There is a difference between confrontational discussion and threats of physical violence.

Moggy
Moderator

Not when it contains an insinuation of racism, it’s not.

Surely the situation that prompted this thread was the diminishing of the skilled volunteer, and not the imposition of more written guide lines on how the few that are (or will be) left, can carry out their solitary tasks.

Not strictly true; the driving force is usually what is better (cheaper) for the customer rather than increasing turnover and profit for the manufacturer.

The higher performance, better economy, much higher reliability (despite increased complexity) and (relatively) cheaper cost of modern vehicles is, at least in part, achieved by specialising the manufacture of sub-assemblies and components. Non-serviceability is the cost of much of that improvement.

Sorry for the ‘drift’; interesting thread…..although it has taken me half the night to read it.

There has been for a long while within the industry, mechanics, and fitters; the former have evolved and have the power of thought, and usually become self employed, whereas the latter are more prevalent and do exactly what it says on the tin…..

By the same token would it harm the economy to remove “citizenship” and several other worthless subjects from the curriculum and replace with wood work and metalwork?

These subjects were taught to girls and boys in the 70’s & 80’s; never heard any dissenting voices then saying “why bother teaching this stuff to the girls?” but probably by and large it was a waste of resources, in terms of the number of girls going on to a career in that field.

Surprisingly I have to agree with AiB, with regards to the lack of skilled or even semi skilled people, (volunteers or otherwise) this is fundamentally caused by the “education” system we have in place today; as an example, my son (who has now finished school) attended 3 different senior schools albeit one very briefly (no he wasn’t expelled!) not one of these schools offered metal work, wood work, or engineering as an option, the closest being “resistant materials” which was to be perfectly honest complete bo11ocks.

Having said that the situation is reversible, and within a generation (or less) our kids will have the use of other digits and not just the thumbs for texting, they will however, need something to practice their new found dexterity on.

Why would you actually want to recover it. Everyone knows what a P-38 looks like. You can’t restore it, it’s just more Ali scrap as far as I’m concerned.

I would agree with you as far as most aviation enthusiasts know the P38, but like all preservation movements, we need younger people to become inspired, and then when their personal circumstances are right become involved in the never ending work; there are probably thouands of people out there who don’t know this A/C, but it might be the catalyst that changes the direction of their lives; do we even have one on display in this country?

To those of you that say don’t do, it or it can’t be done, draw a parallel with the medical profession, they still try to save limbs and lives,(sometimes in the knowledge that it is futile) because from everyone you try to save you learn a bit more; the P38 is going to rot away anyway, isn’t it?

Do we really think poly tunnels, water, and citric acid are prohibitively expensive? like all costings if you remove labour costs, by using volunteers then it is more realistic.

I used to bite mine. But then mum made me wear shoes.

Moggy

Sandals are the best of both worlds……….

This is where we have to be bit careful with our terminology; ‘drag’ is a product of several factors.

Basically the drag will be the product of the shape and of the size of an airframe; the frontal area and the surface area.

A Spitfire may be a better shape than a Bf109 but it is also a good deal bigger; so a Spitfire may have more (total) drag…..and it is total drag that counts.

Minus the exhaust thrust available to the spitfire but not the BF109!