In my part of England the girls would sing:

Four and twenty Blackbirds
Baked in a Pie.

Which is the more recent version, and is the way I learned it in the USA in the 1960s (including saying “pockets full of rye” instead of “a bag full of rye”).

Note that I thought I had made it clear that the text was that of the 1744 version.

@ Bomberboy: In German: B- Vierundzwanzig or B-Siebzehn. It is somehow different, in German you first say the second number, then the first. Translated it would sound queer to say B fourtwenty, though B seventeen sounds all right. Same goes for the Me 262. In German we say : zweihundertzweiundsechzig, literally translated twohunderdtwosixty. Short zweisechszwei = twosixtwo. So literally translating can be frustrating, as it get´s you on the wrong path, lol. 😉

Cheers
Michael

In the US (and England) there is an archaic usage that is similar.

It can be found in the old song first published in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, published in London around 1744, in the form:

Sing a Song of Sixpence,
A bag full of Rye,
Four and twenty Naughty Boys,
Baked in a Pye.

Yes. Reasoning; Varyag entered dalian drydock in 2005. If they knew everything they needed, it doesn’t explain why it took 10 years for Chinese. They are building several ships (albeit smaller) per year. Their funding is virtually limitless and only technical reasons can explain such delay.

The fact that the ship was a more a rusting block of steel than a true ship cannot be reason enough ??? Alone to examine what could be used and what has to be torn out completely takes months if not years. Especially the missing engines or no longer usable boilers … the opening of the hull and again the installation and testing of the new equipment. IMO the Varyag was more some kind that a box of surprises than a semi-finished ship.

Deino

Construction on Varyag ceased in 1992 (launched December 1988).

In 1998 negotiations for purchase of ex-Varyag began between Chong Lot Travel Agency, a Hong Kong-based company and the Ukrainian government and shipbuilder (NOT Russian) – the contract eventually agreed-upon stated that she was never to be made operational, so naturally full documentation was NOT included.*

Ex-Varyag entered Chinese waters on February 20, 2002, and arrived March 3 at Dalian Shipyard in northeastern China. By this time it was clear that the original “plan” to convert her to a casino was not feasible – this was likely a deception from the start, but since China really had made two former Russian carriers (Kiev & Minsk) into tourist attractions, this was not obvious when the contract was signed.

Ex-Varyag was moved in June 2005 to a dry dock at Dalian.

On 10 August 2011, the ex-Varyag began sea trials.

That is less than 10 years from the moment it entered Chinese waters to commencement of sea trials.

2 years 3 months from entering port at Dalian to entering drydock. Not bad for an initial survey and mapping of all the wiring and piping, etc.

6 years 2 months in drydock to correct all the ravages of over 10 years of unmaintained neglect, replace defective and obsolete equipment (as well as those incompatible with current PLAN equipment), install new equipment (including propulsion) where none was before, and produce a functioning ship.

That looks pretty good to me.

* While Russia may have sold copies of the documentation for Kuznetsov to China, no two major warships are built exactly alike, so there would be differences that had to be found and mapped by comparing the documentation with the actual ship.

To admit I’m surprised that so many expected the Liaoning to enter service sooner … and even more it is so typically that this mismatch to the own expectations is seen as proof that the Chinese have and had problems. Do we have an official statement when the Liaoning was planned to enter service ? Are there any reports from the PLN that they are behind schedule, that they are unhappy with the progress ??

Deino

While many believe the Chinese assertion that Liaonig is designated a “training and research vessel” to be another deception, this seems perfectly logical to me – for now.

That said, on 26 December 2012, the People’s Daily reported that it will take 4 to 5 years for the Liaoning to reach “full capacity”, mainly due to training and coordination requirements due this being the first operational aircraft carrier in the PLAN’s possession.

So the “rough guess” time-frame is between the end of 2016 and the end of 2017.

It’s possible that MiG-29K is better suited for a vessel of Kuznetsov‘s size, but then how does one account for the results of the Soviet-era evaluation? Regarding the possibility of overhaul, I was under the impression that replacement was required because the airframes are approaching EOL. In any case, at the very least I think we can state that J-15 is comparable to MiG-29K.

As we have discussed earlier, I agree that Russia has many greater priorities than Kuz and potential future carriers/aircraft. I think it is a real question whether future investment in carrier capabilities would be justified at all given Russia’s geopolitical circumstances and in the context of national finances and priorities.

The current MiG-29K is much better than the Soviet-era MiG-29K for one thing (even if you ignore JSR’s rantings).

More powerful engines, better radar, and so on.

New computer & communication systems, including full data-links between B-52s and between B-52s and ground controllers, increase in JDAM capacity from 12 to 20, etc.
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2013/07/12/air-force-begins-massive-b-52-overhaul/

Possible re-engining as well as other upgrades:
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/local/2014/12/02/upgrades-eyed-fleet/19806993/

Upgrades eyed for B-52 fleet
John Andrew Prime, [email]jprime@gannett.com[/email] 7:43 p.m. CST December 2, 2014

Air Force Global Strike Command head Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson recently shared strategic bombing thoughts with other military and industry professionals at the Billy Mitchell Institute in Washington and noted that while the plan now remains to keep the B-52 in service “through 2040, I think that (we) will go beyond that. We’ve got another 25 years of the B-52. Plus.”

Possible AESA radar for BUFF:
http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2014/03/aesa-bomber-upgrades.html

I think that the original operational deployment had included a carrier (HMS Hermes) but she was not available; it would have made an interesting engagement had she been there.

HMS Indomitable – and even before she ran aground in Jamaica on 2 November 1941 and had to be repaired, her original schedule had her arriving in Singapore at the end of December – some 3 weeks after POW & Repulse were sunk. She had just completed trials, commissioning on the 10th of October, and sailed a week later for the Caribbean (escorting a convoy most of the way to Halifax en-route) to work up her green air wing and new ship’s company.

The timings can be deduced from the dates in this diary – subtracting the 22-day trip to Norfolk & back for repairs, and the detour to Aden to drop off 2 squadrons, and then to Port Sudan (in the Red Sea) to pick up 50 Hurricanes and crews for Singapore (which she might have done even without the repair delay), and you still get no way that she could have been there in time to save POW & Repulse. Note that the distance from Ceylon to the Cocos Islands is almost identical to that from Ceylon to Singapore.

Royal Navy research archive: Eleven months aboard HMS INDOMITABLE

The Y1B-17A first flew with superchargers on top.
I checked that installation before I wrote my post.

Well, nothing I had described that difference, and you didn’t mention it, so I didn’t &^%$# know!

I could understand the Royal Navy operating them off the Arc and Lusty as they were small carriers that could not operate anything bigger…. But the new carriers that are bigger so it is a farce to constrain it to the likes of the vstol F35 and the Harrier, it’s barking, RAF Harrier I could understand but a naval one is there for strike and to defend the fleet, it’s never going to operate from hides in the back of beyond.. So they should ditch all the lift engine crap and replace it with fuel and armaments…. Just my take on it, the Harrier was size of carrier driven, they are now using that same staid thinking to the detriment of the new carriers Capability.

Only 2 of the 14+ carriers/amphibs that are intended to operate F-35Bs are large enough to give up STOVL capabilities.

And those two (HMS QE & HMS POW) had their designs set long after the decision had been made by the RN to buy the STOVL version of the “Joint Strike Fighter” – which itself had been in the works since the mid-1980s (the final winning design was selected while the RN was still deciding just how large the CVF would be).