Broithe

I had an interesting landing at Brize Norton on the only occasion I was there. We were in a Britannia that had already had a failed take-off trying to get out of Akrotiri. After a few hours of some blokes on step ladders fiddling with it, it had another go and made it into the air. People's calmness was not helped by one of the other passengers having done quite a bit of work on 497, 'our plane', in the past and sharing his very low opinion of it. At full weight, it was struggling and we had the pleasant view of all the fire wrecks below as we headed the few miles to the sea at a few hundred feet and the slowest climb rate I ever experienced. From there on, we meandered around, trying to avoid thunderstorms the whole way back, unable to exceed 18,000 feet, due to a cabin pressure leak. I had taken the usual precaution, before the first attempt, of reading and memorising the evacuation information on the sheet behind each seat. It didn't seem fully relevant to the layout of the plane, but they did vary, depending on what was being moved - then, I noticed some helpful advice that mentioned the noise of the gear descending just before landing - "Mmm, I thought, you're not likely to hear that in a Britannia" - then, a bit of further reading revealed that the 'safety leaflet' was for a VC 10. About an hour into the flight, the window surround fell into my lap - then the perforated hardboard that formed the inner face of the fuselage, fell inwards against my leg, with the fibreglass insulation following it, revealing a frost-covered aluminium sheet. After a few seconds, I realised that that was the outer skin, so I left it alone. Then I noticed the Dzus fasteners on quite a few places in the engine covers were slowing turn round with the vibration - my attention having been drawn to the engines by the odd piece of flaming soot that shot out in the exhaust. By the time we reached northern France, we still hadn't crashed, so I started to relax, despite the plane having been thrown about violently for some hours. As we flew over southern England, the weather calmed down a lot and a thick fog resulted. As the landing approach progressed, some bright spark felt it advisable to explain that we were being driven by a 'trainee under instruction'. Great... As we approached the runway at dusk, there was no sign of the ground at all, just the top of the odd tree - then the trees stopped appearing as we sank into the fog and we hit the ground rather hard, bouncing back up out of the fog - twice. Whoever was doing the instruction presumably judged that there was still enough road left and we stayed down at the third attempt. Passenger seats in RAF transport planes were generally fitted facing backwards, to give you a bit more support in a run-off, and that seemed a welcome feature at the time, although we did stop before the grass started again...

I remember them arriving, in an era when there were Belfasts, Argosies and Beverleys around. It was about the time that Transport Command became Air Support Command - a move that kept signwriters happy for a few years. It was also the time when I canoed down the Thames in a two-man vessel with RAF Transport Command emblazoned amusingly down both sides. Even for a two-man vessel, these canoes were fairly enormous and drew some attention, especially over the identification down the sides. We managed to convince one bloke in a riverside pub that they had actually been converted from experimental floats intended to allow a Beverley to land on water. And, to be fair, with both of us paddling, we were probably faster than a Beverley...

The Soviet Union converted a Tu-154 to fly on hydrogen back in the 1980s. As the Tu-155, the clues were the vent pipe on the tail and the pipe fairings in front of the engines. It also flew later on LPG.

We all just need to do our bit and buy more die-cast models.

If they're twins, then the best option would have been to give them identical names and then it would simply be [NAME]s' birthday. No need for all this unnecessary difficulty. In a pub a few weeks back, a chap came in and didn't recognise the girl behind the bar, actually the landlord's niece. "Who was that behind the bar?" Sarah, Willie's daughter. "Oh, how old is she now?" Twenty. "Oh, how many kids has he?" Two, twins, a boy and a girl. "Oh, how old is the lad?" Everybody just looked at him for the fifteen seconds it took for him to realise why.

Well, not actually a miss, but not as severe a hit as it could have been... https://www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-news/irish-rail-worker-injured-after-27099662?fbclid=IwAR046frObOjgNymVmlRyLxw4YZ3k40RqOakJoUpld5VlqC4WviBLkuCjj2w

Pedal-powered generators at every seat on the new Cork/Dublin carriages - partial refunds of the ticket price, dependant upon how much you put back in? I'm writing to Eamon Ryan now.

I used to do a bit of work for an old boy who was 96 by that time. He had a garden railway (on posts, because he struggled to get back up off the floor by that point), with self built live-steamers running on it. The terminus and sheds were in his 'dining room' and access to the main line was via a removable bridge that was dropped in place when the patio doors were open. He also made his own mobility scooter, before the electric ones became widely available - this was done by removing the cutters from a ride-on mower and using it to nip up and down to the shops. This was right next to a police training centre and he got a lot of "looks" from them, but nobody wanted to be the one that booked him.

A cat flap to a loop in the outside world, for good days?

https://www.facebook.com/steamtrainsireland/posts/pfbid02h3QZgteaBU9Kk4zwz6KSJmZGUHaXk5cJuWPoawSd4ifZkJf2YwXmFB48wQpAXrXXl

Three Chipmunks, including this one that I first saw sixty years ago... Two heritage flight ones - 168 had a bit of a slight misfire for the first flyby, but flew out successfully later on.

Train running in Abbeyleix today... Odd mix of liveries and the chassis were black. Best not to mention it to someone... I think it was a battery electric device - three of them running all day. Open Day and Airshow at the old De Vesci place - marvellous day!

https://www.radiokerry.ie/podcasts/kerry-today/heritage-hunters-ghost-train-may-31st-2023-333137

Ballybrophy. The piers were later used to provide some shelter for passengers on the island platform.

This remains one of my favourite railway documentaries - the level of determination to 'make it work' is astonishing. Good luck with intricacy that the water features at the start would require on a layout...

Indeed, if you intend to visit Bourton on the Water, then you can have your dinner in what was my bedroom. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8847524,-1.7583218,3a,41.3y,311.5h,88.19t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sQBOUaDnmaTFlaVLJp6sjnQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DQBOUaDnmaTFlaVLJp6sjnQ%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D0.08197921%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu I wonder if they have put the plaque up yet?

Unbeetable!

I think this one means that their AI software estimates that they have finally got you to relinquish all of your available cash assets into their possession.

Ballybrophy claims around 150 inhabitants and has just had to have the car parking trebled.