Interesting bit of Lewis trivia – in WW2 when WW1 era stripped down Lewis’s were used in the ground role, it was found that the lack of the cooling fins and jacket had no detrimental effect on the weapon, and could work fine without it, even in the desert. Interestingly, the AA Lewis guns fitted to ships on the Arctic convoys manned by the Army kept the cooling jackets on!

Does the term ‘stripped Lewis’ just refer to a Lewis gun without a cooling jacket (or fins) then? I’ve seen this term mentioned many times in a book about CAM ships when these were used to bolster the close-range AA defence of ships and wondered exactly what it meant.

I had heard that there was little or no difference without the cooling jacket but that never really surprised me as I think the design intended that air would be draw along inside the cooling jacket as the result of suction created by the bullet leaving the end of the muzzle.

How can you be saddened by his change of mind, isn’t that the best way to be, isn’t it a good thing that this lovely old boy is capable of thinking that way and won’t shuffle off this mortal coil full of hatred for his enemies of 60 years ago.

I couldn’t agree more. It is always fascinating to me to see the way that old enemies often have a common bond because of the, usually terrible, events that they lived through and that this bond seems to overcome any former animosity.

What I actually meant was that before meeting the German contributors and visiting (or revisiting) the sites of conflict he had been a staunch defender of the effects of the raid, the effect on wartime production in Germany, and the positive effect on British morale, and he felt that the raid was justified and that the many lives lost (on all sides) had not been lost in vain.

As the programme went on he seemed less sure that this had been the case…..and that in itself takes a different kind of bravery.

I enjoyed the programme very much. It was nice that so much of it was given over to the views of those who were there but I was a little saddened how the views of George Johnson were changed by his meetings with former enemies and his visits to the various sites.

The documentary had the modern ‘light’ feel about it but that is the reality of time and money pressures I’m sure. If those are the conditions under which these documentaries get made it, is better that they are made than way than not made at all.

The attitude of the German contributors was most interesting also, particularly the German couple who tended the memorial at the crash site of that Lancaster (Astell’s aircraft?) lost on the Dams Raid.

The ‘recently discovered’ photo of damage to the Sorpe Dam was a bit strange as it looked like a huge crater in the earth at the back of the dam and the only other post-raid photo I’ve seen just showed evidence of water being ‘washed’ over the dam by the mine exploding in the water.

I don’t understand why 617 didn’t go back later in the war and finish the job with Tallboys or Grand Slams…

As for attacking the Sorpe later in the war with a Tallboy wasn’t this done by number 9 Squadron on 15th October 1944?

Possibly the ‘recently discovered’ photo shows damage from this raid?

It tells you the truth based on 10 second snapshots.
But it is best to use the MoT qualified/certified milometer.

My trip computer has two settings for fuel consumption, instantaneous or average, plus two other settings, global and trip.

If I use the global average setting apparently my car does 49.50 mpg but I know it actually only does 42.25 mpg based on the mileage and how much diesel I put in.

Now I know my average is based on the accuracy of the milometer and the actual quantity of diesel I put in but these cannot account for a 17% discrepancy between the mpg figures…..so the car lies! 😀

Lets be honest here, what use is an average mpg figure anyway? The trip computer tells me the distance I can go based on my remaining fuel.

Could it be that the car manufacturer wants to give us a false impression of how economical our car is? :diablo:

In a previous job, I had a 60 minute jouney to work, 95% of that journey was on the M/way. So, with that sort of boredom daily, I experimented. At 56ish mph the journey took 75 mins, but my mpg was in the low 50’s per gal. (It was a Mark 3 Golf Ryder 1600).
At 70 it took the hour, and MPG was 42.
At 80/90 (It was before cameras on the M62/M57) it took 52 mins but the MPG was down at 20 something. Pathetic, just proves that to save 8 minutes (Big deal!!!!) I used twice the fuel

That is an interesting real-life experiment and the results don’t really surprise me. Speed has a great influence on fuel consumption because the power required to move a car through the air is in proportion to the square of its speed…..twice as fast…four times the power!

As for the MPG decreasing because the tank is full, this must be true, cannot dispute science.

Yes, a lighter car will use less fuel but the weight difference of a full tank (a 14 gallon tank-full weighs 54kg) makes an almost negligible difference to fuel consumption, and of course it is not possible to keep it full, on average it is only ever half full, even if you could use every drop in the tank (which you can’t). 🙂

Do you remember Tomorrow’s World?

About twenty-five years ago there was an item about the shortage of copper and how bacteria had been developed that would ‘eat’ low grade copper ore (that was uneconomic to smelt) and hey-presto cheap copper!

Copper prices are through roof now but I’ve never heard anything more about that bacteria.

Will the oil-pooper go the same way?

Try not filling the tank to the top and note the mpg. As the car will be running lighter the fuel economy will improve as the engine is not having to lug so much weight about.

Theoretically, yes…..but in practice a negligible improvement.

My point was, don’t take for granted what the trip-computer in your car tells you…..mine just lies!