Broithe

I've seen the earlier system used, with Bird Dogs picking up inanimate canisters, not with human cargo - it's probably a lot more violent than the final Fulton arrangement and you needed a lot more space.

He must have had a fair grip of her......

It was a bit bonkers, but that's how it was then - everything was new. They used to recover film canisters from spy satellites in a similar manner - after re-entry, they would hang from a parachute on a long cord that would be snagged by the plane, the 'chute then being ripped off and the canister hauled inside. It meant that it was truly secure, nobody else could ever know what you had got on the film, there was no way of 'hacking' it, short of getting to the canister first. I suspect that the pilot recovery side developed from that application. For aircrew, it might have been preferable to being captured. It was used for some larger items than single/double people payloads....

Talk of mechanical tablet catchers at speed reminded me of the Fulton Recovery System - definitely not one for the faint-hearted. After you were shot down, you let up a balloon on a wire, that got picked up by a passing Hercules, hoicked you violently off the ground and they then winched you in - if all went well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system

Rivets can have quite an effect on your eyesight - and your speech.... [video=youtube;9MAS-AvUOXw]

A Voyager came apart in Bristol a couple of days ago, although the reason has not been made clear.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-37839189

Actual rivet-counting, actually going on as we watch, you don't normally actually see it happening in front of your actual eyes.

Izaak Walton / Isaac Asimov - it's an easy mistake to make....

It may be worth a bit of practise to see how well you can get the two types to match.

It was just a guess, really, Izaak lived not far from me - where it says Angling Museum here - - it's also worth a look at the railway bridge just north of his house - where the road bridge goes over the railway, the railway is actually on its own bridge, going over the stream - a very unusual arrangement. Edit - I notice that it actually says Angling Mesuem.....durrr...

Is that from Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler..?

Is that a clue...?

Or 'decal' strips - http://www.micromark.com/ho-scale-decals-with-raised-3d-rivets-and-other-surface-details,9968.html

I had some sesame seed in a box once, but I never found out how to open it.

To be fair, I've never felt safe on a London Underground platform, surrounded by objectionable people and with an unguarded drop to an exposed live rail.

Probably safe(?) for a bit. You can only really do it where you're confident that the door spacings of anything that stops there will be identical.

A whole gander? I thought it was just tea and sandwiches that they were doing?

You could hang on for the warmer weather to give the new grass a chance.

Exhibition of 1986, http://www.rte.ie/archives/2016/1024/826447-model-railway-exhibition/

I'm a great fan of steel drawers, much easier to find stuff in than toolboxes. I once saw some at the boot sale and asked the woman how much she wanted - five pounds - bargain, but I decided to mull it over - ten minutes later, I went back for them and found that her husband had returned and was in earshot when I said "Here's a fiver, I'll have the drawers off you now". I took him a while to understand what was really going on.... The "flat" file drawers are even more useful - and they appear now and then as people computerise data.

Accurately pitching the level of service provision is a difficult proposition. Probably nearer the spoon-on-a-chain end, rather than Lapsang Souchong, I think. And maybe go for straight-cut sandwiches, rather than triangles, to start with, anyway. Good luck.

Marvellous news. Tomorrow the world.

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...?