PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 15, 2011 13:17:42 GMT -5
Surname??
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 14, 2011 19:57:26 GMT -5
Sad to lose an historic aeroplane, but good that the crew survived. Thankfully it wasn't over an urban area.
Mickey, Your sentiment about preserving an example of every aircraft is a nice one but not, I'm sorry to say, a very practical one for many reasons.
A major one is cost. Setting up and maintaining a museum of any sort is a very expensive business, with the day to day running costs of an aircraft museum probably greater than many if only because of the space and number of staff needed.
Almost all "advanced" industrialised countries have a number of museums or heritage centres wholly or partly funded by the national government or by local government. Others including some large so-called third-world countries have huge game reserves or national parks where wild life can live and roam in their natural habitat.
All these things cost money, and in times of recession and cuts in public spending such places rank lower in the funding stakes than money spent on the health, housing and general standard of living of the people.
Then, not everyone is interested in aircraft. So why not have the same mandatory preservation of the "last survving" model of car, bus, fire engine, railway locomotive, rail rolling stock, ship, steam engine, printing press, radio, television, computer, clock, watch and, indeed, camera? The list is almost endless.
All these things, and many more, have their enthusiasts and, in many cases, small "Enthusiast Society" museums staffed by volunteer members of the Society.
Once preservation and display became mandatory and not voluntary I fear that much of the unpaid selfless labour would fade away, and the museums with it.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 14, 2011 17:43:01 GMT -5
Dave,
A bit late, but hope you had a great day.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 13, 2011 11:09:21 GMT -5
Randy, If that's the same as the article of toilet ware that used to be known in the UK as a Gazunda - short for gazunda the bed - then no, it isn't. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 13, 2011 11:04:48 GMT -5
Mickey, I guessed you would be first to know my couplet about handle polishing even though I gave the others a clue about WSG being the author. I also guessed you would get my reference to your left shoulder blade. It seems I can't fault you on G&S, nor it seems on Bill Shakespeare, Tennyson and the rest. You must have been as voracious a reader as I was. BUT ... Can you tell me who could write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform, and tell me every detail of Caracticus's uniform? Or say who was being 'anged when the regiment was drawn up in 'ollow square? Come on, you know you know the answers. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 13, 2011 8:42:07 GMT -5
Nice looking example, Col. Quite a few collectors of FEDs and Zorkis reckon that the factory spoiled the looks when they brought out the Zorki 2. Remarks like beaten with an ugly stick were common, but I quite like the looks of mine. Mine is the ordinary model C not the 2C (no strap lugs for example) and it's fitted with an f/3.5 Industar copy of the Elmar but it's basically the same as yours. I got it in the 1960s in a somewhat roundabout way - brief details on my website www.peterwallage.com - and when I got it the mechanism was jammed with a piece of torn film. When I removed this it worked perfectly, and has done ever since. I used it a lot and got some lovely pictures with it. My Zorki 4 and 4K have Jupiter lenses and they also give excellent pictures. Indeed, I've never had any arguments with Russian lenses. Enjoy your Zorki and get some great pictures. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 13, 2011 7:30:06 GMT -5
I keep hearing on the news about natural disasters affecting New Zealand but we don't seem to get a lot of detail.
For example, the cloud of volcanic ash from Chile: we hear that some airlines have cancelled flights and some haven't; some reports say the cloud will stay above 20,000 feet, others speculate that there could be some fall out that might affect people with asthma and similar complaints.
The latest is that Christchurch is having more earthquake tremors but commentators can't seem to make up their minds whether these are aftershocks or new tremors.
I hope our members in New Zealand are OK. Can one of them let us know how things are, please?
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 12, 2011 10:11:27 GMT -5
I note that the Queen has given the title of Lord High Admiral to Prince Phillip on his 90th birthday.
"And I polished up that handle so carefullee that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navee."
Words by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 12, 2011 9:50:20 GMT -5
Mickey,
How's your left shoulder blade?
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 12, 2011 9:43:29 GMT -5
Happy Birthday, Bob.
Hope it's a good one.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 12, 2011 9:30:54 GMT -5
The Metropolitan was conceived and styled by Nash when the company decided there was a North American market for a small European type car which still looked like an American car.
Nash had neither experience of making small cars nor production facilities and press tools that could handle it so, wisely, they decided to have it built in Europe and chose the Austin division of the newly-formed British Motor Corporation in the UK at Longbridge in the Midlands.
The car used quite a few Austin mechanical parts including, at first, a 1200 cc Austin engine. This was a scaled-down version of Austin's 1500 cc B-Series engine, intended to be an "economy" version. It wasn't. The lower output meant that when it was used in larger BMC cars the driver had to keep changing gear in town so it was dropped in favour of the 1500 B-Series with an overall improvement in fuel economy.
The B-Series was used in a number of BMC "badge-engineered" cars such as Riley, Wolseley etc, and in the MGB. It was a solid, reliable engine, not very high output - around 55 bhp, but it had lots of low-down torque so in a light car like the Metropolitan it needed only a three-speed gearbox. In heavier UK cars it neded a four-speed box.
The engine was basically a pre-war design with its roots in the 1939 Austin 16hp when the stupid out-dated horsepower road tax system took into account only the bore diameter and number of cylinders.
To keep the road tax rating low, most older designs of UK engines had a long stroke compared with the bore which meant that at higher revs the piston speed was high resulting in early bore wear. At around 30-35000 miles the engine started to burn oil, pushed out clouds of blue smoke from the exhaust and needed reboring with over-size pistons.
BMC's column gear shift wasn't the best in the world. The gearbox was also quite an old design intended for floor shift. For the column shift the selectors were moved to the side and controlled by a cable which used to stretch. At around 15,000 miles cable stretch meant that the sector quadrant didn't line up properly and gear changing became somewhat hit and miss. Easy enough to adjust, but beyond the scope of most owner-mechanics.
The first Metropolitans with the 1200 cc engine came off the line late in 1953 with either an open-top or hard-top body but until 1957 the entire production was exported, mainly to Nash. Nash had merged with Hudson so the car was badged either as a Nash or a Hudson depending on which dealer sold it.
The first home-market cars were released in early 1957 and, although they didn't carry an Austin badge, just the name Metropolitan, they were known as Austin Metropolitans and sold by Austin dealers. Production finally stopped early in 1961. Surviving examples are far more numerous in North America than in the UK.
Mickey, You mentioned the shelf-like rear seat. In his road test of the time, one motoring journalist wrote that Austin's brochure called the Metropolitan a four seater, but a better description would be "with seating for two adults and two legless children".
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 11, 2011 17:25:44 GMT -5
Hi, I've been away from the forum for a couple of days, and I find there are two new enthusiastic members to welcome.
So welcome, Keith and George, and thanks for your interesting intros. I'm sure you'll both feel at home here. We're a friendly and pretty easy-going bunch, and you'll soon get to know quite a few of us.
As well as the underlying bond of a love of older cameras you'll have noticed if you've browsed the postings that quite a few of us are interested in classic cars, planes and trains which is why, unlike some forums which are always strictly "on topic", we have a wide-ranging list of "departments" to which you can post and share your other interests, including two "open topic" sections.
We nearly all have our favourite era or make for collecting. Some of us like tinkering, others don't even fancy picking up a screwdriver. I've always had an interest in small mechanisms, and being a bit of a skinflint I acquired many cameras in my collection in a neglected condition and restored them.
Unfortunately arthritis and Anno Domini have severely restricted my restoration work over the past few years and I have quite a few cameras waiting for attention.
My particular era of interest is European cameras and their makers from the early days of photography up to the 1960s, but I'm also very fond of Canon SLRs.
I'm sure that over the coming months, or years, you'll get to know many members as friends even though many of us seldom, if ever, meet.
Enjoy yourselves here.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 7, 2011 17:05:30 GMT -5
Jack, you wrote that the links are not working.
I found I had to use the whole of the link including @n04 ... etc.
If you copy this and post it in Google you shouldn't have any problems.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 5, 2011 6:31:14 GMT -5
Many, many thanks for posting this video.
Two wonderful aeroplanes and two very skilled pilots. I would have loved to have been there to see it live. I've never seen better close formation duo low-level aerobatics with such perfect station-keeping.
I really enjoyed it.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 4, 2011 8:32:08 GMT -5
MIK, you wrote:
That's interesting because the present-day English word mare for a female horse is the feminine form of the Old English mearh which meant horse.
If you go back a few centuries English and German had a lot of similarities.
PeterW
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