How original is original (again…)!!!

Could you furnish a % of original material incorporated from the nominated identity against each one?

Robbo – Is that “% by weight/mass” or “% by number of individual components” , and by “original” do you mean as actually fitted when it first left the site of manufacture, or as fitted at date of recovery prior to any subsequent “post service use” restoration?:diablo:

With Mark12 (IIRC) having explained on a past thread just how little of a Spitfire (for example) actually constitutes the portion that could be considered the original build “identity owner”, then I fear most current airworthy examples might contain very little original material however you assess the percentage… :rolleyes:.

While its good to understand that (for example) a certain airframe is an “original” airframe whose provenance can be traced back to BofB service (for example), so long as the aircraft looks right and sounds right then I’m fairly happy that what’s in front of me is a Spitfire/Hurricane/Demon/ Nimrod etc…. Yes, personally I might view some airframes as so bast@rdised as to be beyond the pale in terms of originality, but I’m just happy someone has invested the time, money and TLC in bringing them back to life for me to watch.

Maybe I’m a philistine, or maybe I’m just too easily pleased ;).

Paul F

Chance Lights

Wasted a spare lunch hour trawling the web, and can throw a little light (pardon the pun:() on the manufacturer of Chance Lights.

Seems they were made by Chance Bros & Co. Ltd, Smethwick, who had a history of innovative glass manufacturing, including production of lighthouse lenses. Seems Chance & Co developed a number of new glass making techniques along the way, including cylinder blown sheet glass, and welding/sealing of cathode ray tubes (CRT) as used in early radio detection and ranging/radar sets – another link to aviation.

Incidentally Chance Bros also produced the white glass used in the four clock-faces of ‘Big Ben’, they glazed the original Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition, and they provided some ornamental windows for the American White House. Quite a busy bunch!

In 1954 or thereabouts Chances Lighthouse business appears to have been acquired by or merged into Stone-Chance Ltd, based in Crawley. and the Lighthouse Works in Smethwick may have been closed and work transferred to Crawley. This may date the current Chance light in the Crich Stand as mid fifities or later (See Kev 35’s photos in link to his thread a few posts above).

So far as I can tell, Stone-Chance went on to become Stone-Platt, and they continued to produce lighthouse equipment and other glass working equipment. Not sure if they are still based in Gatwick Rd, Crawley, but I will look out for them next time I’m driving down that road.

So, (taking my new “glass working historian” anorack off :D), theres a bit of background info to add to the story, for what it’s worth.

Cheers

Paul F

P.S. The Shoreham airport light I mentioned back near the start of this thread woudl appear to fit the “pundit” description…..

Have seen Crich Stand from the (excellent) tramway museum a number of times – great to see what it looks like up close. I didn’t know you could climb the tower or I might have made more of an effort to get go there when visiting the museum.

The views from the top end of the Tramway museum track are pretty impressive, so with the added height from the top of the Stand tower they must be absolutely stunning.

And no need to apologise for the photos – they look fine to me, but then I love the Peak District.

Thought provoking as ever Kev…”lest we forget”.

Paul F

and I hope she looses

Likewise, but if she does lose due to her being out of her seat when she should’ve been strapped in then she’ll probably try and sue the airline for not making the belt buckle “passenger inoperable” when the fasten belts light is switched on…:diablo:

Or she’ll sue the aircraft manufcaturer for building/installing “hard” surfaces and a hard toilet rather than installing softly-padded fitttings ‘just in case’ this happened…:diablo: :diablo:

Sad thing is, the only people gguraanteed to “win” out of this will be the parasitic lawyers again…. as ever!

Shagbats?

I think the link is Shoreham as I know Peter Masefield’s(?) Mustang was there in civvie colours for one of their airshows in the sixties, long before warbirds were common on the air display scene. I guess MH434 may also have appeared in her belgian (IIRC) civves at the same show, or perhaps G-AIDN or G-ALGT were there in civvies?

So, maybe they are nick-names given to three of the ASR squadrons’ Supermarine Walrus (Walrii?) when based at Shoreham during the war?

Would certainly fit the ‘sea-going vessel’ clue too, as the type was used as a catapult-launched spotter plane on some larger RN warships.

And, assuming we are talking military registration then there are two inactive examples at Hendon and Yeoviltion (I think), plus the work-in-progress Dick Melton example..

Am I getting warmer Willip, or is my local knowledge misleading me

Paul F

However this time, it is slightly better. I thought since stories of laser-pen misuse are posted a lot in commercial, this would provide for a refreshing read/view. Summing up, they are trailing a police helicopter fitted with equipment that is able to trace the origin and help locate the offender. It also mentions the possible introduction of new laws to help tackle these fools.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7990013.stm

A reality or a piece of PR mainly intended to frighten the laser-wielding idiots off perhaps….?

Unless they have the ability to retrofit such kit to any and every airliner likely to land at any airport that has seen a laser incident then I doubt it’s much more than a token gesture.

However, the deterent effect of hearing a helicopter around may well lead the brainless idiots involved to stop any regular activity of this type :).

Paul F

Superzoom vs D-SLR, my experience….

Hi Scott,

I started with one of the “super zoom” digicams, and yes they are small, light, fairly easy to use in “auto” mode etc, and yes – like all diigcams they eat batteries – I would recommend your first investment (apart from a memory card of course) would be a decent set of high capacity rechargable batteries and a recharger – they will quickly save you money as opposed to single use non-rechargeable batteries. By the thrid or fourth re-charge you’ll be saving money.

I started off with a Fuji S5500 (6Mp, 10x Zoom IIRC) some five years ago, and it took good photos once I knew how to get the best from it. Given time and practice I think any of the current 15x (?) superzoom models from Kodak, Canon or Fuji etc will all give you photos that are okay, but they will never compete with the images you would get from a D-SLR. One important tip re super-zoom models, don’t be fooled by the degree of “digital zoom” a camera offers – the important thing is the degree of optical zoom, as any level of digital zoom will immediately start to erode image quality, whereas optical zoom will not.

When I moved up (or back) to D-SLR after the Fuji (I went for a Canon EOS 350D, based on thirty years happy use of Canon film SLRs before going digi), my intial results were poor – partly because I was using an old budget priced zoom lens on the body, and partly because the D-SLR is much more dependent on the user knowing how to get the best from it – yes it will still have a full “AUTO” mode, but that makes lots of assumptions about the scene you are photographing, and I find it far better to use one of the manual settings so that I can choose some/all of the camera settings beforehand. At a later date I purchased a better Canon IS lens, and now my photos are half decent, but I’d still hesitate to post them here as they just aren’t as good as many I see from other forum users.

Good photography is not just about having a good camera, it is about knowing your subject (and how it behaves), knowing your camera (and how to get the best from it under many differnt conditions), both take loads and loads of practice. Yes decent gear and lenses help, and without them you’d struggle to get photos of the quality we see here, but equally, even with decent gear it is very easy to take a load of cr@p photos, whilst a good photo can be taken on a low tech camera if it is used well.

The good thing about digital is that you can practice over and over again, save the best and, perhaps, the worst results (both are useful for learning what did/ did not work), then you can empty/wipe the memory card and start all over again.

So, go for the best camera you can afford – if you can afford a D-SLR go for it, but unless and until you can get a zoom or telephoto lens of over 250mm focal length you may find results will be disappointing as you will have to digitally zoom in on the image. If you cannot afford a D-SLR, go for a well known make of “”pro sumer” super-zoom. In the latter case it will always act as a “back up” or spare camera once you move up to a D-SLR later. When I travel on business I haven’t usually got room for my EOS 350D and spare lenses in my cabin baggage, so I often take the Fuji S5500 and make the best of it while I am away.

And as others have said, don’t go for one large memory card, go for more smaller cards or you risk major disappointment if it fails or gets lost (also downloading anything over a 2Gb card to your PC can take a while!). Shop around online for rechargeable batterirs (even for D-SLRs – you can find unbranded battery packs far cheaper then original branded items and in my experience they work just as well).

Most of all, whichever camera you end up with, get out there and get using it – and for goodness sake take it out of the “AUTO” mode and start playing around with things like aperture and shutterspeed settings yourself! Try taking a photo in auto, then take the same photo again but in one of the manual modes, see how results compare, work out which is best for that situation and that subject etc etc.

Oh, and consdier second hand camera gear in decent photgraphers, EOS 350Ds etc are quite cheap second hand.

Also, I know it’s a very “old fashioned” approach, but why not save up for the gear first rather than buy and then pay it off afterwards – you’ll appreciate the camera much more when you get it if you don’t have to worry about paying for it for the next year.

Paul F

Brazilian AF B737 parked on the remote stands at LGW last evening when I flew in from GCI. Didn’t notice anything else particularly exotic.