Curses ...

It's grey and somewhat mizzly. Not great weather for watching big boys toys. But isn't that beautiful.

Still, it's forecast to clear up later. Decisions, decisions.

Gun Club Chairman "Had Guns" Shock Horror

OMG !!

Residents on a quiet suburban street were stunned when police found an arsenal of weapons including guns, missiles, grenades and rocket ­launchers.

Armed officers and an Army bomb squad uncovered more than 30 ­firearms in an early-morning raid on a semi-detached house in Worcester.

People watched in disbelief as police also carried out stocks of shells and ammunition.

How could someone amass such a collection?*

The owner of the property, gun club chairman Graham Lane, 65, was arrested on suspicion of possessing an illegal firearm and bailed. Neighbours said they had seen him wheeling a cannon out of the house. Yesterday he insisted all the weapons are fully licensed and only used for historical battle re-enactments.

I see. Could it be perhaps that the chairman of a gun club might own guns?

I don't know why, but I'm reminded of this story.

Hundreds of guns have been found in a semi-detached house in one of the Metropolitan Police's biggest ever weapons seizures.

Pump-action shotguns, M16 rifles, revolvers and antique firearms were among weapons seized during raids on three properties in Dartford, Kent.

The owner of said guns, dealer and historic weapons expert Mick Shepherd, spent ten months on remand before being acquitted on all charges. As far as I know, he's still not been compensated for those months inside and the Met still haven't returned all his property. As you might expect, he's not too chuffed about it and has a very low opinion of the Met and Operation Trident. According to the comments left on my blog post, the media had been alerted to the raid and a Sky News helicopter was overhead as they went in. The front page of the London Evening Standard screamed of the ‘Biggest haul of illegal guns in Met history’. The Mirror called it an ‘Arsenal of Murder’, and newspapers were briefed that the raid was linked to four North London murders.

What's provoked the raid on Mr Lane?

Speaking after being released from police custody, he said: “There are other matters ongoing with the police at the moment but I do not want to talk about them.”

Oh dear. I do hope someone at West Mercia isn't bearing a grudge on some unrelated matter. Alas, these things can happen - it wouldn't be the first time.

One of Mr Lane's children has commented as follows :

"My father is absolutely no threat, not a nutter and has complete confidence that all of his weapons will be returned. It's just unfortunate that his hobby is guns and militaria instead of stamp collecting!

I believe it was a "tip off" from someone (who may have done this before to my father with no success and which hadn't been publicised). Due to the lack of result the first time around, it appears that they've tried again a few months later. Hopefully that person will now be prosecuted for wasting police time.

The bomb squad was called in for a WWII hand grenade which they had found..this was a great toy of mine when I was growing up...of course it was completly deactivated (like all of his collection)...he was going to make it into a table lighter, but didn't get around to it.

The cannon shells were filled with sand and not explosives. Dad didn't want them falling over on anyone whilst giving his cannon demonstrations..the Police were very disappointed to find out it was sand and not powder...

The way this has been sensationalised is very disturbing. My father takes his hobby and his Chairmanship very seriously and has never advertised the fact that he holds firearms due to safety and security reasons. Unfortunately, now thanks to the press, that's no longer the case and anyone and everyone could easily track down the house....that is far more of a safety and security threat than my father will ever be!"

*And will the 'missiles' and 'rocket launchers' mysteriously disappear, as did the 'rocket launchers' and 'nuclear protection suits' did in the (admittedly completely different) case of Mr Robert Cottage?

Bob White 1924-2010

“He was the eternally correct and reserved Air Force pilot. He didn’t drink. He exercised like a college athlete in training. He was religious. He was an usher in the Roman Catholic chapel of the base and never, but never, missed Mass. He was slender, black-haired, handsome, intelligent — even cultivated, if the truth were known. And he was terribly serious. He was not a beer-call fighter jock.” - Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff.



Bob White, the 5th American in space but the first in the world to get up there in a winged craft - and more importantly, to fly it back down through the atmosphere and land on a runway, has died aged 85. He was also the first pilot to exceed Mach 4, Mach 5 and Mach 6.

Telegraph


NYT :

Robert Michael White was born in New York City on July 6, 1924, and entered military service in 1942. He flew more than 50 fighter missions during World War II before he was shot down over Germany in February 1945 and taken prisoner.

After leaving military service in December 1945, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from New York University. Re-called during the Korean War, he served with a fighter squadron based in Japan, and in the mid-1950s he was assigned to Edwards.

Returning to combat in the Vietnam War, he flew 70 missions over North Vietnam and received the Air Force Cross, the service’s highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor, for leading an August 1967 attack on an important railway and highway bridge in the Hanoi area. He retired from military service in 1981 as a major general.

Al Hallonquist's tribute site with good links :

As Allavie rolls the B-52 onto the heading of 222 degrees, at the launch speed of 0.82 Mach, I start the first-stage ignition. Think of this as a pilot light on a gas stove; there is no real power yet because it’s "idling." Joe Walker calls the countdown: "Four…three…two…one…LAUNCH!"

I flick the "Drop" toggle switch. The X-15 falls away and I shove the throttle forward. The acceleration is tremendous, and as I pitch up in a 40-degree climb, the G-forces build. X-15 pilot Bill Dana was fond of saying that because of the 4 Gs against the chest endured during powered flight, the X-15 is the only aircraft in which he was glad when the engine quit.

The plan called for an 80-second burn to reach 282,000 feet and Mach 5.15. But this engine performed very well, and by topping off the LOX, I was able to burn the engine for an extra two seconds, which allowed me to accelerate to Mach 5.45 and peak at 314,750 feet, becoming the first person to fly an aircraft above 300,000 feet and also the first pilot to fly a winged vehicle into space.

The X-15 now starts to decelerate... at this (airless - LT) altitude my standard controls are ineffective, so the aircraft is now using jets of hydrogen peroxide to control yaw, pitch, and roll, keeping the nose on the proper heading.

When re-entry begins, the "eyeballs out" negative G forces start to build. I place my helmet against the reverse headrest, which allows my helmet to settle forward slightly and stay in place as the aircraft decelerates and the pressures on my body increase. Without this headrest, the negative G forces would push my head so far forward I could lose sight of the control panel.

The X-15 soon encounters enough atmosphere to regain the use of the aerodynamic control surfaces. Coming out almost directly over Edwards Air Force Base, we are still at Mach 3-plus and around 75,000 feet, much faster and higher than previous X-15 flights. Overflying the landing site, I make one circle and roll out on heading, having lost enough altitude to be right on target for the lakebed runway. The Gs are so great that after the flight I find a huge patch of burst capillaries all over my right shoulder and chest .

Now That's What I Call A Vespa

Did the Mods of the 60s and their pale imitators of the 80s know about this ?

The AMCA Troupes Aeról Portées Mle. 56 is a M20 75 mm recoilless rifle mounted on an Italian Vespa scooter used by the French Airborne Forces in Algeria and Indochina. Produced by ACMA, a licensed assembler of Vespas in France, it mounted an M20, a U.S.-made light anti-armor cannon which could be fired from the shoulder but still penetrate armour 100 mm thick. The recoil is counteracted by venting propellant gases out the rear of the weapon which eliminated the need for a mechanical recoil system or heavy mounts, which enabled the weapon to be fired within the Vespa frame. The weapon, ammo (attached to the side) and crew were dropped via parachute into action and the weapon could even be fired on the move.

I'm impressed. Any weaponry mounted on a BSA or Matchless of the period would have been subject to the frequent maintenance needs of the bike. A mean machine indeed. But the French ended by leaving both Indochina and Algeria.

Fate Is The Hunter - Ice II

Ernest K Gann is co-piloting a DC2 passenger flight from Nashville to New York. The plane is icing up and our heroes are in trouble :

"We're getting out of this!

Hughen pounds his feet on the rudder pedals. They are immovable. The rudder, far back on the tail of the ship, is frozen. There is, of course, absolutely nothing we can do about it. Yet by constant movement Hughen has kept the ailerons free, so a turn is still possible. He must execute the turn very slowly, taking great care not to bank more than a few degrees at a time, for at this speed and with the efficiency of the wings so damaged, a turn can be the introduction to a spin from which, under the circumstances, there can be no possible recovery.

I watch Hughen start into a slow left turn. At once the air speed slips to an agonizing one hundred and five. The ship has abandoned the easier porpoising and is bucking viciously.

Hughen is a man tiptoeing along a very tenuous wire. The wire is swaying crazily in the wind, he is being bombarded with stones, and if he loses balance for one second, we are done for. How can this all have happened so suddenly? Fifteen minutes ago all was as it should be.

"Call Nashville. Get emergency clearance at five thousand. Tell them we are returning on account of heavy ice. Accumulation fast ... clear ice."

I repeat the message into my microphone, trying to control the tendency of my voice to become a quavering falsetto. One hundred miles per hour. Altitude four thousand eight hundred feet. Still sinking. Maybe if I refuse to look the readings will go away....

There is no reassuring reply from Nashville. I can only assume they received our message and will clear all other planes from our altitude.

A sudden, terrible shudder seizes the entire aeroplane. At once Hughen shoves the throttles wide open and the nose down. The shuddering ceases. Hughen wipes the sweat from his eyes.

"She almost got away from me ! "

The incipient stall has stolen an additional three hundred feet from our altitude. We must not risk a repetition, and yet the engines cannot remain at full power for ever. But Hughen leaves the throttles where they are.

I crank the loop desperately although the hope of hearing anything is dissolved in noise. I abandon Knoxville and again experiment with Columbus, which is so much farther away. Then quite clearly I hear a new whine, distorted yet unmistakably genuine. It is interrupted by the code letters C.O. - Columbus!
At once I tune to Charleston and find it also readable.

"I have Charleston and Columbus! Fix in a minute!"

I don't know why it seems so terribly important to know where we are. What is important is our altitude, a factor we can do nothing about. If it continues to diminish, our position is of little consequence. Both Hughen and myself would be indifferent as to which of the Blue Ridge Mountains we actually hit.

I manage to take two good bearings when Hughen at last completes his turn. I plot them at once on the chart. Hughen glances at the two intersecting lines I have drawn. They show us to be approximately fifty miles to the north of Knoxville—directly over a long hump in the mountains. There is a peak somewhere in this area. Its summit is marked as four thousand one hundred and fifty feet. We are now at four thousand five hundred feet and still sinking. Even as we study the chart we are approaching or leaving the vicinity of the peak. Which it is, we cannot know until I plot another fix. There is no way to make an aeroplane wait.

"Take another shot in two minutes."

In two minutes the effort might be entirely superfluous.

Both engines suddenly begin cutting out—first one and then the other. For one awful moment they both subside together. And there is a silence which is not really a silence but a chilling diminuendo of all sound. This is the way you die. At three minutes past two in the morning.

Fate Is The Hunter - Ice I

"Fate Is The Hunter"

While The Right Stuff may be a better work of literature, Ernest K Gann's Fate Is The Hunter is easily the best book on flying I've read. Amazon UK's customers seem to think so too - 38 reviews and 37 are five-star. Gann himself was quite a character - starting out in the film industry, he became pilot, sailor, author, artist and conservationist.

The Right Stuff is in a way only incidentally about flying and space. It's about America, about character, exceptional people and exceptional bravery - but not just bravery. "The right stuff" was the highest combination of bravery, determination, skill and experience :

"... the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment - and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day ... A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher ..."

Wolfe was writing about an extreme. But the Right Stuff still exists at the lower levels of the pyramid - if indeed it's fair to talk about lower levels. Wolfe's characters, pushing the envelope at every opportunity and with a career death rate of 25% plus, aren't necessarily best suited to ferrying passengers or freight day in, day out. Gann's pilots (mostly) don't go pushing the envelope - but the envelope will still come to push them, and it's then that the right stuff will show (or fail to show) itself. And just as the elected on the ziggurat never talked about the right stuff but in code, so do simple phrases like 'reliable' come to mean a lot more than turning up on time.

"I have over eight thousand hours of flying, and every time an unusual event occurs in the cockpit, I'm brought back to the characters in this book."

" Without question, the one book that lets us know how each and everyone of us feels about the love we call flying."

"As a career aviator, I have experienced countless moments -- lifelong memories which I thought would go forever uncommunicable. Gann has done the impossible -- he has captured them on the written page to be shared by all."

"I have carried it with me in my flight bag for over twenty five years."

"I am a military pilot with 2500 hours and 13 years in fighter and heavy aircraft. This book is right on the money; I couldn't put it down."

" When people ask me why I fly, this is the book I tell them to read."

"Pilots know that flying is not just transportation but a way of learning who you really are, the stuff you are made of. This book is clearly Gann's masterwork. After reading the chapter on thunderstorms, I thought that there was just no better aviation writing and I still had half the book to go. Of course, then came the chapter on flying in ice."

Over the next week or so I'll post some condensed chunks from the chapter on flying in ice. It's the mid-30s and the regularly scheduled plane, a DC-3, is grounded for maintenance. A DC-2 is substituted for the trip from Nashville to New York. The flight proves to be Gann’s first encounter with icing - and almost his last.

Fate Is The Hunter - Ice I

Fate Is The Hunter - Ice II