Broithe

I live on a main road into a 65,000 population town. It's fully closed for three months, with only a single parallel back lane, full of parked cars, as a diversion - the signs as you enter, half a mile before the closure, say Road Ahead Closed, fair enough - but the Businesses Open As Usual sign is perhaps a bit misleading, as they're all beyond the closure. I get eight to ten artics a day trying to turn here now, having thought they might be able to get as far as they need to. Nobody's hit anything yet, but statistics will prevail at some point, I fear. There is a 'beautiful' permanent sign on the A55 near Bangor - Width Limit 12 Miles Ahead - but no idea of what the limit will actually be when you get there.

Until somebody like Google does it on a Street View type road survey in the future, perhaps...?

This may have some beneficial effect, eventually. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37703556

I got a copy of this today, set in a fictional version of Rathdowney - Chapter 2 describes a journey up to Dublin from Ballybrophy soon after it would have opened, though it is called Ballydermot in the book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Luck-Penny-John-Maher/dp/0863223613

This video - - is suggesting much more draconian limits than mentioned above. Click the blue button to watch direct in Vimeo.

My correspondent concurs - much the same regs here. There's all sorts of stuff in the air now that wasn't there years ago. The Chinese Lantern craze seems to have faded, but I've seen those at well over a thousand feet on occasions. And big kites are popular round here, often many hundreds of feet up. We do have daily military helicopter visits and the odd air ambulance event, plus the coppers seem to get a spin in their chopper most days.

Some of that, at least, applies in the UK, I believe the height limit here is 400ft agl. I have a drone correspondent - I will ask him.

Trench/grave... ..it depends where you're standing when it goes off..

The reason for going all lightweight with the magnesium was so that they could be fitted to Land Rovers, as here in Yemen. The WOMBAT was 120mm calibre. Similar devices were made by other countries/manufacturers. This is a captured Argentine device from the Falklands that is a few hundred yards fron my house. I might just be safe from the back-blast.

I was talking to somebody last night and the conversation drifted onto Wombats, of the Australian variety - though, to me, it meant WOMBAT, Weapon Of Magnesium, Batallion, Anti-Tank. Essentially, a giant Bazooka. The rearward blast when one was fired was a serious "friendly" threat and it was often said that it did more damage where it was fired from than where it came down... In stony ground, the exhaust could excavate a trench big enough to hide in afterwards and fire the debris from it backwards for some considerable distance and at very high speed - like a giant shotgun. As you say, the quoted technical capacities are often a mix of ideal conditions and wishful thinking.

I understand that memes are regarded as being quite groovy by beatniks and the like.

If you take the evidence (finally and reluctantly) given to the recent enquiry at face value, then it would seem that they can't even detect when they have actually hit the fishing gear from a civilian vessel and dragged it for some distance, they can't really tell what sort of vessels are in the area and they can't hear trawls - it does make one wonder what success they have in detecting vessels that are actively trying to hide from them?

They will usually make an ex gratia payment from public funds - suing the Royal Navy / MOD is not for the faint-hearted, non-wealthy or impatient.

This big plus with vacuum systems, correctly arranged, is that you can make them fail-safe. You can do this with pressure systems, too, but you lose some of the extra advantages of pressure if you do that.

Indeed, you can suck all you like and never get more than one bar, but you can blow away and get as much as the mechanism and pipes will stand. Big cylinders is the only way to get bigger loads with a vacuum system, pressure systems give you a lot more choice about how things are arranged.

They'll review them next time, as well - if they're caught.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37633330

I believe that there are still four in existence.

We've waited a hundred years, a few more weeks is no big issue.

There is a much more accurate technique for hitting the driver's window (which I don't want to reveal on a public forum) - the accuracy of that strike makes me wonder if that was the method they used. If it was, then it may become fashionable for a while.....

Rock thrown near Newbridge, I believe.

Yeah, everything scheduled on the branch is double ended now, so no more need for running round. It is a very sedate run, the back way..

The sidings to the north of the mainline, at the other end of the station, have gone now, too. Just the loop round the island platform left.

Exactly that. As far as I'm aware, the current track is as shown in the vertical view, but without the loop line on the inside of the branch curve.

I was last there in July, but it looked the same as in the photo above to me... I think the low perspective may be confusing you?