Malcolm McKayWell according to Wikipedia the first aircraft to land in Fiji was Kingsford Smith’s Southern Cross on the trans Pacific flight.
Malcolm McKayI also will NOT use firms that pester me by phone or annoying adverts ,even on the TV.Has a reverse effect on me as well,i actively avoid giving them my custom.If i walk in a shop and someone tries to sell me something i walk out ,if they wait until i ask them for advice thats different.
That’s exactly my outlook on advertising and unwanted pitches by sales people. Thrusting any form of product advertising at me uninvited is just going to make me avoid the product like the plague.
Malcolm McKayAnother use of the method of marking with a screwdriver blade was the broad arrow mark on military equipment. That became formalized with a special stamp and or a stencil for paint application.
Malcolm McKaydouble post.
Malcolm McKayAccording to Wikipedia the use of Latin mark numbers for aircraft is an interwar innovation –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_military_aircraft_designation_systems
But this does not show awareness of the use of Latin mark numbers in the 19th century for military equipment. As Stuart Gowan’s has pointed out in post 18 and with which I agree, I subscribe to the view that they are a descendant of the simple marks used by illiterate or semi-literate artisans seeking to ensure that parts of a object would be tracked to ensure proper fit. Perhaps this practice which is extremely practical became legitimized by officialdom and passed from being an effective tool (using pseudo Latin marks) for assemblers to a recognised system for defining variations.
Malcolm McKayInteresting.
I was wondering if it had anything to do with metal punches. XX requiring just one punch instead of two.
I doubt it 🙂
Not as far fetched as you might modestly imply. Well into the 19th century gun makers used simple punch marks to number the individual parts for guns they were assembling. This was because until the middle of the 19th century and even later (in the case of top of the range sporting weapons (and pistols) ) the original parts were very basically finished but assembling them required hand fitting which created the need to keep all the parts for one item together as they were hand fitted. The simplest method for many makers was to use a screwdriver blade to neatly stamp a small stroke – due to the small numbers of items being made this use of stamped strokes could easily be used to effectively number the parts for each individual piece. Thus a stroke like I could easily be turned into a V or an X and higher numbers created. Also many workers in the gun trade (screw makers, barrel makers, filers, stock makers etc. – they were all separate trades) were illiterate and these simple marks were easy for them to read. On most of my antique firearms parts are stamped with these combinations. Later when numbered dies came into use (following the US practice) numbers from 1 to 9 and 0 were used.
True machine production of parts that do no not require hand fitting and finishing to make the final product is really a 20th century development – even the famous claims made in the 19th century by the Colt company for interchangeability of parts from their mass production methods was untrue as all parts from the simplest screw through to frames and barrels required a degree of hand finishing to make the final product function smoothly. That is essentially why serial numbers on firearms and other machine products was developed – not as an aid to tracking the number produced but to track the parts fit.
Malcolm McKayIn the case of British aircraft I suspect that it was a hang over from the standard British army method of designating the various sub variations of equipment which developed as a result of changes in these becoming somewhat more complex than could be properly defined by just using a description. This was a result of the increasing number of changes that were able to be made once proper industrialized military equipment production occurred in the industrial society of the 19th century. Aircraft were in the very early period of their use just before WW1 simply an extension of army equipment and the practice was continued as the RFC came into being and when this became the RAF. It might have continued for longer if WW2 hadn’t occurred and forced production of evolving variants to the point where the use of Latin numbers became unwieldy. The average non-classically trained person could probably easily recognise that for instance III represented the 3rd variant but once you got into XVI (16) or XIX (19), or even IX representing 9, then that was beginning to stretch things. Also a great many officers and most senior administrative staff in WW2 were coming from backgrounds that were outside the old military’s traditional recruiting area which was the private school system.
Malcolm McKayFascinating pics – excellent work.
Malcolm McKayThe hypocrisy of this vote is immense – Britain and England’s biggest export industry for the last few centuries has been exporting its citizens by various means all over the world and now just because of its fear of a few immigrants it decides to leave the EU. Reminds me of the horror when the empire finally collapsed back in the 50s and all those people who had been citizens of colonies decided to migrate to Britain. The horror was that these people were the wrong colour or had been well hawwwkkkk spittttt!!!!! mere colonials. Oh and get ready Poms for a massive rise in your cost of living as the tariff walls go up.
Malcolm McKaySo once the Scots and the Irish leave the union what will be left – just Little England out of the EU clinging to tourism and high tariff walls to support its economy. A truly ludicrous decision bought on by xenophobes and nativist fascists.
Malcolm McKayAnd it was right they should have – considering the lives sacrificed in WW2 by the US and the countries of the Commonwealth to undo the internecine horror unleashed by European fascists. Now we have a slender majority of voters mainly in England who have decided to spit in the face of that sacrifice just because they don’t like foreigners. Truly an example of the victory of xenophobic ignorance over good sense.
Malcolm McKayFact is, all you and your ilk are worried about is their own little world and their money, and your perception what the EU has done to help us, and make Europe and the world a better and safer place, all at the expense of other people’s democracy!
Now surely that’s a far bigger act of selfishness and burden of guilt to carry on one’s shoulders!
Paul
(Little Englander)
And in what way was England’s democracy endangered by the EU. You seem to forget that the peaceful environment enhanced by the EU was only achieved at great sacrifice by a lot of non-European countries that came together to get rid of the results of Europe’s internecine squabbling that caused WW2. Little Englanders are what you will become as Scotland leaves the Union and I’m willing to bet that the Northern Irish probably will as well because they won’t want to see their economies suffer. All because some 17 million idiots think that somehow being out of Europe will be the magic ticket to a new independence and importance. You really haven’t considered the economic fall out for this Little England have you. What happens when the EU closes the door on the movement of workers from Little England into jobs in Europe, closes the door on your easy access to living in places with better climates and job opportunities and starts erecting tariff barriers against English manufactured goods and food exports. You’ll respond with tariff barriers and guess what – your cost of living will skyrocket. From prosperity in the EU to being a north Atlantic Zimbabwe in one easy step. And all because a group of loud mouthed xenophobes led by fascists like Farage don’t like foreigners.
Malcolm McKayWhat a selfish and disingenuous statement Malcolm.
Your claim about ‘old people clinging to an imagined past’ is completely false, considering people of all ages voted to exit the EU.
(Whatever you definiton or thoughts of an ‘imagined past are’, at least they knew what the country was like before our entry into what was to become the EU).
And the comparison of Nigel Farage to Oswald Mosley is a rather strange and confused one.
Those that voted to remain in the EU are voting for something that (despite what it claims or is seen to be) is a bullying, undemocratic, and corrupt institution.
Whilst the EU may not be seen or regarded as fascist, the above are certainly fascist traits, so you can see that your Mosley/Farage link is indeed, rather flawed.
“The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.”
Heinrich Himmler“The people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. All you have to do is tell them that they are in danger of being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
Hermann GoeringSounds rather familiar, doesn’t it!
Just as in the summer of 1940, the people of Britain have proved once again, they will not be intimidated by bullies from across the channel, or by their own Government and people.
It would appear we are not (and never have been) a nation of quitters, despite what people would have you believe.
Cheers
Paul
(AKA. a ‘Little Englander’)
Don’t try and weasel out of admitting the truth about people like Farage – the majority of votes to leave came from older voters and the permanently disenfranchised who have the mistaken belief that somehow being out of the EU is an alternative to getting off their arses and working. The EU has managed over the period of its existence to stop Europe from descending into that endless cycle of war and destruction that has been the one common feature of its sad history since the end of the Roman Empire. You little Englanders want to go back to a period when the petty rivalries and fascist leanings of the various European governments gave us such wonderful events as the Hundred Years War, the Seven Years War, the bloodshed of the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, and, to top of all those bloody events, WW1 and WW2. It was the sheer horror of WW2 that led to the push for European economic union. That particularly bloody event was excessive even by the standards of Europe and now we see the same fascist rabble rousing behaviour repeated by the likes of Farage and that upper class twit Boris Johnson.
I really hope you are proud of yourselves because you have managed to set in train the undoing of what years of serious effort to avoid repeats of all those endless wars had achieved. Now we have fascists on the rise in Britain, France, Holland, Germany and other parts of Europe while the Russians whose historic aim has always been a disunited and endlessly bickering collection of small countries in Europe are probably rubbing their hands in glee. Your best hope is that the leave vote was so narrow a victory that it will be overturned by your government actually showing some leadership and spine. And you haven’t even considered the long term economic effects for the Britain as suddenly tariff walls appear, the free movement of labor is curtailed and Britain becomes subject to trade and migration barriers that it hasn’t known for years. Anyway the Scots will probably now leave the union as will the Northern Irish and all that will remain is a truly Little England relying on endless royal pageantry to attract enough tourists to support your collapsing economy.
Malcolm McKayThe vote to leave was an incredibly stupid decision by old people clinging to an imagined past. No thought for the future and fixed in the dubious politics of that modern day Oswald Mosley – Nigel Farage. What these idiots have effectively voted for is a collapsing economy but then that always happens when you leave the decision to the political equivalent of skinheads and football hooligans. The politics of people who hate anything foreign and forget that the glory days of Britain ended in 1939 when the empire built on cheap local labour and theft of foreign resources and territory by military conquest was effectively ended. Now it appears that Farage’s followers are giving strength to other fascists like Le Pen in France and Wilders in Holland. Did anyone who voted to leave the EU really want to see a replay of what bought Hitler to power in the 1930s – that by the way was another result of a free vote in Germany by equally ill-informed people. Hopefully there will be sufficient political backlash given the closeness of the vote to force a rethink. Certainly this will force Scotland out of the union as well as Northern Ireland and if that happens it will just be a diminished England with an economy based on foreign tourists watching endless anachronistic royal ceremonies. I hope that these selfish elderly people who voted for this mindless result are happy because they have effectively stuffed Britain.
Malcolm McKayThanks but I know what Malcolm hoods look like – I was asking for photos of the ones the OP was referring to.
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