Originally posted by mike currill
That’s the place.:)

To be honest, i wouldn’t have recognised it from the sat pic! I never knew about those two northern shelter areas until the base was as good as closed, and the patchy acres confuse me a bit as well.

This is more or less how it looks today, being a train test centre. The former hangar/aprons have become a full industrial estate now, the businesses are now expanding to the north-western shelter area as well. And the golf course has grown too 🙂

Sean, you lived only a few kilometres from Wildenrath as well, didn’t you?

Have fun, and don’t forget the side trip to Trakai. Absolutely lovely in more than just one way. No MacD there though.

Czechoslovakia only got nicer when Maddie left…

D.F Sweater see about good, elaborate cropping, claintily technics. Golden swatches, individuation’s deviser, the incarnatest, individual blue-chip timpermament ank unimal magnetism. D.F have you more qulchritude elegance.

😀

This was on a label on a photographer’s vest i recently bought at some market. Absolutely lovely poetry, and they are not kidding either!

If it’s off-topic, i should really join in!

Originally posted by Distiller
That’s off-topic, but: The USofA tries to finance their deficit via a weak USD. And Europe and the Euro is too weak to do anything against it, only the Japanese stem it with *some* success. Inflation will inevitably rise. There’s a gang in DC striving for hyper-inflation to get rid of their mid/long term obligations they amassed since the mid-’70s. And I’m not sure whether I should use a 😀 or a 😡 symbol to conclude that message.

Away with fiat paper money — return to the Gold standard!

Well, the only reason why a weaker US$ can postpone the eventual pain of the US’ over-consumption (that’s what it is guys: all this trade + budget deficit means is that the US as a country is using more resources than it can pay for!) is because international trade is still calculated in US$, and with that being the case it is still the rest of the world paying up for American soccer moms driving truck-sized cars in order to get their buckets full of chicken wings for TV snacks. The percentage of the US economy (=money circulation) with borrowed-but-not-to-be-repaid-money is nearing 10%, and rising.

Devaluating the US$ in the short term will alleviate the burden as it gets cheaper for the world to sponsor those chicken wings and SUVs. But with a devaluating US$, it’s not all that smart for any country to keep a large pile of those very same US$ as their foreign currency reserve: that reserve will be losing it’s value.

So a continued devaluation of the US$ will in the long run force the world to seek other currencies for international trade (be that Pound Sterling, Euro, Yen, Laotian Kip or some really nice sea-shells). That would of course have quite an impact on international trade, but even more so on the US, because by that time it will be the United States having to cough up each and every penny for their carrier battle groups, steel industry and Bigfoot-tyres.

A mega-inflation would definately make it a painful but fast cure.

Well, the dry lake after which it’s named is cropped from the picture.

Didn’t know the Merlin was that expensive… but then again, you can always order some, cancel them, order some more, cancel them again, and then finally order a few for SAR and forgetting to cancel them 🙂

According to this article on the search for Singapore’s ship-based ASW helo, the Cougar goes for only 27m US$ compared to 38US$ for the SH-60R (assuming the S70s looked at by the IN are to a similar fit) and US$ 40m for an NH90.

For such a big (and relatively expensive) airframe like the Cougar, the unit price is really low. Does anybody else smell a marginal equipment fit?

If you want attention, just ask!