several Marks to the Soviet Union over the course of the war, along with almost 3,000 Hurricanes. An interesting relic from the period is a 1942 Finnish Air Force aircraft recognition guide depicting fighters in service with the Soviet Union (remember that Finland fought alongside Germany against the Soviet Union). This is how they depicted the Spitfire Mark V in Russian markings:




The Luftwaffe's introduction in late 1941 of the Focke-Wulf FW 190 fighter, and soon thereafter the further improved Messerschmitt Bf 109G, spelled trouble for the Spitfire Mark V, which couldn't match either of them. The Spitfire Mark IX was the answer. Fitted with a double-supercharged Merlin engine it was at least equal to either German aircraft. It would be the second-most-produced model of Spitfire and give satisfactory service until the end of the war. It entered service in 1942, making its combat debut over Dieppe during Operation Jubilee.

Both Mark V and Mark IX Spitfires would receive modifications to improve their performance in particular applications or missions. A common modification was to remove the elliptical wing-tips, leaving a so-called "clipped wing" that improved roll rate considerably. With more powerful engines such Spitfires offered greatly improved performance at lower altitudes, particularly in a fighter-bomber role. The two-part video below shows an airshow display by a surviving Spitfire Mark V with clipped wingtips, today part of the Shuttleworth Collection in England. It offers unique views taken from inside the cockpit during flight.








Other modifications included pressurized cabins and extended wingtips to improve performance at higher altitudes. The latter were incorporated in the Mark VI in England, along with more powerful engines, and also improvised in the field in Egypt (as mentioned in Weekend Wings #9). The difference in wingtip profile can be clearly seen in the photographs below, the top one being a standard Spitfire Mark V and the lower a Mark V with extended wingtips.






By now limitations in the Spitfire/Merlin airframe/engine combination were becoming apparent. The Air Ministry had planned to replace the Spitfire in 1943 with the Hawker Tornado, a new fighter using the Rolls-Royce Vulture engine. However, the latter experienced so many problems during development that it was cancelled. The Tornado would be further developed into the Typhoon, using the Napier Sabre engine: but a new and more powerful fighter was urgently needed to counter ongoing German developments.

Fortunately, as early as 1939 Supermarine's chief designer, Joe Smith, had envisaged using the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine as a more powerful replacement for the Merlin engine in the Spitfire. After many delays caused by the urgent operational demand for Merlin-engined Spitfires, in November 1941 the first Griffon-powered prototype took to the air. The Griffon was only slightly larger than the Merlin in physical size but had 36% greater capacity (36.7 liter versus 27 liter) and produced far more power. It proved an instant success in the Spitfire, despite requiring aerodynamic modifications to allow the airframe to handle the additional power. The prototype Griff0n-engined Spitfire is shown below.




In a fly-off between a prototype Typhoon, a captured FW 190 and the prototype Griffon-engined Spitfire in July 1942, the latter beat both of the other aircraft convincingly. This caused a sensation at the Air Ministry, which had never imagined that such an improvement in the performance of the Spitfire was possible, and ensured the ongoing production of the Spitfire through many more variants. The most-produced Griffon-engined version would be the Mark XIV, which proved fast enough to intercept V-1 flying bombs and continued to serve in the air superiority mission until the end of the war. A later development, the Mark XVIII, coming right at the end of the war, featured a cut-down rear fuselage and bubble canopy similar to the P-51D model of the Mustang. A photograph and video of the Mark XVIII are shown below. Turn up the sound to hear the roar of the Griffon engine - and note the five-bladed propeller needed to make use of all that power!








Merlin-engined Spitfires continued in production and service and operated increasingly in the fighter-bomber role, leaving the higher-performance Griffon-engined variants to deal with later and more advanced German fighters.

Spitfires served in the US Army Air Force (USAAF) from 1942. Two fighter groups were sent over to England and equipped initially with the Mark V, later transitioning to the Mark IX. In addition three so-called "Eagle Squadrons" of US pilots in RAF service would transfer to the USAAF in 1942, taking their Spitfires with them. An Eagle Squadron Spitfire is shown below.




USAAF units also used Spitfires in the Mediterranean theater until 1944, when they transitioned to the P-51 Mustang fighter. Interesting accounts of USAAF Spitfire operations may be found here and here. Below is shown a Spitfire Mark Vc in USAAF markings, which is preserved in the National Museum of the USAF. Note the sand filter beneath the nose and the desert camouflage - this is clearly intended to represent a Spitfire from the Mediterranean theater.




The Spitfire was somewhat hampered throughout its operational career by a relatively short range on internal fuel (400-500 miles at most). It had been designed that way, as a defensive fighter to protect Great Britain, and its range was adequate for that purpose. However, when different missions called for longer range, a solution had to be found. Adaptations included fitting the Spitfire with external drop tanks and modifying later versions to provide increased internal fuel capacity (particularly the photographic reconnaissance versions, some of which had a range of over 2,000 miles). However, it was never able to match the range of aircraft such as the P-51 Mustang, which (after an initial false start) was fitted with the Spitfire's Merlin engine and developed into a long-range escort fighter to accompany USAAF bombers to their targets in Germany and back.

In order to allow the Spitfire to operate in support of the advancing Allied armies, Spitfire units were forward-based on improvised airstrips almost immediately following the D-day landings in June 1944. As the advance continued they moved to captured German airfields, and by 1945 were operating from within Germany itself. It was at this stage that another advantage of the wing-mounted external fuel tanks became apparent. Some ingenious armorer discovered that a keg of beer could be fastened in place of the drop tanks! The Heneger and Constable Brewery donated free beer, and Spitfires regularly made "maintenance flights" back to England, returning with two kegs beneath their wings. This is said to have led to frequent visits by USAAF fighters to RAF airfields, using all sorts of contrived excuses, as the USAAF apparently didn't provide beer to their forward-deployed squadrons! (Allegedly His Majesty's Customs And Excise Service were not amused and tried to stop the supply . . . but RAF Spitfire squadrons somehow, mysteriously, remained well-supplied with beer. I guess where there's a will, there's a way!) The painting below was commissioned by the brewery to commemorate the flights.




Spitfires also operated in the China-Burma-India theater with the RAF and in Australia and the South-West Pacific with the Royal Australian Air Force. Mark V Spitfires defended Darwin in northern Australia against Japanese air raids, and later Marks of Spitfires continued to drive the Japanese northward during General Macarthur's campaign. Carrier versions of the Spitfire, known as the Seafire, operated in every theater of Royal Navy operations, including against Japan, and will be discussed in greater detail in the final instalment of this series next week.

Photographic Reconnaissance (PR) versions of the Spitfire were in service from 1939, as discussed in last week's article. As new Marks of the fighter were developed the higher-performance versions were also produced in PR form. They were usually painted in a pale blue camouflage for high-altitude missions and in a strange pink color (which proved almost impossible to see against a background of low cloud or ground haze) for low-level work. Most had their weapons removed and the weapon bays in the wing converted to fuel tanks, plus additional fuel tanks in the fuselage and below it and the wings. This gave later models a range of about 2,000 miles.

PR Spitfires performed some of the most important and spectacular reconnaissance missions of the war, including the hazardous low-level operation that photographed the German Würzburg radar set at Bruneval in occupied France (shown below). This led to the famous Operation Biting in February 1942 to capture parts of it for analysis and its operators for interrogation.




They also conducted the famous reconnaissance of Peenemünde that led to its identification as the test center for German rocket development. This led to its destruction in Operation Hydra during August 1943. Below is the Spitfire photograph of Peenemünde in which V-2 rockets were first identified.




Spitfires also conducted regular reconnaissance of the Ruhr dams prior to their destruction in Operation Chastise during May 1943, and photographed them again the day after the raid to verify its results. One of the post-raid images is shown below. The pilot who took it later spoke of his experiences:

When I was about 150 miles from the Moehne dam I could see the industrial haze over the Ruhr area and what appeared to be a cloud to the east. On flying closer I saw that what had seemed to be cloud was the sun shining on the floodwaters.

I looked down into the deep valley which had seemed so peaceful three days before [on an earlier reconnaissance mission] but now it was a wide torrent.

The whole valley of the river was inundated with only patches of high ground and the tops of trees and church steeples showing above the flood. I was overcome by the immensity of it.

Merlin-engined PR Spitfire variants culminated in the PR Mark XI, shown in the video below.





The last PR version was the Griffon-engined Mark XIX, shown in the photograph and video below. It was based on the very successful Mark XIV fighter.








Next week, in the final instalment of this three-part series on the Spitfire, we'll examine the Seafire naval variants, further development of the Spitfire into the Spiteful, Seafang and the jet-powered Attacker, and look at post-war production and service of this magnificent aircraft.

Peter

Easter thoughts

There's a lot I'd like to say about the spiritual meaning of Easter, but this blog probably isn't the right place to say them. I know many of my readers are Christian, but many others are not and wouldn't agree with what I might have to say. Since I try to keep this blog in the "general interest" sphere, accessible to and enjoyable by as many people as possible, I generally won't use it to preach. (I can do that better in church, anyway!)

However, I would like to bring you the thoughts of two gentlemen, one a newspaper columnist, one an Archbishop. Both are in the UK. Their comments are naturally oriented towards England and its society today, but I think there are many, many elements in common with what we experience in the USA (and the experience of other societies around the world).

The first is Peter Hitchens, a former Marxist and Socialist, now better informed. He reminds us:

Year by year we throw away the beliefs that underpin our society. We have no idea how dangerous this path is, nor how steeply it descends into the darkness.

This is the first generation in centuries that could not see why it is wrong to allow betting shops to open on Good Friday.

And that is because this is the first generation in centuries that does not know that the soldiers cast lots at the foot of the Cross, ignoring the groans of the crucified Jesus and the weeping of his mother, to decide which of them should have Christ's seamless garment.

To anyone who understands what Good Friday means, the placing of bets on this day is a sort of obscenity. To everyone else it is a bit of fun or good business.

Well, do you think we won't pay for this? We are paying for it.

Look at the paintings of the Crucifixion by the great Flemish Masters such as Hieronymus Bosch and you will see, baying or sneering at Golgotha, exactly the same snarling, contorted, heedless faces you find on the drunken streets of our country.

These artists were trying to tell us that, if we reject the idea of absolute unchanging goodness, we will become like that mob, and part of it.

And we are doing so, visibly.

Amen, Mr. Hitchens! You can read the rest of his remarks here.

The second person is the Anglican Archbishop of York, the Rt. Rev. John Sentamu. He has this to say:

. . . What matters in the end is that God believes in each one of us.

That is why he sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. Jesus is not to be found among the dead, as part of an ancient dusty religion.

The message of Easter rings out across our land this morning - in the words of the old hymn, Jesus Christ is risen today.

Later today I will stand waist-high in an open-air pool in the middle of York city centre where I will baptise into the faith those people who will newly confess that Jesus is the Lord of their lives.

These will join the often silent and overlooked majority of people in this country for whom today is a day of celebration and joy.

According to a recent poll conducted by Theos, a public policy think-tank, 57 per cent of Britons believe Jesus was executed by crucifixion, buried and rose from the dead.

The fact that more than half of us hold that belief is particularly striking and demonstrates that our society is not as "secular" as we often imagine it to be, despite frequent chattering claims to the contrary.

The reality of the resurrection is not just a personal encounter - it's also collective. It changes societies, cultures and communities.

For the physicality of the resurrection of Jesus is a community-evoking, a community-forming, a community-authorising event.

Our belief shouldn't just be based on the miracle of the resurrection itself but upon the astonishing outcome of that miracle - the community it creates, and has already created, in this country.

Our identity as a nation owes more to our Christian heritage than many care to admit.

Again, a hearty "Amen!" to the Archbishop. The rest of his words may be read here.

I hope you'll take the time to read these gentlemen's thoughts in full, and ponder them. And whether or not you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I wish you the blessings of that miracle on this Easter Sunday, and in the whole of your lives.

God be with you all, now and forever.

Peter

YouTube 2007 Video Awards

The winners of the YouTube 2007 Video Awards have been announced. There are some very creative and entertaining clips among them.

I have two favorites. The first is the utterly irresistible "Laughing Baby", which won in the "Adorable" category:





The second is from South Africa, showing a dramatic confrontation and life-and-death struggle involving buffalo, crocodiles and lions. Since I come from this part of the world and know the area involved, watching it brought back all sorts of memories. "Battle At Kruger" won in the "Eyewitness" category:





You can see all of the winning videos here. Recommended viewing if you have time to kill.

Peter

I love it when empty threats are exposed

I was delighted to read of the adventures of Sanal Edamaruku in India recently. I differ very significantly from Mr. Edamaruku in that he's president of Rationalist International, which appears to be an atheist organization, whereas I'm a Christian, a believer and a (now-retired) pastor: but I respect his (and everyone's) right to believe as they choose, of course. In this case I'll gladly acknowledge that he's done all of us a service.

Everything started, when Uma Bharati (former chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh) accused her political opponents in a public statement of using tantrik powers to inflict damage upon her. In fact, within a few days, the unlucky lady had lost her favorite uncle, hit the door of her car against her head and found her legs covered with wounds and blisters.

India TV, one of India’s major Hindi channels with national outreach, invited Sanal Edamaruku for a discussion on “Tantrik power versus Science”. Pandit Surinder Sharma, who claims to be the tantrik of top politicians and is well known from his TV shows, represented the other side. During the discussion, the tantrik showed a small human shape of wheat flour dough, laid a thread around it like a noose and tightened it. He claimed that he was able to kill any person he wanted within three minutes by using black magic. Sanal challenged him to try and kill him.

Needless to say, the tantrik's efforts failed miserably, despite repeated attempts and a second, extended program later that night. You can read all about it at the first link above.

I'm all for exposing charlatans of whatever "conviction", religious or otherwise. I've had my own run-ins with them as a prison chaplain. In the manuscript of my book on prison life I recounted the following experience. For your entertainment, and because it ties in neatly with Mr. Edamaraku's experience, I'll share it here.

Inmates will try anything to con, deceive and bend correctional staff to their will. It’s a never-ending process. All of us are trained to spot such approaches, but inmates have all the time in the world to think up new angles and try out different tricks. We can never be sure. That’s one reason why it’s important for those in the corrections field to constantly update one another on their experiences. One of us might not recognize a particular approach as being potentially risky, but it’s very likely that another person will have encountered or heard of something similar. Every year during annual refresher training particularly egregious cases are discussed so that all staff are aware of them. It’s the ultimate ‘con game’, and it’ll continue as long as there are convicts in prison.

Such attempts are by no means restricted to Correctional Officers. Anyone and everyone working in a prison is fair game. Intimidation, bribery, coercion, offers of sexual favors, attempts at blackmail - we’ve all experienced them. Chaplains come in for our fair share of them because we’re able to provide special privileges to inmates (extra phone calls to their families, approval to bring in personal religious property, arrangements for special visits at times of family crisis, and so on). I’ve been offered bribes, promised information, threatened . . . you name it.

One of the funnier incidents happened in another prison several years ago and involved a self-proclaimed Satanist and ‘warlock’. He tried to wheedle me into arranging a number of special privileges for him. I refused, of course - there were no circumstances under which I could justify them. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and tried threats. Those didn’t work either. (When you’ve been threatened by experts you get used to it very quickly - and he was no expert!) Frustrated, he finally promised he was going to see to it that I was ‘sorted out’, which I took to mean that he would arrange for some inmates to assault me when I was next on the compound. I discussed the threat with the authorities, who tightened up surveillance, and we waited.

It didn’t take long for word to reach us through informers. He’d bragged to others on the compound that he’d cast a ‘death spell’ upon me. He confidently prophesied that I’d be dead within thirty days. I grinned and carried on as normal. As time passed his predictions grew louder and somewhat more desperate as I continued to portray the picture of good health whenever I came to the prison. (I took care to walk around openly to demonstrate the fact.) As the deadline approached he became frantic and tried to bribe a prison gang to attack me. Unfortunately for him, gang leaders knew all too well that visiting Chaplains such as myself were their lifeline in the event of family problems. Some of them had needed such assistance in the past. They passed the word that any attack on any visiting Chaplain would meet with their vigorous and extreme displeasure. The inmates got the message loud and clear. The attempt fizzled, the deadline passed, and I was still alive.

This curse-casting cretin now had problems of his own. Not only had his credibility been shattered by my selfish refusal to fall down dead, but certain over-credulous inmates had taken his boasting seriously. They had apparently paid him considerable sums to cast ‘death spells’ on other convicts and staff whom they regarded as enemies. Since his curse against me hadn’t worked, they were now wondering whether their investment had been well-advised. Sure enough, the deadline for those deaths also passed without so much as a head cold amongst his intended victims. He ended up requesting protective custody in the Hole and was eventually transferred to another institution. There were too many angry inmates wanting their money back for him to dare show his face on the compound ever again.

(I trust the Lord will forgive my less-than-pastoral pleasure at his predicament . . . )

Peter

How to save money

Two of my favorite satirical newspaper columnists have written articles about how to save money and beat the credit crunch. I can't resist sharing them.

Deborah Ross, writing in the Daily Mail, London, includes the following tips (among others):

• To ensure value for money, always search out the bagels and donuts with the smallest holes.
• You don't need to buy a block of cheese if you have pre-grated at home. Take a fistful of pre-grated, squeeze hard and there you have it.
• If you repeatedly ask yourself: "Why is there so much month left at the end of my money?", try shortening your months to, say, 17 days apiece.
• If all your debts are with loan sharks, consolidate into the one monthly beating and the occasional intimidation session.
• Explore the very bottom of the laundry basket. There may be several outfits you haven't seen for years down there. Plus, they must be clean by now.
• Avoid the expense of alcohol - cold tea looks like whiskey. For that morning-after feeling, bang your head against a wall several times while sucking an emery board.
  

Not to be outdone, Richard Glover, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, comes up with a host of fascinating ideas, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Try cutting your own hair using scissors and a mirror. Later, have your ears sewn back on in a public hospital, thus enjoying a free meal.
• Don't ever use parking meters. Instead park on the pavement, splatter the windscreen with fake blood and circle your car with police tape.
• Instead of buying new books, re-read old favorites - backwards, a chapter at a time. This not only adds interest, it adds a surprise happy ending, with both Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina alive at the end.
• Go to the Red Cross blood bank, eat all the free biscuits, then tell them you are a pregnant, drug-injecting, homosexual Englishman.
• Stop buying toilet paper and use the telephone directory instead. (Do not attempt if using White Pages online.)
• Be a good mate and never let your friend drive when drunk. Demand he hands over his car keys and then sell the vehicle to some bloke out the back. Your mate will never remember who took his keys.
• Use your bodily detritus as a valuable resource. Collect your fingernail clippings, encase them in a bit of old pantyhose and create a handy scourer for those messy pots and pans.
• Take up cannibalism, beginning with any less-than-useful relatives.
  

Click on the links provided to read the rest of Deborah's and Richard's helpful suggestions. I'm sure you'll save a fortune.

*gigglesnort!*

Peter

Great piloting skills

A few weeks ago I posted a video clip of a Lufthansa Airbus making a very, very scary approach to the runway in a severe cross-wind. I've posted other "interesting" landings here and here.

Here's another, this time from Canada, demonstrating a situation almost as dangerous as the Lufthansa landing, but saved by extremely good flying by the pilots. Hats off to them! The aircraft is an Airbus A319 landing in Montreal, with winds gusting to well over 40 mph.

Peter

40,000 and counting!

A few moments ago my 40,000th visitor arrived. He/she's in the Sandy, Utah area.




Utah's one of the few States I've not yet visited. It's on my agenda, I promise!

Thanks for stopping by.

Peter

More robotic creepiness (literally)

A couple of days ago Noah Schachtman published a very interesting look at a new robot "mule" (i.e. robotic transport device) being developed for the US Army.

The report caught my eye, but I didn't want to stop there. I looked up the Web site of the developers, Boston Dynamics, and found that they have no less than four creeping, crawling, climbing and cantering robots under development. It looks like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding their work. Very interesting stuff.

The first is the "mule", known as BigDog. It's developed to the point where it can carry 340 pounds of cargo, a useful load for military purposes, and it's agile enough to work on ice and snow, recover its balance after slipping, and climb steep slopes. The video below shows it in action. (The high-pitched noise is an engine of some kind - sounds like something out of a leaf-blower or edge-trimmer.)





Then there's LittleDog, which Boston Dynamics describes as:

. . . a quadruped robot for research on learning locomotion. Scientists at leading institutions use LittleDog to probe the fundamental relationships among motor learning, dynamic control, perception of the environment, and rough terrain locomotion.

Here it is in action.





Next we have RHex, described as:

. . . a man-portable robot with extraordinary rough terrain mobility. RHex climbs over rock fields, mud, sand, vegetation, railroad tracks, telephone poles and up steep slopes and stairways. RHex has a sealed body, making it fully operational in wet weather, in muddy and swampy conditions, and it can swim on the surface or dive underwater.

They're not kidding about its mobility, as this video demonstrates.





Last but not least, Boston Dynamics also make the RiSE:

RiSE is a small six-legged robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences. RiSE’s feet have claws, micro-claws or sticky material, depending on the climbing surface. RiSE changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and a fixed tail helps RiSE balance on steep ascents. RiSE is about 0.25 m long, weighs 2 kg, and travels 0.3 m/s.

Each of RiSE’s six legs is powered by two electric motors. An onboard computer controls leg motion, manages communications, and services a variety of sensors. The sensors include an inertial measurement unit, joint position sensors for each leg, leg strain sensors and foot contact sensors.

Future versions of RiSE will use dry adhesion to climb sheer vertical surfaces such as glass and metal.

Again, a pretty amazing device, as seen below.





I can recall the early days of robotic devices back in the 1970's and 1980's, when it was all a robot could do to weld a good seam in an auto factory. Looks like things have come a long, long way since then!

I can also recall the pain and suffering of humping heavy supplies across rough terrain during my military service. If we'd had a mechanical mule to do it for us we'd have been the happiest troops in the Army! If they can work out a power source for BigDog that doesn't make a noise to alert the enemy, I think they've really got something here.

There is, of course, the lighter side. A friend and veteran, Jim S., had this to say via e-mail about BigDog:

Of course the typical guy mind jumps to "Carrying stuff is all well-and-good, but how soon can we weaponize it, go from the C-1 'Mutt' to the AC-1 'Werewolf'?"

Imagine a pack of battery-powered silent RoboWolves sneaking through the perimeter. How many rounds, with how much stopping power, would it take to put one down?

Jim

"Sit! No, I said SIT, you damn toaster!" (Patrol Robot Handler)

Peter

Security experts and twisted minds

You've met Bruce Schneier before in these pages. He has a new and very interesting article in Wired: Inside The Twisted Mind Of The Security Professional. A brief extract:

Security requires a particular mindset. Security professionals -- at least the good ones -- see the world differently. They can't walk into a store without noticing how they might shoplift. They can't use a computer without wondering about the security vulnerabilities. They can't vote without trying to figure out how to vote twice. They just can't help it.

. . .

This kind of thinking is not natural for most people. It's not natural for engineers. Good engineering involves thinking about how things can be made to work; the security mindset involves thinking about how things can be made to fail. It involves thinking like an attacker, an adversary or a criminal. You don't have to exploit the vulnerabilities you find, but if you don't see the world that way, you'll never notice most security problems.

The whole thing is well worth reading - particularly if you take seriously the need to defend yourself, your loved ones and your possessions against criminals. Highly recommended.

Peter

On military leadership

Skippy has a good post about military leadership. I thought I'd take up his challenge and consider three examples of leadership that inspired me during my service.

First example. (I told my buddy Lawdog about this and he posted the story on his blog some time ago, so some of you may have read it before.) I'd just entered the South African armed forces and was doing basic training (which involved much blood, sweat and tears, all mine - the SADF was fighting a border war at the time and they didn't believe in soft training!). On the firing-range one day I was being my typical teenage dumbass self (I hadn't grown up yet, of course - some would say I still haven't!), and muttered a comment to the guy next to me, something about having practiced this stuff enough and when were we going to do something more interesting?

There came a tap on my shoulder. Looking around, I snapped to a brace. The Sergeant-Major of our training unit stood there in his polished, creased, mirror-bright glory, glaring at me. I was sure he was going to rip my head off my shoulders or have me running up and down serving as a moving target for the rest of the morning, but he just looked at me. In a slow, resigned voice (the kind they use to dumbass recruits), he said, "Troop, an amateur practices until he's got it right. A professional practices until he can't get it wrong!"

That Sergeant-Major was doubtless tired and pissed-off by the thousands of new recruits fumbling their way through basic drills that he could do in his sleep. He could have torn me into shreds without bothering to use the occasion as a training opportunity, but he chose to overcome his irritation and make a point so well that I - and those around me - could instantly appreciate and remember it.

I've never forgotten his words. They've kept me alive on at least three occasions. Words to live by, indeed. Thanks, Smaj.

Second example. The Lieutenant in command of our platoon had emphasized before our patrol the basic rules of engagement, including a great deal of sage advice on how to fight and survive. (He was what Americans would call a "mustang", commissioned from the ranks, so he had a lot more experience than the average Lieutenant.) He emphasized things like: keep your weapon on semi-auto and don't waste ammo in full-auto fire; shoot only at an identified target unless you're ordered to put down suppressive fire; keep low and keep moving - to stay still is to die; and other words of wisdom. (They all proved true, in my experience.)

We hit a well-set ambush in thick African bush, the classic L-formation along a trail. Those of you who are combat veterans will know how it went: the sudden explosion of noise as weapons opened up on us, the frozen split-second of shocked disbelief and the instant orders from the Lieutenant to charge down the ambush and take the fight to the insurgents . . . if you've been there, you know.

When it was all over and the insurgents (the survivors, at any rate) had fled and backup had arrived, we gathered to be taken back to base. Some of us were wounded and all of us were on edge and jittery. The Lieutenant gathered us around and debriefed us in the field. He went over the sequence of events, praised those who'd done well, gently corrected those of us (including yours truly) who'd screwed up at some point or other, and generally ensured that we all left the field having learned all there was to learn from the engagement. He didn't want us getting back to base and forgetting about it - he wanted us to come out of it better soldiers than when we went into the fight. Even those of us who'd made mistakes weren't harshly criticized. He acknowledged that we were relatively inexperienced, pointed out where we'd forgotten our training, and ensured that we each understood our errors and wouldn't repeat them.

A great man, that Lieutenant. He went on to senior rank in the SADF and richly deserved it. He showed us that a good officer makes sure his troops aren't treated like mushrooms (i.e. kept in the dark and fed on bulls***) but handles them with the same respect he expects from them, leads them from the front and by example, and strives to weld them together into a proud, effective team. In all my subsequent years of service I compared my commanders to him, usually unfavorably; and when the time came for me to command others I consciously modeled myself after him. I hope I was as good.

Third example. I was part of the duty watch at a sophisticated joint-services electronic warfare center monitoring Soviet, Cuban and East German activity in Angola. We stood a regular watch schedule, and this time we'd pulled an all-nighter.

One of the junior watch-standers received news just before we left for the center that his mother had been seriously injured in a car accident and was undergoing emergency surgery. His father called and asked that he be allowed to fly home on compassionate grounds. The Officer of the Day, a real (insert appropriate curse here), refused to do anything about it, saying that the operator would have to see the Chaplain in the morning and make arrangements. We left for the center with the operator in tears in our midst, the rest of us trying awkwardly to provide what comfort and support we could.

On arrival at the center a couple of us hastened to the office of the SNCO of the Watch, a Navy Chief Petty Officer, and told him the story. He let out a couple of choice expletives, hurried to the operator's station and pulled him off duty. Against all regulations, he overrode the telephone exchange block and let him make three long-distance calls to his family while he went to another room and telephoned the CO of the center, telling him what had happened. The CO, a Navy Captain, was furious at the neglect shown by the OOD at the accommodation base (and later made sure he answered for it). He had the chaplain come out to the center to collect the operator, and by ten that evening he was on a flight home. His departure left us short-handed: but the Chief voluntarily took over that operator's console and stood watch with us for the rest of the night. He wasn't up-to-date on the latest EW bells and whistles, but wasn't afraid to admit it and asked us to help him when necessary. We had a busy night and couldn't have coped without him.

Again, inspirational leadership from that Chief. He went out of his way (including breaking regulations and risking his good relationship with other officers by going out-of-channels directly to the CO) for one of his guys who needed it, and pulled an all-night watch with us rather than call out someone who'd earned his time off before taking up his next shift in the morning. The rest of us made sure he had a case of cold beer waiting at his quarters when we got off watch next morning. He'd surely earned it.

There are three examples of positive leadership from my military experience. I'd like to invite all readers who are military veterans and who have their own blogs to follow Skippy's lead and post their own examples of good leadership. For those who don't have their own blogs, how about telling us of your positive leadership experiences in a comment beneath this post? Hopefully it'll help others who read it.

Peter

One happy creature

To round out tonight's animal-oriented postings, I had to include a few pictures from my favorite Lolcats site, I Can Has Cheezburger?

Now that's one happy baby elephant!

He may be happy, but I'd hate to be in the water with him . . .

And finally, readers may remember the photographs of Great White sharks off Australia that I posted a few days ago. Someone on ICHC found them (probably in the original press report) and captioned one thusly:

Peter

Geckos get more and more interesting

Seems there's an animal trend to tonight's posts. I may as well keep it going.

The humble gecko has already given rise to two scientific breakthroughs: a super-strong, super-sticky tape to bond to anything, and a dissolving bandage. The bandage can be applied internally during surgery, and will stick regardless of blood or other fluids on or beneath it. After a few weeks it dissolves naturally. Sounds a lot better than internal stitches (and having had the latter on more than one occasion, I'm all in favor of any improvement!).

According to a BBC report, further studies of the gecko have revealed that its tail is a powerful aid to aerodynamic steering during flight.

Professor Full said: "We set up an experiment where we could see what would happen if a gecko fell off of the underside of a leaf.

"They started off with their backs to the ground, but when they start to fall, they swoosh around their tails, and by doing this they are able to rotate themselves so they move into a sky-diving or 'superman' pose."

This enabled the gecko to land on its feet, he told the BBC News website.

While other animals, such as cats, can rotate their bodies when falling to manoeuvre into a safer landing posture, the gecko is one of the few to use its tail to do this.

Before landing, the creature's tail can come into use yet again.

Professor Full explained: "We put them in a vertical wind tunnel, and we found they could glide stably and use their tails to turn: they sweep it one way, they turn left; they sweep it the other way, they turn right."

In the wild, this kind of manoeuvring ability would allow the animal to direct its aerial descent to land on a perch rather than hitting the ground if it fell out of the rainforest canopy, he added.

The researchers believe the gecko's active tail could inspire engineers.

"This discovery is another example of how basic research leads to unexpected applications - new climbing and gliding robots, highly manoeuvrable unmanned aerial vehicles and even energy-efficient control in space vehicles," said Professor Full.

There's some remarkable video clips at the BBC report. Click over there to watch them for yourselves.

I marvel at how scientists can beat their brains out trying to figure out how to accomplish something . . . only to find that Mother Nature has already got the answer, if only we'll look for it. You go, gecko!

Peter

Creepy-crawlies that are really creepy

Image courtesy of Danger Room blog on the Wired network

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, issued a request for proposals back in 2006 for the creation of cyborg insects. According to a report at the time:

DARPA wants to develop inexpensive MAVs [micro aerial vehicles] to find weapons and explosives inside buildings or caves. Mechanical and fluidic microsystems would allow remote control, could extend insect life, and provide for gas, audio and even imaging sensors. Insects would have MEMS [micro-electromechanical systems] inserted during their growth cycle, providing for production line-like integration with the creature’s biological functions. “During locomotion [the] insect thorax generates heat and mechanical power, which may be harnessed to power the microsystem payload,” says DARPA.

One goal is for a remote pilot to fly a cyborg insect to within 100m (300ft) of a target. Control could be maintained using pheromones or mechano-sensor activation and direct muscle or neural interfaces.

Well, the researchers haven't been asleep on the job. A few days ago Robert Michelson of the Georgia Institute Of Technology Research Institute presented a paper at the MAV '08 conference in Agra, India entitled "MAV System Design and integration Issues". According to a news report:

In the latest work a Manduca moth had its thorax truncated to reduce its mass and had a MEMS component added where abdominal segments would have been, during the larval stage.

Images taken by x-ray of insects with these changes and others found that tissue growth around the inserted probes was good. One DARPA goal is to show that during locomotion the heat and mechanical power generated by the thorax could be harnessed to power the MEMS.

. . .

He added that drawbacks included the short life-span of insects, which means they could be dead before they are needed, and the fact that MEMS insertion was labour-intensive.

Uh . . . yeah, Professor, I can see how dead cyborg moths might be counter-productive!

As well-known defense blogger Noah Schachtman observed in his comments on these developments, "The cyborgs also offer unparalleled opportunities for lab workers to shout, "It's alive! It's aliiiiiiiive!!!"

It occurs to me that well-known household and camping products might now be re-classified as elements of chemical counter-warfare. After all, if Deet repels insects and Raid kills them, what happens when a cyborg insect is deterred or destroyed? Does this mean we'll have to examine every insect under a magnifying glass to make sure it's not Government property before we kill it? Would using Raid on a cyborg insect lead to a raid of a different kind - by a SWAT team, on our homes?

This could get interesting . . .

Peter

A Texas Tale

Sergeant Murphy has a tale of Texas Torment on his blog.

Heh.

It reminded me of my sister's favorite Texas story.

She, her husband and their two small children emigrated from South Africa to Canada in the mid-1970's, settling in the Toronto area. Shortly after their arrival she took her young son and daughter to Niagara Falls to show them the sights. They proceeded to take the boat tour of the bowl beneath the falls in one of those "Maid Of The Mists" vessels.




Aboard the packed boat was a man whom everyone instantly recognized as being from Texas. I'm not sure how he was so easily identified . . . perhaps the ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, spurs and longhorn belt buckle had something to do with it.

Everyone was waiting for him to say something disparaging about Niagara Falls because "Texas has something bigger and better" - but he was silent all through the trip.

My sister, unable to restrain herself, said to him as the passengers were disembarking, "You know, we were all waiting for you to tell us that Texas has something bigger and better than this."

He turned slowly, looked at her solemnly, and with a dead-pan expression said, "No, Ma'am. In Texas we got plumbers that can fix this!"



Peter

The eight-million-dollar schnozz?

Remember the Six Million Dollar Man? Well, he's got some competition.

According to a Reuters report, Lloyd's of London has insured the nose of M. Ilja Gort for five million Euros, or about US $8,000,000. M. Gort is the owner of Chateau de la Garde in Bordeaux, France, which produces Tulipe Wines. According to a Lloyd's statement quoted in the report, M. Gort's nose "could distinguish millions of different scents and was essential to guarantee the quality of his wines."

M. Gort has posted a video on YouTube of the 2007 harvest at Chateau de la Garde (starring himself and his nose in close-up).





This isn't the first nose to be insured by Lloyds: they also covered Jimmy Durante's renowned schnozz for an undisclosed amount, as well as Egon Ronay's palate, Keith Richards' hands and Fred Astaire's legs.

I have only one question. How on earth could you tell whether a claim under this policy was legitimate? I mean, if I were in M. Gort's position, surely I could assert that a traumatic event (perhaps the sight of genuine Bordeaux being swilled from a can or dispensed from a cardboard box container - "Chateau Cardboard", so to speak) had completely frazzled my sense of smell. How would the insurer prove otherwise? After all, it would only take a relatively minor deterioration in the sense of smell to lose the ability to distinguish between "millions" of scents and be able to deal with only "hundreds".

Food for underwriting thought, that . . .

Peter

An amazing adventurer

I'm always amazed - and delighted - whenever I find fresh evidence that the age of adventure has not yet ceased.

Meet Kenichi Horie.




This remarkable man has already amassed quite a track record. He's circumnavigated the world twice, crossed the Pacific several times, and used some unique vessels in the process - a solar-powered boat of conventional construction, another made from recycled beer cans, a catamaran named Malt's Mermaid II constructed from 528 aluminum beer kegs ("500 of them were empty," he joked), and another made of whiskey barrels and aluminum cans with sails made from plastic soda bottles. (You might infer that he's a believer in recycling!)

Malt's Mermaid II on display in Japan

At 68 years old you might think he'd be planning his retirement. Far from it! He set off last Sunday on his latest adventure. He plans to sail from Hawaii to Japan in a boat named Suntory Mermaid II that's powered only by the motion of the water. A flat "wing" at the bow will be moved up and down by the flow of the waves, driving two "flippers" whose kicking action will pull the craft forward. The New York Times has a detailed report with a graphic illustrating how this will work (click to enlarge):




This video of a small test craft in a water tank gives you some idea of how it works.





At an expected average cruising speed of about 3 mph (about the same as a brisk walk) he expects to reach Japan in late May after covering approximately 4,000 miles. There are sails and a small outboard motor in case of problems with the wave-drive system, and solar panels will recharge batteries and allow him to use a microwave oven for cooking. He's taken plenty of books along, and expects to have a fairly relaxed trip.




If you'd like to follow his adventures, he'll be updating an expedition Web page as often as possible, including a diary, map of his progress and other information.




Godspeed and fair sailing to you, Sir! Thanks for showing us that adventure is still there for the asking, if you think "outside the box" and you've got the guts to try.

Peter

Oh, good grief!!!

I'm dumbstruck. Speechless. (That's why I'm typing this.)

Would you believe this combination:

• A Finnish rock group calling themselves the "Leningrad Cowboys";
• Performing in a stadium in Russia before a crowd of screaming Russian teenyboppers;
• Backed by the Red Army Choir (in full uniform, with balalaikas);
• Singing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" (in English)?

The mind boggles, I tell you . . .





Is this the end of Western civilization? Or Russian? Or both?



Peter

Cellphones and multiple functions - NOT!

I don't know about you, but I'm fed up with manufacturers trying to cram more and more functions into a simple cellular telephone.

I want something on which to make calls. I might - grudgingly - accept the need for a text message now and then, although I tend to avoid them. That's all I want in such a device.

So what do I find if I shop for a phone? Cameras; music players; Web browsers; calendars and diaries; e-mail functions; GPS location . . . the mind boggles! You need an advanced degree in electronics just to switch on the damn things!

Anyway, it seems I'm not the only one who finds this ridiculous. I came across this gem while browsing through YouTube. It made me laugh, so I figured you might enjoy it too.





Peter

Banded icebergs

I was fascinated to see these pictures from the Antarctic Ocean. (Click them for a larger view.)




They were photographed by Oyvind Tangen, a Norwegian sailor, almost 700 miles north of the Antarctic.




According to the report linked above, they're formed by dust and gravel over which glaciers slide on their way to the sea, or by melt-water filling cracks in the ice and freezing quickly before bubbles can form and give the ice a whiter color.

To give you an idea of the scale, the first iceberg is about 150 feet long and 30 feet high, while the second is about 100 feet tall.

Fascinating what nature comes up with, isn't it?

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #12

Leon Haynes is just your ordinary gangsta guy: ready, willing and able to help out a buddy in a tight spot.

At least, that's how he must have seemed to Covi Henry in Manchester, England, when he asked Haynes in August last year to help him shoot a rival gangster and drug-dealer, and gave him a gun to hold until the time was right.

I bet he's wishing he chose a more practiced sidekick.

You see, Haynes duly drew the gun from his waistband on command - and shot Henry in the neck.

Not quite what Henry had in mind.

Still, you can't say Haynes wasn't dedicated. He fired four more times, severely injuring their intended victim, then dragged Henry off with him. Regrettably for both gang-bangers, police arrested them later that day. Their victim recovered in hospital.

Both Haynes and Henry are now serving long jail sentences in England. One hopes they'll be in the same prison, where Henry will have plenty of time to ask Haynes about his marksmanship and Haynes will have plenty of opportunity to defend himself. With any luck they'll remove each other from the gene pool before we have to worry about their presence in society once more.

This raises an interesting question. Who's the greater doofus? Haynes for shooting his erstwhile gangsta mentor, or Henry for choosing such a low-quality gangsta assistant? Answers in comments, please.

Peter

Weekend Wings #11: A Legend Is Born

Here's a quiz.

Which aircraft achieved ALL of the following milestones:

• Was in production and in operational front-line service from the first to the last day of World War II?
• Was the most-produced fighter aircraft of any of the Allied powers in World War II and the third-most-produced military aircraft in history?
• Served in every theater of combat in World War II, from land bases and/or in naval operations from aircraft-carriers?
• Served in the Air Forces of every major Allied power?
• Achieved such fame that its very name was enough to scatter enemy formations in panic, and led to a senior enemy officer demanding that his unit be equipped with them?
• Revolutionized air reconnaissance and was responsible for taking the photographs that led to some of the most daring and successful operations of World War II?
• Attained the highest altitude ever achieved by a single-engined propeller-driven aircraft?
• Attained the highest speed ever reached by any propeller-driven aircraft?
  

This aircraft is so well-known, even sixty-three years after the end of World War II, that I'm sure you'll recognize it immediately. (Click this and all other photographs for a larger view.)




This is the first instalment of a three-part Weekend Wings series about the Supermarine Spitfire and its superb operational record, probably unsurpassed by any other aircraft in history. This first part will examine the genesis, design and early versions of the Spitfire, up to and including the Battle of Britain in 1940. The second part will explore its development over the rest of World War II. The final part will examine the Seafire naval variant, the Spiteful, Seafang and jet-powered Attacker developments and post-World-War-II Spitfire models, and assess the enormous impact of this aircraft on aviation history.

The Spitfire had its genesis in the Schneider Trophy races for seaplanes.




R. J. Mitchell, the brilliant designer for the Supermarine Aviation Works (a subsidiary of the Vickers conglomerate), developed a series of fast monoplane seaplanes that won the Trophy in 1927, 1929 and 1931. These triple victories won the Trophy permanently for Britain, and today it's displayed in the Science Museum in London. The Supermarine S.6B, which won the Trophy in 1931, is illustrated below.




Seventeen days after winning the Schneider Trophy the S.6B set a new world speed record of 407.5 mph. This was a major embarrassment to the Royal Air Force (RAF), whose fastest fighter of the day, the Hawker Fury biplane, could manage only 207 mph.




Previously, the Air Ministry had issued Specification F.7/30 for a new fighter. Mitchell designed the Supermarine Type 224 to meet it. This was a gull-wing monoplane with a fixed undercarriage powered by a Rolls-Royce Goshawk engine producing 660hp.




Neither Mitchell nor the RAF liked it very much. It lost the competition when the Air Ministry selected the Gloster Gladiator, which would be the last biplane fighter developed for the RAF.




Mitchell now began to combine elements of the Type 224 and the S.6B seaplane. A new Air Ministry Specification F.5/34 led to the Supermarine Type 300 design, still using the Goshawk engine but for the first time featuring elliptical wings similar to those developed for the S.6B, which were to become the Spitfire's most recognizable feature. However, the aircraft was still woefully underpowered. Only when Rolls-Royce introduced their Merlin engine (destined to be as famous as the Spitfire and powering many of the finest aircraft of World War II) did the new fighter design really show promise. The Air Ministry agreed, and wrote Specification F.37/34 around Mitchell's design (at the same time that they wrote F.36/34 around the design of the Hawker Hurricane).

The Spitfire was to have far more serious production problems than the Hurricane due to its all-metal construction. Mitchell reasoned that high speed was vital, and because this would place greater stress on the wings and airframe he discarded biplane manufacturing techniques. The Spitfire would be of all-metal monocoque construction. Only the rudder, elevator and aileron surfaces would be fabric-covered, and that only in the earliest models - metal replaced fabric in those parts by 1941. However, until the mid-1930's the entire British aircraft industry had worked with wood frames and cloth coverings for wings and fuselage. Most aircraft component manufacturers were too small and too poorly funded to afford the transition to all-metal fabrication. This caused very serious production delays for the Spitfire at first, leading the Air Ministry to consider abandoning its production after the initial contract. Fortunately its performance was so superb that abandoning it became out of the question, and the teething problems in production were overcome by 1940.

The Spitfire's contemporary, the Hurricane, had no such production problems. Sydney Camm designed the Hurricane along the same lines as existing biplane fighters, using wood covered with fabric for much of its structure. He wanted it to be highly maneuverable with a tight turning circle, regarding high speed as a less important factor. Due to adopting the same methods as biplane construction, already widely known and used in the aircraft industry of the day, it could be produced quickly and easily. Largely for this reason, Hurricanes would make up about two-thirds of the RAF's fighter force during the Battle of Britain. A Hurricane Mk. 1 is shown below.




Unfortunately, the Hurricane's old-fashioned construction meant that it could not be improved to any great extent. It was effectively obsolescent for first-line interception duties (particularly against later German fighters) from 1941 onwards. It was relegated to ground-attack and sea strike duties and second-line air defense until it finally went out of production in 1944. It was succeeded by the all-metal Typhoon and Tempest.

However, the Spitfire's all-metal construction proved suitable for growth and development throughout the war, resulting in no less than 54 different versions (Marks and sub-Marks) of this aircraft. From the earliest standard production model to the last the Spitfire's loaded (i.e. combat) weight would increase by 67%, from 5,935 to 9,900 pounds; its engine power by 131%, from 1,030 to 2,375 horsepower; its maximum speed by 25%, from 367 to 457 mph; its rate of climb by 124%, from 2,175 to 4,880 feet per minute; and its combat range (on internal fuel alone) by 36%, from 425 to 580 miles. Specialized versions such as photographic reconnaissance models would exceed some of these figures very considerably.

Sadly, R. J. Mitchell would not live to see the extraordinary success of his brainchild. He died of cancer in 1937.

At first the Spitfire's all-metal construction caused amazement among service personnel. As Jeffrey Quill, Supermarine's chief test pilot, observed in 1936:

. . . I had to land [the prototype Spitfire] at Tangmere, which was the home of 1 and 43 Squadrons equipped with the Hawker Fury - a lovely little biplane fighter. I taxied in to the tarmac and shut down the engine, and a crowd of pilots and airmen immediately gathered round to examine this strange new beast. I took off my helmet and had begun to shed my Sutton harness and parachute straps when a strange sound came from the rear fuselage. It was a sort of high-frequency hammering noise, as sometimes produced by ancient domestic hot-water systems, and it considerably startled me. I leant out of the cockpit and looked towards the tail in some alarm, and there I saw a crowd of airmen all tapping on the metal fuselage with their knuckles. It was the first time they had ever encountered a metal-skinned aeroplane!

The prototype Spitfire, registration K5054, is shown below. It first flew on March 6th, 1936, and would be followed by well over 22,000 siblings and descendants.




While on the subject of construction, the fabric-covered ailerons and elevators in early versions of the Spitfire would lead to some interesting problems. A former apprentice at the Supermarine Works, Peter Weston, was involved with the production testing of aircraft before delivery to squadrons during the Battle of Britain. He remarked:

The pilots would taxi out from the apron onto the grass and take off in almost any direction regardless of the wind factor. The duration of the tests were normally about 20 minutes. Meanwhile I would be standing about 50 feet or so from the apron, on the grass area with a pot of dope and paint brush in hand along with fabric patches. A Spitfire would land and taxi to me and the pilot point to the ailerons or to the elevators and . . . often to both. During the tests the aircraft [were] dived to around 400 mph and this sometimes cause[d] the fabric on the ailerons and elevators to be ripped, so I, while [the] engine was running would have to dash around, put dope over the area of the rip, put a patch of fabric on and dope over it again, the dope dried almost immediately. I would give the thumbs up sign and off they would go at full throttle, tail up almost immediately, and airborne.

Such problems were overcome with the introduction of metal-skinned ailerons and elevators during 1941, which also considerably improved the aircraft's handling at high speeds.

The first production model of the Spitfire was the Mark IA. This had a Merlin II or III engine producing 1,030 horsepower and was armed with eight .303-inch (7.62mm.) Browning machine-guns, four in each wing. Initially a two-blade wooden fixed-pitch propeller was fitted (as seen on the prototype above), but a three-bladed variable-pitch unit was rapidly developed to better use the power of the engine. The Mark IB had a slightly modified wing, initially fitted with two 20mm. cannon and later with two cannon and four Browning .303 machine-guns.

The Mark II Spitfire was essentially the same as the Mark I - the designation referred to a slightly modified design to be manufactured at the brand-new Castle Bromwich factory (interior view shown below) erected to mass-produce the Spitfire.




The first Mark II's were produced there in June 1940. It had a Merlin XII engine producing 1,175 horsepower. The Mark IIA (shown below) had eight machine-guns, and the Mark IIB two cannon and four machine-guns. Up to and during the Battle of Britain virtually all Spitfires were armed with eight machine-guns: only after the Battle did cannon-armed Spitfires become common. The cannon were a huge improvement over the small-caliber machine-guns, offering greater effective range and a much greater impact on target. Eventually the later Marks of Spitfires would dispense with machine-guns altogether and be armed with four 20mm. cannon.




The first production Spitfires entered service with 19 Squadron on August 4th, 1938. By the outbreak of World War II on September 3rd, 1939, the RAF had 306 Spitfires in service, equipping ten squadrons. A further 71 were in reserve and 2,000 more had been ordered. Very few Spitfires were sent to France during the first months of World War II, simply because there were so few of them in service. They were retained for home defense while the more numerous Hurricanes were despatched to France.

During the so-called "Phoney War" between September 1939 and the Blitzkrieg of May 1940, a remarkable Australian, Sidney Cotton (who qualifies for a full Weekend Wings article in his own right - I'll write it in due course), managed to wheedle two of the very scarce Spitfires from Air Chief Marshal Dowding, Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command. At the time Cotton was establishing the first professional Photographic Reconnaissance unit in the RAF. He noted:

We took out the guns and gun fittings and got rid of all excess weight, we filled in the gun holes with metal plates, we stopped up all cracks with plaster of Paris and we polished the external surfaces into a hard, sleek gloss. In this way we increased the speed of these two Spitfires from 360 to 396 mph . . . [He also installed a 29-gallon auxiliary fuel tank.] . . . by the end of October [1939] I had two aircraft capable of a cruising speed of close on 400 mph with a range of 1,250 miles at 30,000 feet, fitted with the best photographic equipment I could get.

These two reconnaissance Spitfires performed very well, taking photographs of enemy positions that could not be obtained by any other aircraft (those that tried suffered severe losses). They flew too high and too fast to be easily intercepted, and had the speed to run away from any pursuing fighter of the day. They were the precursors of many PR (Photographic Reconnaissance) models of the Spitfire, both converted from fighters and factory-produced, that would total in excess of a thousand aircraft by the end of World War II. I'll cover the PR variants in more detail in the next part of this series on the Spitfire.

When the Blitzkrieg exploded in May 1940, the RAF squadrons in France found themselves overwhelmed by massive German superiority in aircraft numbers - and, all too often, in aircraft performance as well. The Hurricane could barely hold its own against the faster Messerschmitt Bf 109E.

This Bf 109E flew in the Battle of Britain. It landed
at a RAF airfield in November 1940 and was captured.
It is today on display at RAF Hendon in England.

As the Allied armies retreated before the German onslaught the British Expeditionary Force congregated at Dunkirk in northern France, from where a famous and remarkably successful evacuation was conducted. Spitfire squadrons were thrown into battle to keep the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, at a distance from Dunkirk. They achieved considerable success: but enough German aircraft got through and bombed the evacuation site to cause considerable resentment among the troops, who could not see the RAF fighting many miles away. The RAF lost 474 aircraft in this endeavour compared to only 132 for the Luftwaffe.

The Battle of Britain followed from July to October 1940. The story is so well-known that I won't repeat it here in any detail. Suffice it to say that the RAF fighter pilots fought the Luftwaffe to a standstill in one of the most pivotal and crucial battles ever fought in any war at any time. If the Luftwaffe had succeeded in gaining air superiority, Germany would have invaded England and the subsequent course of World War II would have been very different. However, the RAF held the line and the invasion was first postponed, then cancelled. As Winston Churchill said of the RAF fighter pilots, "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."

The Spitfire played a crucial role in the Battle of Britain. Tactics were developed so that whenever possible the faster Spitfires took on the German escorting fighters, while the slower, more maneuverable Hurricanes attacked the German bombers. Famously, Luftwaffe fighter commander Adolf Galland was so enraged by Hermann Goering's poor tactics and strategy that he demanded that his squadrons be equipped with Spitfires. RAF losses were heavy, but aircraft were quickly replaced by the rapidly-expanding factories. Aircraft never ran short during the Battle. However, the loss of skilled, experienced pilots was another matter. Many replacement pilots entered line squadrons only to be shot down within days (sometimes within hours) because their training and experience were woefully inadequate for a combat environment. It would take the RAF a year or more after the Battle to rebuild a cadre of sufficiently experienced pilots, particularly in leadership positions.

The video below shows the only Spitfire still in flying condition that fought in the Battle of Britain. It's a Mark IIA from the Castle Bromwich factory, accepted into RAF service in August 1940, and is today part of the RAF's Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight. The music in the first part of the video, before the flying demonstration, is from the film "Battle Of Britain".





The Battle of Britain marked the end of the beginning for the Spitfire. It had proven itself to be one of the finest combat aircraft in existence: but more advanced enemy aircraft were on the horizon, and it would have to grow to meet the new challenges ahead. The story of how it did so (with enormous success) will be told in the next Weekend Wings.

Peter

As I get older, this becomes less funny . . .

. . . but I still laugh at it. Hat-tip to Mike B. for e-mailing it to me.







Peter

Some interesting court cases

I've had a few giggles reading about some interesting court cases this week.

First, from Macedonia, we hear of a bear convicted for stealing honey and damaging a bee-keeper's hives.

"I tried to distract the bear with lights and music because I heard bears are afraid of that," Zoran Kiseloski told top-selling daily Dnevnik after the year-long case of the bear vs. the beekeeper ended in the beekeeper's favour.

"So I bought a generator, lit up the area and put on songs of (Serbian 'turbo-folk' star) Ceca."

Unfortunately, the generator ran out of fuel, and the bear came back once peace and quiet was restored. The sympathetic court duly convicted the nameless bear and fined him 140,000 denars (about $3,500) in compensation for the damage he'd caused. No word on the bear's reaction . . . and since he wasn't in court and (presumably) can't read about his conviction, I daresay he won't be paying the damages!

Next, we have The Case Of The Bulletproof Amulet. A court in the United Arab Emirates sentenced a man to six months in prison after he tried to sell a piece of onyx for $500 million.

The 52-year-old Yemeni had advertised the “magic stone” in an Arabic newspaper, telling of its unique bulletproof properties. He claimed he had put the onyx on sheep as a test and the stone’s superpowers had allowed the animals to live.

At this point I'd have been suggesting to the defendant that poor marksmanship, rather than his amulet, was responsible for the sheep's good fortune . . . but wait, there's more.

In a lively court case, the guilty man’s lawyer asked the judge to allow a test to be carried out, where the defendant would have worn the onyx and been shot at to test its powers. The judge refused.

What a spoilsport that judge was! They could have put that on reality TV and made a fortune!

Finally, I'm sure you've heard of Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves . . . but what about Chrysler And The Forty Thousand Coat-Hangers? (Hat-tip to the Mad Rocket Scientist for spotting this one first.)

This trial has produced some of the finest repartee I've ever read about (in a court-room, at any rate). It's nice to meet a criminal with a sense of humor. Let the courtroom record show what I mean.

Counsel: What is your name?

Chrysler: Chrysler. Arnold Chrysler.

Counsel: Is that your own name?

Chrysler: Whose name do you think it is?

Counsel: I am just asking if it is your name.

Chrysler: And I have just told you it is. Why do you doubt it?

Counsel: It is not unknown for people to give a false name in court.

Chrysler: Which court?

Counsel: This court.

Chrysler: What is the name of this court?

Counsel: This is No 5 Court.

Chrysler: No, that is the number of this court. What is the name of this court?

Counsel: It is quite immaterial what the name of this court is!

Chrysler: Then perhaps it is immaterial if Chrysler is really my name.

Counsel: No, not really, you see because...

Judge: Mr Lovelace?

Counsel: Yes, m'lud?

Judge: I think Mr Chrysler is running rings round you already. I would try a new line of attack if I were you.

Counsel: Thank you, m'lud.

Chrysler: And thank you from ME, m'lud. It's nice to be appreciated.

Judge: Shut up, witness.

Chrysler: Willingly, m'lud. It is a pleasure to be told to shut up by you. For you, I would...

Judge: Shut up, witness. Carry on, Mr Lovelace.

Counsel: Now, Mr Chrysler – for let us assume that that is your name – you are accused of purloining in excess of 40,000 hotel coat hangers.

Chrysler: I am.

Counsel: Can you explain how this came about?

Chrysler: Yes. I had 40,000 coats which I needed to hang up.

Counsel: Is that true?

Chrysler: No.

Counsel: Then why did you say it?

Chrysler: To attempt to throw you off balance.

Counsel: Off balance?

Chrysler: Certainly. As you know, all barristers seek to undermine the confidence of any hostile witness, or defendant. Therefore it must be equally open to the witness, or defendant, to try to shake the confidence of a hostile barrister.

Counsel: On the contrary, you are not here to indulge in cut and thrust with me. You are only here to answer my questions.

Chrysler: Was that a question?

Counsel: No.

Chrysler: Then I can't answer it.

Judge: Come on, Mr Lovelace! I think you are still being given the run-around here. You can do better than that. At least, for the sake of the English bar, I hope you can.

Counsel: Yes, m'lud. Now, Mr Chrysler, perhaps you will describe what reason you had to steal 40,000 coat hangers?

Chrysler: Is that a question?

Counsel: Yes.

Chrysler: It doesn't sound like one. It sounds like a proposition which doesn't believe in itself. You know – "Perhaps I will describe the reason I had to steal 40,000 coat hangers... Perhaps I won't... Perhaps I'll sing a little song instead..."

Judge: In fairness to Mr Lovelace, Mr Chrysler, I should remind you that barristers have an innate reluctance to frame a question as a question. Where you and I would say, "Where were you on Tuesday?", they are more likely to say, "Perhaps you could now inform the court of your precise whereabouts on the day after that Monday?". It isn't, strictly, a question, and it is not graceful English but you must pretend that it is a question and then answer it, otherwise we will be here for ever. Do you understand?

Chrysler: Yes, m'lud.

Judge: Carry on, Mr Lovelace.

Counsel: Mr Chrysler, why did you steal 40,000 hotel coat hangers, knowing as you must have that hotel coat hangers are designed to be useless outside hotel wardrobes?

Chrysler: Because I build and sell wardrobes which are specially designed to take nothing but hotel coat hangers.

I have a feeling the case was only going to go downhill from there . . .

*gigglesnort!*

Peter

Geek alert #2: Not an insect from a neighboring galaxy

The Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program has produced many advanced technologies . . . but I think none are stranger-looking than this.




It's the so-called Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS) being developed for F-35 pilots. The developers claim (with a straight face):

The HMDS provides a range of information symbology, including off axis targeting and cueing, day/night infra-red imagery, and flight information, directly onto the inside of the helmet visor. In addition, the HMDS incorporates a virtual head up display (HUD), which enables information currently restricted to forward line of sight in a cockpit panel mounted system, to be viewed wherever the pilot is looking; the F35 will in fact be the first tactical fighter jet to fly without a conventional HUD in the cockpit.

Others describe it somewhat differently. In an article titled "Die Laughing" Aviation Week correspondent Douglas Barrie points out:

Advanced helmet mounted sighting systems may offer a great deal, including possibly saving your life in a dogfight, but they can make the wearer look like an extra from Plan Nine From Outer Space. Either that or it’s the love-child of a relationship between a Dalek and a Cyberman, for anybody who’s ever seen the British cult science-fiction show Dr. Who.

Or, alternatively, it may remind you of the need for caution when operating teleportation machines in an environment containing common household pests.

*gigglesnort!*

Peter

Geek alert #1: Pi in the sky

You may not be aware of the significance of the date, but March 14th is Pi Day: the celebration (?) of the mathematical constant Pi, which represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The date, of course, is derived from the value of the constant. Pi to two decimal places is 3.14, hence the third month and the fourteenth day.

This endless number has been the source of endless fascination to mathematicians ever since Euclid first worked out his system of geometry. Archimedes was the first to give an approximate value to the constant, remarkably accurate considering that mathematics was still in its infancy at the time. (When Roman soldiers invaded his home in Syracuse, threatening damage to the circles he used for his calculations, he rushed towards them crying "Do not touch my circles!" They promptly killed him . . . a Pi-teous end if ever I heard of one.)

As the BBC points out:

Pi, more commonly known by the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet, is the most widely-known mathematical constant in the world. Even long after people forget their school lessons, they still recognise the symbol.

Pi conjures a sense of mystery, so the symbol makes regular appearances in popular culture - it's the secret code in both Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain and the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Net.

And while pi is a number, its importance goes far beyond simple geometry. Pi represents a deep universal mystery - how is it that something this basic, this fundamental to maths and science, could turn out to be so incredibly difficult to pin down?

In fact, it's literally impossible to know what pi is, because its digits rattle off into infinity.

While there are many infinitely long numbers in maths, pi is the only one in which an infinitely simple idea - the circle - unfolds into an infinitely complex value. This paradox drives many people to distraction.

The value of Pi has been calculated again and again over the years. The most recent attempt by Japanese scientists in 2002 (using supercomputers, of course) calculated it to 1.24 trillion decimal places . . . and, of course, since it's an infinite number, we'll never know its full length. Many have memorized it to 50 or 100 decimal places. However, this is unnecessary. It's been calculated that Pi to 29 decimal places is detailed enough to measure anything in the known universe to a scientifically acceptable level of accuracy.

(Of course, there are those who object to such complexity. Famously, in 1897 Rep. Taylor I. Record introduced House Bill 246 in the Indiana House of Representatives to redefine the value of Pi and the area of a circle. The House passed it, but wiser heads prevailed in the State Senate, where it died. If it had been implemented, every building subsequently erected in the state of Indiana would have collapsed due to faulty calculations in its design. Read the article at the link for a good insight into legislative ignorance and stupidity.)

What really amazes me is the effort some people put into memorizing the value of Pi in incredible detail. There's an art known as Piphilology which consists of developing mnemonic techniques to help remember the constant to ridiculous levels of detail. Some devotee thought up "Pi-ems", which are poems where every word represents one of the digits of Pi in terms of the number of letters in the word. The famous Cadaeic Cadenza is a well-known example.

Akira Haraguchi is said to be the world record holder, reciting (from memory) Pi to 100,000 decimal places in 2006. It's said that he "views the memorisation of Pi as 'the religion of the universe' . . . and as an expression of his lifelong quest for eternal truth".

OK. If you say so. "Pi in the sky" sounds more like it to me . . .

There's even a remarkable musical rendition of Pi. Click here if you're in the mood to listen. It's actually quite fascinating . . . although one does want to know "Why?"!

Peter

Home delivery our specialty

From the Defense Department comes this news release of the bombing of an Al Qaeda compound in Iraq:

WASHINGTON, March 11, 2008 – Three buildings that had served as an al Qaeda detention and torture facility were destroyed yesterday by a U.S. military bomber.

A B-1B Lancer bomber used six 500-pound, global positioning system-guided bombs to level the compound located in Zambraniyah, a village south of Baghdad, according to officials.

What impressed me was the picture provided. Click it for a full-screen version: and when that's displayed, click it again for a high-resolution image.




Notice the birds taking wing at the bottom left-hand corner of the picture? And the bomb just above the black cloud of smoke? Now that's what I call stop-action photography!

(And the results doubtless amount to stop-terrorist technology!)

Peter

This guy obviously has no need for that hand

Via the Daily Mail comes a report of a somewhat less-than-successful test of an anti-shark device . . . and a picture of an idiot intrepid boatman patting a passing shark. (Click it for a larger view.)

This is the amazing moment a man pats a monstrous Great White Shark off the coast of Australia after attracting it with chunks of bait.

The image was originally taken to demonstrate the powers of the Shark Shield, an electronic device designed to keep sharks away from surfers.

But after one Great White bit right through such a device, and in a separate incident a student died in a horrifying shark attack, scientists began to wonder if the devices do not repel sharks so much as they attract them.

Guys, based on that picture and the one below, I can only say "Wonder no more!"




Remind me not to go boating with these gentlemen next time I'm in Australia . . .

Peter

Berkeley, Code Pink and hatred exposed

I'm sure many of you have read (hopefully with the same disgust and nausea that I felt) of the pusillanimous, brain-dead, dontopedalogical* attitudes displayed by the City Council of Berkeley, CA and the organization known as Code Pink towards a US Marine recruiting station in that city. If you haven't, a quick Internet search will soon tell you all you need to know.

Lest the above fail to make my own position clear, I think the US Marines are the finest large-scale organization of fighting men and women in the world, bar none. They've fought and died so that we might live in freedom in this great nation, and they deserve our respect, gratitude and admiration. Thus, when I see attitudes (and actions) like those displayed in Berkeley I tend to get a red mist in front of my eyes and long for simpler days, when tarring and feathering was still an option. (In the case of the Berkeley moonbats I'd add chili oil and sulphuric acid to the tar, just to drive the point home.)

Be that as it may, the Daily Show has a tongue-in-cheek look at these fatheads. Enjoy.





(Hat-tip to Diamond Mair on the US Marines Forum for the link.)

In related news, a bunch of moonbats calling themselves the Pittsburgh Organizing Group are planning a protest against a recruiting station. I absolutely refuse to pollute my blog with a direct link to these idiots (you can do a search on the organization name if you wish), but here's what they say in their announcement:

On Wednesday, March 19, POG will be holding a torch-lit march to a modern day castle of abominations—our local military recruiting station. If the station remains open, we intend to evict it and everything inside of it, occupy the location, and transform it into something useful for the community. We'll also be bringing a movable cage in which to confine military recruiters until they no longer pose a danger to our friends and neighbors.

I'd like to thank these whackos for telling us ahead of time what they're planning. May I suggest to any veterans in the Pittsburgh area who are reading this that the time has come for action? We can't ask our servicemen and -women to act, as they'd doubtless get into some sort of trouble with their Commanding Officers for not acting in the spirit of political correctness: but I suspect that we veterans are less bothered by that little fact.

I'd love to see a group of suitably prepared veterans standing by near each and every recruiting center in the Pittsburgh area next Wednesday, ready for action. If the Pittsburgh Organizing Group should show up . . . well, guys and gals, let's show them how much veterans appreciate their attitudes and actions. I hereby undertake to fly up to Pittsburgh myself, at my own expense, to join the fun and games if such a group can be organized, and I invite other veteran readers to do likewise.

While we're at it, why not show recruiters in that city how we feel about them with suitable gifts? I suggest chocolates, donuts and similar edibles might go down well - and in order to prove to them that we're not the opposition (and that the food's not poisoned) we could take coffee along and eat and drink with the guys and girls inside. That would put us in a very convenient position to deal with "intruders in the wire", so to speak.

Peter

* The term 'dontopedalogy' is derived from the Greek 'donto', meaning 'mouth', and 'pedal', meaning 'feet'. Basically, it means that every time a person opens his mouth he puts his foot in that orifice.

Animal caring of a less successful nature

After reading about Moko the dolphin (see the post below), I was amused to find this report in the Daily Mail of the unrequited love (or is that lust?) of a frog for a duck - of the rubber variety.

(Click the picture for a larger view.)

Mr Coleman, a charity worker, keeps the toy duck in his 9ft by 6ft pond to make sure ice does not completely cover the surface in the winter.

“It's been in there for a few years so this has probably happened quite a lot without me ever noticing before,” he said.

“All my friends think it's a great picture - for some reason it looks as if the duck is in shock.”

You can say that again!

*gigglesnort!*

Peter

Proof that caring is a universal factor

I was enthralled to read about the rescue of two stranded whales in New Zealand by a well-known dolphin, whom locals have named Moko.




The Daily Mail reports:

Time was running out for the mother whale and her calf as they lay beached on a sandbank.

Wildlife volunteers had tried four times to drag them into deeper water but four times they came back.

In such circumstances stricken whales are often humanely killed to end further suffering.

But then up bobbed Moko the dolphin - a playful creature familiar to bathers off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.

In an astonishing display of communication between species, she and the whales were heard to call to one another before she led the 12ft pygmy sperm whale and her 4ft male calf out to open sea.

The Times adds:

Mark Simmonds, director of science at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, said that bottle-nosed dolphins are renowned for their ability to empathise with humans and other animals. “The whole notion that a bottle-nose dolphin would have shown the whales the way out is completely possible,” he said.

“Dolphins have got the ability to plan, to think ahead, to persuade others to take part. They almost certainly do not have a common language with pygmy sperm whales, but they would understand that the whales would have been at risk of stranding. The first thing a dolphin does when it has a calf is to push it to the surface so it can breathe.”

. . .

Moko has become famous for her antics at Mahia, which include playing in the surf with swimmers, approaching boats to be patted and pushing kayaks through the water with her snout. Once she had assisted the whales she immediately returned to the beach to play with local residents.

Such close interaction with humans is rare among dolphins but not unknown. Mr Smith said: “She’s become isolated from her pod obviously for one reason or another, but made Mahia home just at the moment.”

I was intrigued by these reports, and did an Internet search for more information. To my delight there's a clip on YouTube of Moko swimming with humans off Mahia beach. I apologize for the irritating music in the second half of the clip (why people have to add music when it's completely unnecessary I just don't know), but it's well worth watching.





Lovely creature!

Peter

Politicians and their peccadilloes

There's a well-known joke that came to mind today.

Two men, Mike and Tom, are having a beer in the local bar. Mike points out of the window.

"You see that bridge over there, Tom? I helped build that bridge with my own hands - but do they call me Mike the bridge-builder?"

"No, Mike, they don't," Tom says sympathetically.

"And you see that roof on the school? I helped put it up. It's a fine job - but do they call me Mike the roofer?"

"No, Mike, they don't," Tom acknowledges quietly.

Mike takes a pull at his beer, scowling fiercely. "But you shag one single sheep . . . "

We laugh, of course, but there's truth in the pathos.

I was musing today about how someone can do many good things - perhaps even great things - and be completely destroyed, have his reputation trashed forever, by one mistake. The reason for my musing, of course, was the downfall of the Governor of New York State, Eliot Spitzer, through his use of prostitutes.

I don't have much in common with Governor Spitzer politically, but I'll be the first to acknowledge it's unlikely that he alone out of all the politicians in New York State (or the rest of the country, for that matter) is guilty of this offence. I'm sure many others, on both sides of the political divide, are equally guilty. Nevertheless, Governor Spitzer broke the Eleventh Commandment - "Thou shalt not be found out" - and he must now pay the price.

As a political centrist, with a streak of conservatism, a dash of pragmatism and a whiff of libertarianism in my makeup, I'm saddened whenever someone destroys his or her career through such hubris. There's a common thread running through every case: a belief (perhaps not fully articulated even to or by themselves) that they're above the law or somehow "untouchable", so that they can escape the consequences of their actions. It applies in all nations and to politicians of every stripe. Consider:

• The so-called "Profumo Affair". John Profumo was Minister of Defense in the Conservative Party government of Britain under Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. In 1963 his relationship with the prostitute Christine Keeler destroyed his career and was instrumental in the defeat of the Conservatives in the next general election. To make matters worse, Profumo lied to the House of Commons about his relationship with Keeler. His denials drew from Ms. Keeler the unforgettable. unanswerable retort, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?".
• Watergate. Richard Nixon, Republican President of the United States from 1969-1974, tried to conceal the fact that the burglary of Democratic party offices had been carried out by operatives acting on his authority. His knowledge of the scandal, and the pressure he tried to exert on public officials to ensure it remained concealed, were inexcusable. In the end, of course, it destroyed his presidency. How on earth "Tricky Dicky" believed he could get away with it I'll never understand.
• Gary Hart, Democratic presidential candidate in 1987. He countered rumours of an extra-marital affair by famously daring the news media to "follow him around". They did, and obtained photographic evidence of his infidelity. His campaign collapsed and his political career was destroyed.
• Bill Clinton, former President of the United States from 1993-2000. His well-known "Zippergate" affair with Monica Lewinsky was merely the most publicized of a whole host of ethically, morally and legally questionable and ambiguous dealings involving himself and/or his wife (for example, Whitewater, Travelgate, various sex scandals, Presidential pardons, etc.), all of which have provided fodder for gossips for many years. His famous evasion, "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is”, sickened many (including myself). It was a perfect illustration of cynical, callous, unfeeling, uncaring political expediency. All the good he may have done as President has been forever eclipsed, and his reputation forever tarnished, by his mendacity. His main legacy to this nation has been to add a large number of new terms (most notably the verb "Lewinskied") to the American political lexicon.
  

There are many other politicians and political scandals one could cite - certainly far too many to include here. If you'd like to get an overview of them through US history, see here. Governor Spitzer is merely the latest in a long, long line of politicians who thought they were above the law and immune from the consequences of their actions. In every case outlined above, and in many others, the guilty parties expressed their contrition in some form. I'm sure I'm not alone in believing that the only "contrition" any of them felt was sorrow that their sins had been exposed.

It would be nice if we would make serious efforts to elect a better class of politician . . . but that's unlikely. We've been electing rogues and scoundrels for so long that I don't see it changing anytime soon. Too many voters just don't care, or allow their partisan political leanings to override their moral judgment - and that may be the saddest thing of all.

Perhaps, deep down, most of us are like the Pharisees, prepared to stone a sinner in public when he or she is exposed (John 8:7), but secretly guilty of the same or equally grave sins ourselves. Is the cure for our political malaise to be, "Let him who is without sin cast the first ballot"?

Peter

Japanese TV stunts #2

You may remember our first look at Japanese TV stunts. Here's another.

I don't speak Japanese, but I gather that the point is for each contestant to speak a tongue-twisting phrase or sentence aloud. If he gets it right, he's golden. If he makes a mistake, a mechanical nut-slapper hits him where he lives.

The results are hilarious!





I have no idea how Japanese TV stations can get away with this sort of contest. Try doing it here in the USA and you'd have lawyers all over you!

Peter

Sled dogs around the world

As I'm sure you know, the annual Iditarod sled dog race is currently under way in Alaska. I've been following developments at its Web site and from video clips on YouTube, and it looks like a tough, gruelling year (not that they aren't all like that!).

At the same time, on the other side of the world, Sweden is hosting the World Sled Dog Championship in the tiny town of Asarna. It's rather confusing: a whole bunch of countries, cities and localities host what each claims to be the "World" sled dog championship, and there doesn't seem to be any official ruling on which is the "top dog", so to speak. I'd have to say that the Iditarod is probably the race to produce the champions. Nothing else comes close in terms of the sheer grit, stamina, courage and endurance demanded of both team and driver.

There's an interesting twist to the Swedish championships this year: a South African team has entered. When I read this, I did a double-take. I spent the first thirty-seven years of my life in South Africa. There's some winter snow on top of the taller mountains, sure: but they're precipitous, inaccessible and essentially unnavigable. Snow elsewhere, there ain't - so how on earth did South Africans get into sled dog racing?

I found the answer at Sled Dog Central. Apparently South Africans have been racing sled dogs for some years now, using wheeled "sleds" (perhaps better described as "contraptions") instead of the real thing.






It's claimed that the sled dogs can handle the heat of Africa just fine - their double coats insulate them against both heat and cold. Having experienced African heat the hard way, this is difficult for me to believe, but I'll take their word for it.

Apparently the South African competitors in Sweden couldn't bring their own sled dogs due to a six-month quarantine restriction: so they borrowed dogs from local racers and came over a month early to get used to their new doggy friends.

"There's been a lot of falling. We've spent a lot more time in the snow than on the sled, but I think we've got the hang of it now," says Cindy Foggitt, 30, who has been South Africa's sled dog racing champion for the past three years.

"The good thing is that falling on snow is like falling on the clouds compared to falling on dry land. That hurts a lot more."

I bet it does! Full marks for effort and initiative to the South African team.

Peter

What was the biggest vehicle accident ever?

I was reading news reports of this morning's huge traffic accident in Abu Dhabi. It seems that three people were killed and over 300 injured. No-one knows how many vehicles were involved (the police haven't had time to count them all yet), but judging from the photographs it may be over a hundred.






I was curious, and did an Internet search to try to learn what was the biggest car accident (i.e. largest number of vehicles involved in a single accident). To my frustration, no conclusive answer emerged.

I thought I'd put the question to my readers. Does anyone know the answer?

(Oh - in the course of my searching I did find out one interesting fact. The first recorded fatality resulting from an auto accident occurred in 1869, in Ireland. Mary Ward, "a celebrated microscopist, artist, astronomer and naturalist", fell from a "steam carriage" and died after being crushed under its iron wheels.)

Peter

Of newly-hatched officers and their ways

Sergeant Murphy posted a story about an officer cadet who got too big for his boots. It brought back memories. For anyone below the rank of, say, Lieutenant-Colonel, getting crossways with a Sergeant-Major can get interesting in a hurry, believe me.

(How do I know this, you ask? Trust me. I know this.)

Anyway, it reminded me of an incident where a bunch of too-full-of-themselves Second Lieutenants were shown the error of their ways. I thought you might like to hear about it.

Second Lieutenants (i.e. brand-spanking-new freshly-commissioned officers) are notorious for being like eager puppies: full of energy, bursting to do something - anything! - useful, but not knowing quite how to go about it (and usually unable to contain themselves in the process). That's why there are so many jokes about them.

(Q: What's the most dangerous creature in existence?
A: A Second Lieutenant with a map and a compass.

A Second Lieutenant and a Master Sergeant were using adjacent latrine facilities. When the 2nd Lt. finished he went to the sink and washed his hands. As he was doing so the MSgt came to the mirror to check that his uniform was in order. As the MSgt turned to leave, the 2nd Lt. said disapprovingly, "You know, when I went to the Officers Training Course, they taught us we should wash our hands after using the latrine." The MSgt turned slowly, glared at the 2nd Lt. and retorted, "When I went to basic training, they taught us not to piss on our hands.")

Ahem. Back to the topic.

A bunch of South African troops pulled out of Angola after an operation, tired, worn-out and ready for a rest. Unfortunately, a few newly-commissioned Second Lieutenants had arrived at the base where they were to rest up . . . and they were making nuisances of themselves. They started out by ordering the new arrivals to attend PT parade at 06h00 next morning, followed by uniform and weapons inspections, parade drill, and so on.

To a bunch of combat veterans this was absolutely ridiculous. A meeting was held to discuss the matter, and plans were hatched. The Sergeant-Major, who'd mysteriously heard about the meeting (Sergeants-Major have an uncanny ability to hear about things like that) blandly asked one of the senior NCO's to do a quick inspection of the armory and report back to him - and handed over his keys to that building for the purpose. Upon being assured that all was in order and that the inventory sheets had been adjusted matched the quantities (now) in store, he departed.

The rest got to work.

At this base, in the border area of South-West Africa (today Namibia), the officers latrine was a majestic structure. It consisted of five stalls, each with a wooden box over what we called a "long drop" (a deep hole in the ground). A large hole had been cut in the top of each box to accommodate the debris. The entire structure was roofed with thatch, and thatch sidewalls surrounded it and separated each latrine from its neighbors. (Enlisted latrines dispensed with the internal partitions.) To make the tender posteriors of the officers more comfortable, each box had been equipped with a genuine plastic toilet seat. These were cheap items that bent a bit under the weight, but served their purpose of preventing splinter injuries. (Enlisted latrines lacked the seats, of course. Presumably our posteriors were tougher than the commissioned variety.)

During the small hours of the morning, a person or persons unknown proceeded to booby-trap the officers' latrines. Each of the five stalls received a flash-bang (a training grenade making a very loud bang and a big flash) concealed in the thatch roof above it. All five were wired together in a ring-main and connected to a pressure switch. (The latter is something that looks like the letter U turned on its side. When the two prongs are pressed together they complete an electrical circuit, which fires a detonator). The pressure switch was concealed beneath the plastic toilet seat in the center cubicle.

Next morning reveille was sounded at 05h45. The Sergeant-Major (unusually, up and already dressed at so early an hour) somehow managed to detain the Major and a Captain in conversation as the eager-beaver Second Lieutenants headed for the latrine. As good fortune would have it, they'd occupied three of the stalls before a fourth entered the center cubicle and sat down.

BLAMMO!!!

The latrine roof disintegrated in a thunderous blast and a cloud of flying thatch, and the entire camp (most of whose occupants had got the word and were watching in eager anticipation) was treated to the sight of four deafened, scorched, thatch-shedding Second Lieutenants, trousers round their ankles, assets exposed to the four winds and bouncing like crazy, bunny-hopping frantically towards the air-raid trenches screaming "INCOMING! TAKE COVER!"

Several hundred soldiers collapsed in hysterics, the Major, Captain and Sergeant-Major disappeared into the former's tent (from which snorts, splutters and muffled howls of mirth were heard), and for about ten minutes any terrorists who wanted to take over the base would have been able to do so without firing a shot.

When things died down the Second Lieutenants descended upon the Major in an indignant body, demanding to know what he planned to do about this assault upon their commissioned dignity. He informed them (in concise, soldierly and unambiguous language) that he didn't plan to do a damn thing about it and that he hoped they'd learned something from the experience - because if they hadn't, he was sure that a bunch of combat veterans would be able to think up another lesson for them, one likely to be even less palatable.

We had a very peaceful time after that . . .

Peter

The biggest Easter egg?

According to the Daily Mail, Selfridges in London has come up with a monster Easter egg for chocaholics chocolate lovers.




The monster egg weighs 70 pounds and contains 168,540 calories - the recommended dietary intake (for all foods, not just chocolate) for 84 days. The egg takes four days to make and costs the equivalent of $1,000 - and they've already taken orders for four!

However, this isn't the largest edible Easter egg ever made. That honor is claimed by the Belgian town of St. Niklaas, where chocolate producer Guylian produced this monster in 2005.




It took 525 hours of work and the equivalent of 50,000 bars of chocolate to produce it. The beast weighed in at almost 4,300 pounds and stood 27 feet high - but sadly, it wasn't destined to be eaten, only for outdoor display. As a local alderman commented, "After a week outside in all weather conditions, I don't think it would be very tasteful."

The largest Easter egg ever made (albeit inedible) is claimed to be the Pysanka, or Ukrainian easter egg, in Vegreville, Alberta, Canada.




This monster took 12,000 man-hours to construct. It was erected in 1974 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It's built to withstand the 100mph winds that blow across Canada's prairies from time to time. So far, so good.

So much for Easter eggs - but what about the Easter egg hunt? It's claimed that the largest Easter egg hunt ever held took place at Stone Mountain, Georgia, USA in 2006. A total of 301,000 eggs were hidden for children to find. The number of participants is unknown, but as the photograph below shows, there were plenty of them!




And it looks like a good time was had by all.




Sadly, I'm unlikely to end up with one of those Selfridges eggs this easter . . .

Peter

If music be the food of love . . .

A British newspaper report tells us that an enraged gunman in Thailand shot dead eight of his neighbors, including his brother-in-law, after their constant, repeated karaoke versions of pop songs (including John Denver's "Country Roads") drove him into a frenzy.

Needless to say, one can't condone murder for any reason . . . but I've been driven to distraction by idiots playing music over and over again (and far too loudly). I'd imagine that drunken renditions of pop songs in the karaoke style would be enough to drive me over the edge, too!

I'm not sure about John Denver, though. I don't mind his music. However, if it comes to anything remotely resembling rap, I'd be sorely tempted to head for the gun safe!

Peter

Weekend Wings #10: Flying The Hump

Air transport today - whether civilian or military - is a complex, seamless web of people, machinery, locations and infrastructure. We take it for granted that we can ship anything anywhere in the world within a day or two, provided only that it can be broken down into loads that will fit onto an aircraft.

It wasn't always so easy.

World War II was the catalyst in developing our modern air infrastructure. During the war huge networks of intercontinental air travel were developed: new methods of freight handling and mass passenger transport were devised: and the experience gained by tens of thousands of service personnel formed the foundation for the incredible expansion of aviation after the war. Its effects are with us to this day.

The United States was unquestionably the world leader in these developments. The Air Transport Command (ATC) was established in 1942, drawing most of the leaders of US airlines and many of their pilots, mechanics and other personnel into uniform. The ATC set up immense air routes across the Atlantic and Pacific to ferry aircraft, convey urgent passengers and freight, evacuate seriously wounded personnel for treatment in rear-area hospitals, and a host of other purposes. After the war it would conduct the Berlin Airlift and become the Military Air Transport Service. Today known as the Air Mobility Command of the US Air Force (USAF), its mission continues.

The single most challenging, demanding and difficult task of ATC during World War II was to supply the armies of Chiang Kai-Shek in China. Japan had occupied almost all of the China coast, as well as Burma. Overland access was impossible to begin with. In order to supply the Chinese armies, the small but highly effective air element commanded by General Chennault (known to history as the Flying Tigers) and, in time, the US Army Air Force's B-29 bombers, an air bridge had to be established between India and China.

The first problem was getting aircraft to India. They flew the so-called South Atlantic Air Route, flying from Miami in Florida, via Trinidad in the Caribbean, to the port of Natal on Brazil's Atlantic coast. From there they made the long flight across the South Atlantic Ocean to Dakar in Senegal or Accra in the Gold Coast (today Ghana), then flew across Africa using the well-established Takoradi Air Route (described in the previous Weekend Wings) to Khartoum in the Sudan. From there they flew to Aden in Yemen, then along the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and across the Arabian Sea to Karachi (then in India, now part of Pakistan). From there they flew South-East to Delhi and Calcutta, then North-East to the Arunachal Pradesh province of India, the base for the China airlift. (Click the map for a larger view.) The area of the airlift's operations is within the black circle from North-East India to South-West China.




The China airlift was complicated by many factors. First was simply getting the goods there to be airlifted! They came by sea to India around the southern tip of Africa and, after the conclusion of the African campaign in 1943, through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal. German submarines sank many of the ships. Those that survived sailed to ports on India's West Coast and to Calcutta. From the ports their cargoes were placed in rail cars and made their slow, lumbering way to the airlift bases, where they were re-packaged for air transport.

The second major problem was that the Japanese had occupied most of Burma. Their fighter aircraft could (and did) intercept any transports trying to fly directly across Burma to China, the most logical and feasible route. This meant that the aircraft had to fly a curved course, heading North-East into the Himalaya mountain range to avoid interception then turning South-East to Kunming or continuing East and North-East to other Chinese cities. The Himalayas were a huge obstacle to the aircraft of the day, which couldn't climb high enough to cross over them (particularly when heavily loaded). They had to fly through valleys and past tall mountain peaks - and when the weather was poor and they couldn't see very well, this was an enormously hazardous undertaking. The satellite image below gives you some idea of the terrain.




Viewed from the side, the air route through the Himalayas resembled a camel's hump. That's how the airlift got its famous (or infamous) name - The Hump.

The map and satellite image below show the problems clearly. The map illustrates how much of Burma was Japanese-occupied (the red-shaded portion), and how this forced the airlift to fly around the interception range of their fighters. The satellite image shows the incredibly rugged terrain, with the airlift course overlaid to show how the mountains formed a major obstacle.






Added to the problem was the immense difficulty of getting aviation gasoline, spare parts and vital equipment to the airlift bases (and from there to China to service and refuel the aircraft for the return trip to India). The Hump was at the end of a supply line over ten thousand miles long, competing for supplies with every other major US effort in the war - the Atlantic, Africa, Europe, England, the Pacific war, and so on. Initially the supplies for The Hump were a mere trickle compared to what was needed. Even when they arrived in India they had to compete for rail space with the goods to be transported by the aircraft. Small wonder that there was a perennial problem with maintenance and aircrew morale. It would be near the end of the war in 1944/45 before these problems would be solved.

The weather can only be described as ghastly. In India, the monsoon season brought torrential rains (usually over 200 inches in four months) that turned airfields into quagmires. Attempts to reinforce the runways with so-called Marsden Matting or pierced steel plating (PSP) were not very successful: the aircraft were so heavily laden that they simply drove the PSP deep into the mud, where it vanished without trace. Eventually tarmac and concrete runways were constructed, but this was only towards the end of the airlift - there simply wasn't enough space to bring up the building materials on the already overcrowded railway network, and not enough labor to do the construction work.

Outside the monsoon season the dry, unbearably hot Indian summer took its toll. Dust got into the aircraft engines despite their filters and ruined them. One of the first commanders of The Hump, Colonel Edward Alexander, reported:

"Except on rainy days, maintenance work cannot be accomplished because shade temperatures of from 100 degrees to 130 degrees Fahrenheit render all metal exposed to the sun so hot that it cannot be touched by the human hand without causing second-degree burns".

Insects, wild animals, mosquitoes bearing malaria, the threat of disease from polluted water sources, and the sheer drudgery of incessant labor against enormous odds made morale a constant problem.

On the air route to China the challenges were immense. The need to fly through the Himalayas was bad enough, but bad weather, low clouds, fog, very strong winds and violent turbulence added to the problems and caused many casualties. If pilots made it through one day, they knew they had to do it all over again on the way back - and then again, and again, and again. If they ran into mechanical difficulties there was nowhere to make an emergency landing, due to the mountainous terrain. The crews had to bale out and pray - they would be hundreds of miles from help and it was impossible to reach them in the mountains. If a crew strayed too far South, Japanese fighters were waiting to shoot them down.

What about the aircraft? Three types of plane initially flew The Hump. The first was the well-known C-47 Skytrain, the military version of the DC-3 Dakota airliner. This was a very reliable and serviceable aircraft, but had a limited cargo capacity and could not fly very high when fully loaded - a potentially lethal handicap in the Himalayas. Nevertheless, the aircraft gave good service.




The second was the Curtiss C-46 Commando. This was twin-engined, like the C-47, but much larger. It could lift up to 12,000 pounds of cargo and its engines (2,000 horsepower each as opposed to the 1,200 horsepower of the C-47's engines) were powerful enough to get it to usable altitudes through the mountains. However, the engines were less reliable, causing many problems when spare parts ran short, and the aircraft had other vulnerabilities such as a tendency for gasoline to leak out of the fuel lines and pool in the fuselage at the wing root. This could be easily ignited by enemy fire or a stray spark, and was one reason why the C-46 was never a successful combat aircraft in Europe. Also, the more powerful engines consumed aviation gasoline very quickly. Very often when flying in heavy weather or against strong headwinds fuel would run low, causing many accidents.




The third transport was the Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express and its cousin, the C-109, which was a fuel transport with large gasoline tanks in the fuselage. These were modified versions of the B-24 Liberator bomber, with four powerful engines. They could carry a useful load, but had many problems. Chief among these was their sensitivity to center of gravity. A bomber such as the B-24 has its bomb bay in a fixed position, making it easy to design the aircraft around that center of gravity. A transport aircraft can have cargo loaded anywhere in the fuselage, making it vitally important to balance the load so that the aircraft is stable. Since the C-87 shared the B-24's center of gravity design, it meant that any instability in the load would make the aircraft very difficult to handle.




The C-87 was also particularly susceptible to icing in bad weather (a defect shared with the B-24 bomber). In the Himalayas, where icing was a common problem, this caused many accidents. Furthermore, the fuel lines crossed inside the crew and cargo compartment - and often leaked. This threatened to gas the flight crew with the fumes from the fuel and posed a major fire hazard. Finally, although almost 300 C-87's were built as new aircraft, many others were converted in the field from B-24 bombers. Those selected for conversion were mostly older aircraft that had seen hard use - after all, bomber commanders wanted to keep their newer aircraft for themselves. This meant that the converted bombers were often slow, underpowered and had poor serviceability due to being worn out.

These three types of aircraft provided most of the airlift on The Hump until 1944. It was only then that the new C-54 Skymaster became available. This purpose-built freight aircraft was superb, and could handle conditions on The Hump with ease. By 1945 it had taken over most of the flying - just in time for the end of the war.




The initial airlift effort was miserably inadequate, flying only a few hundred tons every month. By the end of 1943 the effort had expanded to the point where up to 10,000 tons per month was being transported, but at an incredible cost in lives and lost aircraft. Clearly something had to be done.

The US Army Air Force sent in General William H. Tunner to take charge of the airlift. During 1944 he succeeded in revolutionizing the operation. He stabilized personnel turnover, introduced regular maintenance schedules (which proved so effective that the US Air Force uses them to this day), and brought in the C-54. He insisted on fighter escorts for his transport flights, thus enabling them to fly further to the South and avoid the worst of the Himalayas, and also publicized the enormous efforts being put into The Hump, gaining for pilots and crews the admiration and respect of the rest of the world. This greatly improved morale - previously the Hump personnel had deemed themselves forgotten and ignored.

Despite all obstacles, and particularly under the leadership of General Tunner, The Hump turned out to be a success. It's estimated that from May 1942 to September 1945 some 650,000 tons of cargo and 33,400 personnel were transported in both directions, requiring about 1.5 million flight hours. These figures would not be exceeded until the Berlin Airlift of 1948. General Tunner would lead that operation too, and the principles he established on The Hump to handle massive airlift operations are in use to this day.

However, this success came at a heavy price. A total of 468 US crews and 46 Chinese crews died flying The Hump - more than 1,500 personnel. During some months more than 50% of the planes that departed never made it back. The casualty rate was at times as bad or worse than that of the bomber crews of the US Eighth Air Force assaulting Germany - but without the publicity and medals that the bomber crews received.

So, next time you take an airline flight or see a military transport aircraft flying overhead, remember those who flew The Hump. They paved the way (all too often with their lives) for the convenient, flexible, global air transport networks of today.

Peter

They make 'em tough in Aussie!

I enjoy amusing foreign television advertisements - both real and imagined. This one isn't real, but is a spoof advert showing Australian men as they are reputed to be (or do they imagine themselves this way?). It's not exactly safe for work, so if you're not watching it in private, turn the volume down.





Peter

The undoing of gobbledygook

I'm sure we've all run into examples of gobbledygook from time to time. Forms to be filled out that are impossible to understand: regulations that are impossible to follow because no-one can figure out what they mean: academic theses, dissertations and articles that are incomprehensible to all except those with advanced degrees in Martian circumlocution: and so on.

Well, help is at hand from the Plain English Campaign. Their purpose in life is to help individuals and organizations, public and private, to clarify the language they use in communication by getting rid of excessive verbiage and making things as simple as possible.

I particularly like their awards - although recipients may feel differently, of course. The "Golden Bull" award goes to the worst examples of written language. In the beginning recipients were sent a pound of tripe through the mail, but this posed obvious problems of hygiene and sanitation: so the award was changed to a small statue of a bull. As an example, in 2000 the Luton Education Authority won a "Golden Bull" award for describing one of its activities as:

"a multi-agency project catering for holistic diversionary provision to young people for positive action linked to the community safety strategy and the pupil referral unit."

In case you were wondering, they were talking about go-kart lessons for kids.

There's also the "Foot In Mouth" award for public figures who make baffling pronouncements. Famously, former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld won this award in 2003 for the following statement:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know."

Oh, absolutely. Quite so, old chap. I couldn't agree more. Hear, hear!

(What was that again???)

If you've ever despaired of such language (or if you want to make your own writing simpler and more readable) click on the link to their Web site and spend a while browsing. The award-winners of years past are hugely amusing, and you'll learn a lot.

On the other hand, I have a lot of fun responding to gobbledygook with my own version of it. If I receive an obfuscatory, verbiage-ridden communication, I send one back in precisely the same form. An excellent resource for such responses is the Web Economy Bulls*** Generator. This magnificent tool generates meaningless drivel with the click of a mouse button. Some examples:

"Transition impactful metrics"

"Deliver cross-media experiences"

"Benchmark front-end technologies"

"Synergize frictionless deliverables"

"Maximize intuitive platforms"

"Visualize bricks-and-clicks intermediaries"

Using the above, if I wanted to say that I'm writing this blog in order to convey my thoughts to my readers in the hope of interesting them, it would look like this:

"I visualize bricks-and-clicks intermediaries in order to synergize frictionless deliverables using benchmark front-end technologies so that I may deliver cross-media experiences to my readers and maximize their intuitive platforms."

I love this tool! I didn't have to hunt for any of the phrases I used in that sentence - the Generator is "generic" enough that almost all its output is usable "as is". Click on the link and try it for yourself. If you're ever at a loss for how to respond to the latest politically-correct verbal diarrhea, it never fails!

Peter

A tree surgeon . . . NOT!

Following my rather sad previous post, I thought a bit of levity might lighten the atmosphere - so here it is.

This video was taken in South Africa, where an enterprising soul decided to pull down a palm tree using a pickup truck.

Unfortunately . . . well, why spoil it? You can see the results for yourself.





*gigglesnort!*

Hat-tip to David Z. for the e-mail.

Peter

The tragic reality of evil

It's been a sad day for me.

A good friend, one whom I respect greatly, drew my attention to a court case in Australia.

Two lesbian lovers became sexually aroused while they bludgeoned a teenage girl with a concrete block and strangled her with a dog chain, a judge says.

The young women then kissed over the body of their dead or dying victim, 16-year-old Stacey Mitchell, the West Australian Supreme Court in Perth was told.

Justice Peter Blaxell yesterday sentenced Jessica Ellen Stasinowsky, 21, and Valerie Paige Parashumti, 19, to life in jail, with a minimum 24-year non-parole period, for the "sexually perverse" and "evil" killing. They are to be held in strict security.

My friend was utterly horrified at the very fact of the existence of such people, and - because she knew I'd worked as a prison chaplain, both part-time and full-time, for many years - wanted to know how I could ever face dealing with such "animals", as she described them.

I tried to break the news to her, as gently as possible, that there are thousands of people like that in high-security prisons in this country: and, even worse, for every one we've got safely locked up, there is at least one more just like him or her roaming the streets.

She absolutely refused to believe me. The concept was so far outside the frame of reference of her life that she simply couldn't accept it. She accused me of lying to her, of trying to scare her.

That's why I'm writing this now. I may not be able to get through to my friend - who, after today's conversation, may be less friendly towards me than previously - but I hope and pray that I can get through to you, my readers.

I'm going to post an excerpt from a memoir of prison ministry that I've written. (It's not yet published, but if I can find a publisher who's interested I'll let you know!)

It’s a strange feeling walking out of the penitentiary’s front door. To me it seems that the place has a dark, grim, glowering atmosphere. It falls away from me as I exit, almost like a weight coming off my shoulders. I can’t comment on the psychological implications of such a feeling, but I certainly have a spiritual explanation. The penitentiary is one of the Devil’s playgrounds. He has all too many willing servants inside its walls, even though many of them would scoff at the thought and deny his existence. I don’t. I’ve known corrections staff who are rampant atheists, who’ll deny the existence of God from dawn to dusk and all night long . . . but they won’t deny the existence of the Devil for a moment. Like me, they’ve worked inside a penitentiary and they’ve experienced the truth for themselves.

It’s hard to convey the raw, naked reality of evil to those who’ve lived a sheltered existence. Not all the inmates in the penitentiary are dedicated to evil, of course, but there are enough of them - as attested by our bulging two-binder Posted Picture File - that the oppressive miasma of their presence seems to be absorbed and radiated by the very concrete walls that keep them inside. You’ll sense the same foulness if you visit the site of a major atrocity such as a Nazi extermination camp (although, admittedly, it seems to feel worse in places like that). What else but evil personified can explain the actions of some of the hard-core criminals inside high-security prison walls?

There’s the Central American drug lord who silenced a prospective witness by ordering the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder of his six-year-old daughter. He then had her broken, bloody, naked body nailed to the front door of the witness’s home, with a note thrust into her mouth promising the same treatment to his wife and their other three children unless he ‘forgot’ what he’d seen.

There’s the terrorist who planted a bomb beneath a table in a fast-food restaurant. It blew off the legs of a mother and her two children as they sat there eating.

There’s the warped intellectual with what’s been described to me as a genius-level IQ. His intelligence didn’t stop him mailing parcel bombs to those expressing views with which he disagreed, killing and maiming the recipients (and sometimes their unfortunate assistants who opened the parcels) over a mere difference of opinion.

There are the prison gang bosses who couldn’t kill an inmate who was about to betray their secrets to the authorities, because he’d been moved to secure protective custody in another institution. Furious, they instructed their associates ‘on the street’ to murder his ex-wife, children, parents and grandparents (none of whom had anything to do with his crimes or the gang) in order to ‘wipe out the entire treacherous bloodline’ and teach him a lesson.

You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. I can name every one of those individuals and show you the prisons where they’re incarcerated right now. Evil incarnate: the Devil’s spawn in truth. None of them appear to feel even the slightest shred of remorse. It’s in the hope that some of their ilk may yet do so, and that we may be able to help those less steeped in evil from becoming like them, that people such as myself work in places like this. Most of the time we’re disappointed: but every now and again, in far too few cases for our peace of mind, we’re able by God’s grace to penetrate the walls of evil and viciousness which such people have built around themselves and lead them out. Fortunately, many of those in prison are less hardened. Only about one-tenth of the inmates in the Federal corrections system are classified as ‘high-security’, and of those not all are such hard-core evildoers. We hope and pray that we can turn inmates away from the life of crime that leads down that slippery slope . . . help them to change before it’s too late.

Many criticize us for even trying. They ignore the Biblical exhortation to visit the imprisoned (Matthew 25:34-46) and seem to think that we should be expending our efforts on those more ‘deserving’, those who haven’t become criminals. They point out (quite correctly) that many who ‘get religion’ behind bars abandon it as soon as they’re ‘on the street’ once more. However, not all abandon it - and our critics forget one crucially important aspect of prison ministry. With recidivism rates as high as we’re experiencing in this country, we can predict that two out of every three convicts will commit further offences after leaving prison. (That’s how many are likely to be rearrested for new crimes, statistically speaking. There may be more who’ll re-offend but who won’t be caught.) They tend to become more hardened and their crimes become more brutal and serious as they gain experience. They’ll make innocent men, women and children their targets. Even if they survive the victims will be traumatized, shocked, perhaps scarred physically as well as mentally.

That’s what drives us. If we can turn a criminal from his path, we’ve saved not only him but also everyone who would have become his targets had he gone on to commit more crimes. Prison ministry isn’t only for the inmates - it’s for all those who won’t become victims of crime because of our (admittedly few) successes. We won’t know those who would have been victims, and they won’t know what they’ve been spared - but we trust that God will. Perhaps one day we’ll find out.

Have you ever tried to help a family when the wife’s been murdered, leaving her husband a widower and her young children motherless? Have you ever been asked to counsel a seven-year-old boy who’s been sodomized - not to mention helping his distraught parents? Have you ever had to tell a father and mother that their eleven-year-old daughter, standing in the street with her friends, has been shot in the head during a random drive-by shooting and will be a mindless vegetable for the rest of her life? My fellow ministers and I have been in all those situations and more . . . and believe me, there are no words even remotely adequate to describe them.

One understands what the apostle Paul meant when he commanded,‘weep with those who weep’ (Romans 12:15). Sometimes that’s all we can do. It’s in the hope of preventing at least some such tragedies that some of us become involved in prison ministry.

Well, there it is, people. That's what drove me for many years in that ministry. However, I had to accept the brutal reality that for the really hard-core criminals like those I've described, I might - if I was very fortunate - get through to one in twenty. No more than that.

Many of these hard-core criminals will one day be released onto the streets. At current recidivism rates, it's likely that at least two-thirds will re-offend and be re-incarcerated. You need to take steps now in your life, and in the lives of your loved ones, to ensure that you're a more difficult target for them: and if you should be so unfortunate as to become their target, you need to be in a position to defend yourself and your loved ones against them.

Think about it. Do so before you or your loved ones encounter evil. Be prepared - and make sure they're prepared - to do something about it.

Otherwise you, or they, might end up like poor Stacey Mitchell.

May Almighty God have mercy on her soul.

Peter

Not quite your classical golden "throne"!

It seems that the Hang Fung jewelry company in Hong Kong has long had a "Hall Of Gold" exhibit in that city. It's described as "an extravagant display that includes a golden palace and statues of Chinese goddesses, originally created to lure shoppers into the company's showrooms."

Everything on display is made of gold . . . even the toilet.




This piece contains a full ton of gold - which gives you some idea of the density of that metal!

Anyway, the rising value of gold has made it too expensive to keep on display. The company has announced that when the price hits $1,000 US per ounce, it will melt down the toilet and use its gold to make jewelry for sale in mainland China, where the demand is described as "unquenchable".

Perhaps so . . . but jewelry made from a toilet? Talk about "filthy lucre"!



Peter

A battle remembered, and heroes fallen

News from Norway is that the wreck of HMS Hunter has been discovered. She was an H-class destroyer of the Royal Navy that was sunk during the First Naval Battle of Narvik on April 10, 1941.




The First Naval Battle of Narvik saw the first award in World War II of the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest honor for gallantry in action. It was conferred posthumously upon Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee, Officer Commanding the Second Destroyer Flotilla (of which HMS Hunter was a member). His own destroyer, HMS Hardy, was so severely damaged in the battle that she had to be beached, and was later scuttled. He was mortally wounded during the fight. His last signal was, "Continue to engage the enemy."




His flotilla sank two German destroyers and damaged four, and also sank seven merchant ships loaded with munitions and supplies for the invaders, for the loss of two of their own vessels. The German invasion fleet was devastated.








HMS Hunter was discovered this week lying 1,000 feet deep in Ofotfjord near Narvik. The wreck was identified by the ship's crest, still readable after almost 68 years under water.




A memorial service is planned for Saturday. NATO warships will sail over HMS Hunter's wreck in line astern to salute their former comrades, over 100 of whom went down with their ship. The site will now be designated and marked as a military grave.

The German Navy achieved some individual successes during the Norwegian campaign, particularly the sinking of the aircraft-carrier HMS Glorious. However, over the course of the campaign in general (and the First and Second Naval Battles of Narvik in particular) it was soundly beaten, losing dozens of warships and transport vessels. This established for the Royal Navy a moral ascendancy in battle that was to endure for the remainder of the war.

Indeed, so severely was the German Navy handled that it lost all enthusiasm for a cross-Channel invasion of Britain later in 1940, a factor which was decisive in Hitler's decision to abandon Operation Sealion. So, in one sense, the loss of HM Ships Hunter and Hardy and the deaths of Captain Warburton-Lee and many of his sailors directly helped to save Britain from almost certain defeat later in 1940, and thus made a major contribution to final Allied victory in 1945.

Laurence Binyon put it very well:

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Peter

Don't die here - or else!

From the village of Sarpourenx in France comes this interesting vignette.

They've run out of space in the village cemetery, so the mayor has promulgated a rule that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish".

To add insult to injury, those disobeying Mayor Gerard Lalanne's injunction will, he says, be "severely punished".

I'm not quite sure how you go about punishing someone who's died. Perhaps he'll revive them for chastisement? Threaten to take away their good-conduct privileges in Purgatory? Send the riot police after their surviving relatives?

I suppose if one plans to die there, regulations notwithstanding, this might be described as a "grave plot" against the authorities!



Peter

A new twist to home defense

In England citizens aren't allowed to own or use firearms for self-defense.

One gentleman has applied his mind to the problem and come up with a solution that is, I must admit, unique in my experience.




You see, Joe Weston-Webb used to be a traveling showman. He still owns many items of equipment from those days, including a cannon once used to "fire his wife across the River Avon" - she must have been a long-suffering woman! - and a replica of a Roman catapult.

They're going to come in handy.

After an arson attack on his offices and vandalism in the neighborhood, Joe has taken steps to forestall any recurrence. The cannon is now loaded with "railway sleepers tipped with rubber".

He said: "That's the only concession I'm willing to make to all the do-gooders who seem to think criminals should be able to do what they want.

"I'm not out to kill anyone or even hurt them - I just want to keep yobs off my land. So I'm prepared to make my missiles a bit softer - but that's it."

That's not all. The Roman catapult now bears a bucket filled with - of all things - chicken droppings.




Police have warned him that he faces prosecution if he uses either weapon against intruders, but Mr. Weston-Webb is unrepentant.

He said: "The police seem to be hoping I'm just having a bit of a laugh at their expense, but they're the ones who have lost all sense of reality.

"This is a serious issue. People all over Britain are sick and tired of feeling like prisoners in their own homes and seeing yobs get away with it.

"It's absolutely typical of this country that the person whose life has been made a complete misery is the one most likely to end up in court.

"Maybe the police think I'm joking, but the only people laughing are the criminals. That's why I fully intend to take the law into my own hands."

I couldn't agree more! Good luck to you, Sir, and may your aim be true!

Peter

VH-71 Kestrel - where's the outrage?

Readers of my "Weekend Wings" series will have noted my description of the new Presidential helicopter program some weeks ago. Briefly, the VH-71 Kestrel is being developed from the AgustaWestland EH-101 platform to provide VIP transport to the President of the United States.




The initial cost estimates were bad enough - 6.8 billion dollars for 23 aircraft, or a cost of almost $296 million per helicopter. However, those initial estimates are long out of date. The latest estimates have just been announced, confirming earlier suspicions.

Brace yourselves.

John Young, undersecretary for acquisition, said the cost estimate to develop the most advanced version of the chopper had grown to $7.5 billion from $4.5 billion.

Costs for the first phase of an interim model scheduled to be fielded by 2010 have grown to $3.7 billion from $2.3 billion, or 61 percent, he said.

For the arithmetically challenged, that brings the total program cost to $11.2 billion. Averaging this across the 23 aircraft to be purchased, the cost of each is now a staggering, unbelievable $487 million.

Let me say that again.

FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SEVEN

MILLION

DOLLARS PER HELICOPTER.

People, this is absolutely freaking bugnuts batshit INSANE!!!

The unit cost of a single Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk, used in the thousands by the US and other armed forces and already flying in the Presidential transport squadron, is approximately $14 million. For the price of one VH-71 we could buy 34 Blackhawks and have change left over.

The unit cost of a Sikorsky S-92 medium helicopter (which competed with - and lost to - the EH101 for the Presidential helicopter contract) is between $16 and $20 million. Even at the higher price, we could buy 24 of them for the price of one VH-71.

The cost of a Boeing 737 airliner is approximately $85 million for the latest version. We could buy five of them for less than the cost of one VH-71.

The unit cost of the US Air Force's new KC-45 tanker aircraft is estimated by various sources to be anywhere from $170 to $200 million (that figure is subject to confirmation). If it's accurate, we could buy two KC-45's for the cost of one VH-71 and have tens of millions in change.

The unit cost of an Airbus A380 superjumbo, the latest and largest airliner ever to enter service, is said to be $320 million - fully equipped to handle up to 600 passengers and crew. (Heck, the toilets on the A380 probably represent several times more usable space than a couple of VH-71's!)

The unit cost of an F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, including the amortization of all development costs across the planned total purchase of 183 aircraft, is approximately $350 million.

Would somebody please explain to me, in small words that my cringing mind can grasp and comprehend, why a Presidential helicopter should cost so much more than any of these aircraft?

As far as I'm concerned, the base cost of the helicopter should not exceed $25 million. I base that figure on the cost of commercial competitors to the EH-101 helicopter.

So HOW THE HELL do the bean-counters justify the additional $462 million or so that we, the taxpayers of this country, are expected to cough up per aircraft?

Dammit, it would probably cost less to gold-plate the darn thing, silver-plate the rotor blades, hand-carve the seats out of rare tropical woods, inlay them with semi-precious stones and provide genuine mink fur upholstery!

This is the most colossal budgetary boondoggle I've ever heard of from the Washington establishment. I'm not alone in pointing this out, either.

I simply can't understand why howls of outrage aren't ascending from every single commentator on both sides of the US political divide. Surely one's politics don't matter when it comes to identifying financial waste and - dare I say? - fraudulent expenditure on this scale? Yes, I call it fraud - a fraud perpetrated by the US government on the US taxpayer.

The sooner this entire program is canceled, the better. I hope you'll contact your Congressional and Senate representatives to express your outrage. If you don't, and the US Government gets away with this, then we have no excuse to complain about other pork-barrel spending from our representatives.

After all, given this example (and others like it), they'll understand all too well that most Americans simply don't care when they pour our tax money down a bottomless pit of waste.

Peter

The Ten Commandments - a psychedelic delusion?

According to Professor Benny Shanon, Moses "was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments".

Yeah, right.

Let me tell you a few things to your advantage, Professor. I've worked with drug addicts who've been hopped-up on everything from marijuana to morphine and from hemp to heroin. I've learned to recognize a few signs of their condition.

First, if Moses had been hopped-up he wouldn't have come down from the mountain carrying heavy tablets of stone and speaking gravely about God's Will. He'd have slid down the mountain on top of the tablets screeching, "Yo! Y'all ain't gonna believe dis, but I seen Da Man! I s*** you not!"

Second, you claim that Mount Sinai was "an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics". I have news for you. If they were hopped-up, the last thing on the minds of the people of Israel (individually and collectively) would have been issues such as "Thou Shalt Not Kill" or "Thou Shalt Not Steal" or "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery". If they were hopped-up, killing wouldn't bother them (because they wouldn't remember it afterwards); theft is how they would get the money to become hopped-up in the first place; and committing adultery (irrespective of marital status) is what they would do (repeatedly, indiscriminately and sometimes without bothering to obtain permission) as soon as they'd succeeded in becoming hopped-up.

Third, in their hopped-up state neither Moses nor his people would be in any condition to debate moral imperatives or discuss commandments with one another, let alone their Creator. Some would be jiving to a tune in their heads (that only they could hear); others would be trying to stomp on the fluorescent psychedelic spiders crawling all over them (that only they could see); and still others (the older ones who started this crap back in the BC equivalent of the '60's) would be lying back, watching the first two groups and murmuring "Cool, man! Like, far out!" in ancient Aramaic.

If such people "witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking" (Exodus 20:18), and saw that the skin of Moses' face "shone" (Exodus 34:30), their first reaction would be that Moses must have been smoking some heavy s*** and why hadn't he shared it with them? In the ensuing violence the tablets would have been smashed, Moses would probably have been killed, and next day not a soul would have remembered even one Commandment, much less ten.

The fact that the Commandments have survived to this day (albeit honored more in the breach than in the observance) suggests to me that there was perhaps a little more to their creation than a drug-induced hallucination.

Sorry, Professor Shanon, but your theory is as full of it as are the brains of most drug addicts.

Peter

An authentic voice from the front lines

Courtesy of Dad's Deadpool Blog we're introduced to Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal, by Lt. G. He's serving in Iraq and writes of his experiences there.

I spent a while this evening reading Lt. G's comments. He comes across as a very real young man, and his account of service Up The Sharp End is convincing. For those who are combat veterans, there's an indefinable sense of when someone's BS'ing you and when he's telling it straight. My "indefinable sense" says to me that Lt. G. is telling it straight.

I also had to chuckle at his comments about Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams:

In my not so humble opinion, these guys have to be the looniest bastards in the entire Armed Forces. They drive around, wait for line units to find explosives, and then they move to that location with the sole purpose of blowing said explosives up. It’s like common sense, but the exact opposite. I do respect them though, which is something that is very difficult for a Cavalry scout to admit about other Army occupations.

I hear you, Lt. G. Been there, done that and got the T-shirt (and a few scars) to prove it!

His blog is worth reading. Recommended.

Peter

RIP, Gary Gygax

The creator of the world-famous Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game (RPG), Gary Gygax, died yesterday. He was 69 years old.

It's difficult to quantify Mr. Gygax's impact on our modern Western civilization, but it's certainly considerable. Most computer games followed the outlines and "gaming systems" he invented; almost all role-playing games since D&D are structured in a similar way; and millions upon millions of kids (many of them not so young - some even graying!) have participated in the fantasy worlds he invented.

I've never been much into RPG's myself, although I've dabbled in them with friends from time to time. However, I know that many are obsessively involved with them, to the extent that they almost re-make their lives around them.

In honor of the late Mr. Gygax, here's one such character (courtesy of Reno 911). I think he'd appreciate this clip as a fond farewell.







Peter

Gratuitous self-torture, caught on video

I've never understood the fad for so-called "Brazilian waxing". It seems to me to go against what Nature intends, and for no good reason that I can see.

Be that as it may, a lot of people have it done . . . and it seems that one salon installed a video camera to catch the expressions on their faces. Don't worry, there are no naughty bits in frame: but the expressions (and exclamations) are priceless.

Without further ado, Bayou Renaissance Productions presents "Waxing Enthusiastic".





And I still don't understand why anyone would put themselves through that!

Peter

Science lessons worth having

The Daily Mail reports that a group of UK science students has just completed a novel series of experiments designed "to show that the subject can be fun and interesting". The lessons were filmed for broadcast on British television.

It certainly sounds like fun! Activities included:

• Running for cover from a shower of man-made meteors;
• Dissecting a horse to learn about anatomy;
• Making glue in the classroom, following which the students who made the best glues were allowed to stick themselves to a board. They were then hoisted 60 feet into the air to see who would "stick" the longest;
• Calculating how many helium-filled balloons would be required to allow each student to drop safely from a 40-foot-high platform to the ground. The most accurate students got to try this out in real life, as shown below.

I wish I'd been able to fool around like this when I did physics and chemistry at high school. I might have enjoyed the subjects a lot more.

(On the other hand, some of my classmates - as I remember them - would have been crouched in ambush with catapults and blowguns, just waiting for me to clear the platform before popping my balloons!)

Peter

Say it with flowers!

From the BBC we learn that an Iranian man, named only as Shahin, has been sentenced by a local court to pay his wife, Hengameh, the dowry he promised her before they married.

It seems he never actually gave it to her, and she described his conduct towards her during their ten years of wedded life as being "stingy". Under Iranian law a wife can claim a promised dowry at any time, so she decided to do so in order to punish him.

The promised dowry? A quantity of red roses.

One hundred and twenty-four thousand of them, to be precise.

According to the BBC a single long-stemmed red rose costs about $2 US in Iran: so Shahin must now come up with a quarter of a million dollars to buy his wife the dowry he promised her a decade ago. To encourage him, the court seized his apartment in Tehran as security until he makes good on his promise.

Sounds like a good time to be a flower-shop owner in Tehran!

Peter

Almost a "final flight" of a different kind!

Following my Weekend Wings "Final Flight" post yesterday, I noted this near-disastrous cross-wind landing by a Lufthansa Airbus A320 at Munich on Saturday, March 1.





Damn, that was close! That was almost a "final flight" right there! Kudos to the pilot for getting out of that mess intact.

Peter

Weekend Wings #9: Final Flight

This will be a rather unusual Weekend Wings. It's been difficult for me to write it: but as you read it, I know you'll understand.

The Bristol Blenheim was a light bomber developed in the mid-1930's for the Royal Air Force. The original Mark I is shown below.




It had a rather unusual genesis, as this video clip explains.





It would go on to be developed into the Beaufort torpedo-bomber, among other designs:





Unfortunately, the only video clip I've been able to find of the Beaufort in flight shows a tragic collision between two of them:





Both of these aircraft were to play a significant part in the life of one man: and he was to play a very significant - indeed, vital! - part in mine. Let me tell you the story.

On the morning of May 17, 1940, Wing-Commander Paddy Bandon, the Earl of Bandon, stood on the tarmac of the Royal Air Force base at Watton, England. He was the Commanding Officer of 82 Squadron, equipped with Blenheim Mk. I bombers, and he was waiting for twelve of his aircraft to return from a raid on a German armored column at Gembloux in Belgium. The Germans had launched "Blitzkrieg", the "lightning war" that would conquer the Low Countries and France in an astonishing six-week campaign, and his Blenheims had been tasked to stop one arm of their offensive.

Around the Wing-Commander were gathered a few of the officers of the Squadron and the Base, and a few lowly NCO's and airmen stood nearby. One of the latter, a twenty-year-old aircraft mechanic with the rank of Corporal, was leaning on his bicycle. He was known to his comrades as Bill.

Eighteen years later he would become my father.

They waited interminably for the return of their planes. At last a lone Blenheim appeared, smoking, staggering through the air, one engine dead, the other stuttering erratically. As it approached the crew fired a red flare, indicating that they were declaring an emergency for landing.

The Blenheim landed bumpily and coasted to a stop, its engine dying. An ambulance and fire tender roared up as the pilot, observer and gunner climbed down and sank exhausted to the grass. Wing-Commander Bandon hurried over and asked an urgent question. His head drooped and his shoulders slumped at the reply. This was the sole survivor of his squadron. All the rest had been shot down.

Slowly, sadly, he turned to my father and ordered him to take his bicycle and ride around the perimeter track, telling all the waiting ground crews to secure their equipment and close the hangar doors. In later years, telling me about it, Dad had tears in his eyes as he described grizzled, hardened Flight-Sergeants and Warrant Officers turning away from him, weeping, to obey the orders he conveyed. He said it was the hardest job he ever had to do in his life.

(To the very great credit of the Earl of Bandon, he immediately went to his superior officers and demanded replacement aircraft and crews. They demurred, and were considering disbanding the squadron entirely: but he stuck to his guns, insisting that the remainder of the squadron - the ground crews - deserved better. His bosses gave in. Twelve new Blenheims and their crews arrived within a day or two, and the Earl of Bandon led six of them on a raid against Germany within twenty-four hours. For his leadership he was justly decorated. He went on to achieve the rank of Air Chief Marshal, equivalent to a USAF four-star General, after World War II.)

Shortly after that incident my father met my mother - by falling on top of her in a bus during an air-raid! She always said that he proposed to her that same day, and she adamantly refused. He kept up the pressure, asking and being refused, until he told her one day that he would shortly be drafted overseas. If she said "No" one more time, he wouldn't see her again. She said "Yes", and they were married in early 1941. By then Dad had been commissioned as an Engineer Officer.

Within weeks after the wedding he was posted overseas. His intended destination was Singapore, but he was taken off the troopship at Durban in South Africa to help deal with an urgent engineering problem on Beaufort torpedo-bombers being assembled there for use by the South African Air Force. The rest of his convoy went on to Singapore, where all its troops were captured by the Japanese in early 1942. Dad always reckoned that some Guardian Angel had been looking out for him, because only about three out of every ten of that draft came home after the war. The rest died in Japanese prison camps.

Dad spent a few months in South Africa fixing the Beaufort's engineering problems and helping to establish several airstrips for the Empire Air Training Scheme, then was posted to Khartoum in the Sudan. He was tasked to go out into the Sahara Desert with a recovery crew to retrieve crashed aircraft. They used Commer and Bedford tractor trucks hauling "Queen Mary" trailers, designed specifically for aircraft transportation.





Khartoum was the East-bound terminus of the famous Takoradi Air Route. Aircraft were flown or shipped to Takoradi in what was then the Gold Coast, then flew East from there across Africa to Khartoum before turning North for Egypt. By doing this they bypassed the German-controlled Mediterranean and North Africa. A map of the route is shown below (click it for a larger version).





Almost 5,000 aircraft were ferried over this route between 1940 and 1943. Many didn't make it to Khartoum, getting lost or running out of fuel and landing in the desert - hence the recovery effort.





Some less-damaged aircraft were dismantled and brought back entire; others, more severely damaged like the one below, had parts salvaged from the wreckage for re-use.





Aircraft were in such desperately short supply at the time that a new aircraft might be put together from the remains of three or four others. Dad helped to assemble many such "phoenix planes" that had "risen from the ashes" of their ill-fated predecessors. They went on to give good service.

In due course Dad went North to Egypt. High-flying German reconnaissance aircraft (mainly Junkers Ju-86P's) were observing British defenses and giving the Royal Navy at Alexandria a hard time.




In an effort to intercept them, Dad was part of a team that designed and fabricated extended wingtips for the Spitfire Mk. V in a field workshop. The Spitfire Mk. V illustrated below is of the same type that he worked on, but of course for interception missions it didn't carry a bomb as shown.





The new wingtips increased the wing area and enabled the aircraft to fly at higher altitude, aided by a specially-boosted Merlin Mk. 46 engine and a four-bladed propeller to make best use of the extra power. Their improvised, field-expedient modifications worked. In August 1942 one of the modified Spitfires shot down a Ju-86P at the then-incredible altitude of well over 40,000 feet, and two more Junkers reconnaissance aircraft were brought down over the next few months. As a result the latter were withdrawn from operational service in 1943.

After the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942, when Rommel was retreating all the way from Egypt back to Tunisia (while US and British forces landed in North Africa behind him) the RAF had a hard time keeping up with the rapid advance of the British Eighth Army. As a way to keep up the pressure on the retreating Germans, some bright spark hit on the idea of setting up temporary landing fields behind the German lines. My Dad was involved in this operation. They'd go out in a convoy of trucks laden with fuel and munitions. Escorted by the famous Long Range Desert Group, they'd loop South into the Sahara Desert to get around the German front line, then cut back up to the North.





They'd find a smooth, flat stretch of desert and lay out markings that could be identified from the air, then radio their location to the RAF squadrons behind British lines. The aircraft would fly over the German lines next morning, bombing and strafing as they did so, and land at the new airstrip. They'd be refueled and rearmed, then bomb and strafe the Germans again on their way back home. He described it as an exciting task, particularly on those occasions when retreating German forces approached close enough to threaten their operations. At such times the lightly armed airstrip crew piled into trucks and escaped into the desert.

Dad always spoke very gratefully of the help the USA provided. One of his favorite stories was the time he flew into an US Army Air Force base in North Africa in early 1943 in a very worn, clapped-out C-47 transport to collect some spares. He was treated to a GI lunch, and over the meal said something about how hard it was to keep the old transport going. To his astonishment his host, a USAAF Colonel, said off-handedly, "No problem - we'll give you a new one. Sign here!" and handed him a clipboard full of Lend-Lease forms. He duly signed on the dotted line, and the Colonel led him and his crew to a brand-new C-47 that had just arrived from America. "Take this one," the Colonel invited, and left them to get on with it.





When Dad arrived back at his squadron in a brand-new transport he was apparently the hero of the hour . . . although he later confessed to me that for the rest of his time in the RAF he dreaded receiving a letter demanding to know why he had dared to sign for an aircraft without official authorization. He fully expected to be required to pay for it! Fortunately the bureaucrats never traced the paper trail back to him . . . probably because he claimed to have signed the Lend-Lease form using the name "Flight-Lieutenant Winston S. Churchill"!

After the German surrender in North Africa in May 1943 Dad was transferred to Palestine (today Israel). The RAF used bases there and in the Lebanon to fly in support of the ill-fated Dodecanese Campaign in late 1943, one of Germany's last victories of World War II. After the fighting died down he had a few months in Palestine, and his descriptions of that troubled land (even then riven with strife between Arab and Jew) were fascinating. Terrorist attacks on the night train between Cairo and Haifa led to armed escorts being placed aboard, and he commanded some of those missions. He returned to England in 1944 after more than three years away from Mom, and spent the remainder of the war on home territory.

I suppose by any standard Dad had a "good war" (if there is such a thing). Between 1939 and 1945 he rose from the equivalent of Lance-Corporal to the substantive (permanent) rank of Flight-Lieutenant (equivalent to Captain in US terms) and the acting (temporary) rank of Squadron-Leader (equivalent to Major). Even more important, despite several close encounters he managed to avoid being injured or killed (unlike many of his comrades), suffering only a permanent deafness (which worsened in later life) from the roar of aircraft engines. Mom was equally fortunate, despite enduring over 100 bombing raids and standing watch for incendiaries through many lonely, fearful nights armed only with a bucket of water and a stirrup-pump.

After the war Mom and Dad emigrated to South Africa, tried Canada for a short time, returned to South Africa, and settled down to raise a family. They both obtained Ph.D.'s (starting without even the equivalent of Grade 12 between them) and had four children - three daughters and yours truly. Dad worked for a number of employers, the last twenty years or so of his career being with BP, the oil company. Mom lectured and provided counseling services.

In retirement Mom and Dad settled in the town of George in what is today the Western Cape province of South Africa. Mom died three years ago after 64 years of marriage, and Dad began to get weaker and weaker. He's told me several times that he's ready to go - he's 88 years old now.

Last week Dad suffered a heart attack. He's very weak now and we know the end is near for him. I wanted to post this tribute to his wartime service before he leaves us, so he understands that we remember all he (and so many like him) did for all of us in the free world.

Dad, we haven't forgotten your sacrifice and Mom's. Freedom requires men such as you to fight for it from time to time. We're grateful that you answered the call: and, if need be, we'll follow your example - as will our children, and our children's children.

May your final flight to God be smooth and peaceful. May Mom and your wartime squadron-mates be there to greet you, and may your reunion be joyful. We hope to see you there in due course.

Thanks for being my father.

Peter