…has been ‘alleged’ that they are part of organised ‘pimped’ gangs who wholesale buy up The Big Issue from local offices, depriving the local vendors a batch. I can recall being verbally abused by one or two vendors for not wishing to purchase a copy.

It is a pity that anything set-up to help genuine people seems also to attract those determined to abuse it.

I remember a very good late-night series on the BBC about ‘homeless’ people living, I think, in Bristol. One of them was a man who had had mental-health problems and used to supplement his income by buying the Big Issue with his benefit money; if he sold them all he stood to double his money. He also used to try to recover pound coins by returning supermarket trolleys and his rented house was full of junk that he had collected to take to car-boot-sales (not that he had a car). On one classic occasion the film-crew ended up taking him and all his stuff to the sale in their own vehicle!

I’d been watching the series for a while when the producers dropped the bombshell that he was also trying to look-after his son who was about eight. It was truly heartbreaking when later in the series they said that the man’s health problems had returned and his son had to be taken into care.

Wish I could remember what the series was called.

Merlin / Meteor powered torpedo…..at 21 inches in diameter, surely not? :confused:

I know that the British Mark VIII is a ‘burner-cycle’ torpedo that has a radial engine, fuelled on diesel (?) and compressed air, but surely no torpedo was ever big enough to fit any parts of a Merlin or Meteor inside!

I’ve been following this thread with much interest, fascinating stuff, particularly the photographs.

I’ve been thinking about those extra pipes on the picture, I think that the ones near the wing joints are for pumping fuel into and out of the fuel tanks so that the fuel didn’t freeze in the tanks?

I’m not sure that they would be used for circulating fuel through the tanks as that would complicate the fuel system greatly and (as has been said) would slow down launching. Also I don’t know how cold petrol has to get before it freezes (water contamination aside) but it is very cold, even for a Russian convoy!

What about steam heating for the guns, radiator and carburettor prior to launch?

Superheated steam would be available aboard ship and wouldn’t the interior of the wings be effectively open to the elements through the wheel wells? I’m sure these struts aren’t just there to steady the aircraft because they wouldn’t need the removable covers into the airframe, and you wouldn’t need the front strut at all.

…perhaps the best option would be to outlaw the keeping of cats as pests?

Surely you meant ‘cats as pets’…..or maybe you didn’t! 😀

Two news readers at a time?

Emily Maitlis and Sophie Raworth…

…oops! 😮 I thought this thread was about something else! :diablo:

…there is a meteor engine for sale on ebay that runs on unleaded…

Any petrol engine ‘can’ be run on unleaded whether it will do it any harm is another matter.

The last Meteor engines in service with British forces were used in the Centurion BARV (Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle) but they were retired in 2005. The Centurion AVRE (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers) also used the Meteor until they were retired shortly after the first Gulf War. Not bad for an engine first run in 1933!

I’m not sure what fuel the British Army would have run these vehicles on but I doubt they would have taken the trouble to modify the valve seats, possibly fuel additives were used or possibly ‘four star’ was supplied (!); it wouldn’t have been that much more trouble than supplying petrol to an almost all-diesel army.

Anybody know if any Whirlwind crash sites have ever been ‘dug’ and if so have any engines (or components) ever been recovered?

Fair point…..it just amused me that nobody had named ‘him’ so far.