He was quoted as saying he’s not going there for the money, but for the opportunity of building up a US footie club. Yeah right:rolleyes: , so why isn’t he donating all the cash to a charity then…..

He’s now clearly a “has been” who knows he won’t get an offer he can afford to take from a top-flight European club, so this gives him a chance to make some cash whilst being able to put a brave face on what is probably his last move before retirement…. $7300 an hour, how will he ever be able to survive on so little 😀

Paul F

Are there many routes where four engines are currently a necessity then?

When I flew LGW -SFB on a Mytravel A330 two years ago the route was presumably ETOPs compliant, but it seemed pretty close to a “great circle” minimum-distance route anyway. Would much time/distance have been saved if we’d flown a more direct route on a four-holer such as a 340 or 747 which didn’t nee dot follow ETOPS rules?

I guess it might affect trans-pacific or trans-polar routes more than northern transatlantic routes?

-Sorry to display my ignorance of matters crucial to commercial ops, but I’m more of a “historic thread” follower, and see most modern airliners as little more than a convenient means to an end. 😮 However, I know ETOPs was a major concern when the first large long-range twins were introduced, a friend then working for the CAA ( and with relevant experience in the jet engine manufacturing industry) explained the ETOP principles to me and said that he knew jets engines are far more reliable power plants than ever, but that he would still be reluctant to board a twin jet that was venturing out over blue water where its route would take it more than a couple of hours away from a diversion airfield, simply because he felt that “one runs out of engines so quickly when you’re relying on only two of them to keep your feet dry”.

Paul F

Some of us had little choice but to live with those “naff” products of the 1980’s motor industry :(.

What an impressive sight she made parked there – now it’s just those two plastic Spit & Hurri replicas, still, I guess they perhaps do more to draw in the average punter than a large, some may say ugly (not me, I love the Beverley), transport type.

Shame she’s gone…

Paul F

Polarising filters, a tip…

Mr A,

One thing to look out for is finding the optimum “orientation” of the filter in any situation, assuming it can be rotated once fitted to the lens/holder.

I’ve used a polarising filter occasionally with 35mm SLRs for years, and by rotating the filter itself within it’s mount (my set up is/was a Cokin filter system if that means anything to you) I found I could vary the degree of “effect” of the same polarising filter.

While this may be a marginal benefit/effect, it does make a difference to the degree of enhanced “blueness” of the sky etc, and might have a similar effect in terms of degree of reduction of glare highlights off perspex etc.

If the “lens” of the filter cannot be rotated once in place on the camera/lens, you can always try rotating the whole camera and lens itself between “landscape” and “portrait” positions, this may change the effect obtained with the filter. Later processing in Photoshop (or similar) can always allow you to “re-crop” back into the preferred image shape/orientation.

How does this change in effect of the filter occur? – It’s a long time since I was at school, but somewhere deep in my memory of A-level physics is the fact that polarising lenses/filters block out light waves that have anything other than a fairly narrow plane of orientation of their wave form (normal light sources produce light in which the waves oscillate in all possible planes about the axis as they travel between source and viewer). By reducing the orientation of the plane of the waves, different results can be seen.

That’s why if you get a pair of polarised lenses (or filters), hold them in front of each other like an ad hoc telescope but a few inches apart, then view a light source through them both, by rotating one of the lenses/filters you can actually reduce the amount of light getting through, and even end up with almost no light at all, i.e. the light source is shut off. This occurs because the first lense restrict the passage of all light except that in a narrow plane of wave form. The now-planar light waves allowed through the first lense then reach the second lens which is orientated at right angles to the first, thus effectively preventing transmission of the planar waves that are at right angles to it’s permissible range, so very little light gets through the second lens. (Its akin to trying to post a letter through a letter box when the letter is held at 90 degrees to the letter box slot.).

Incidentally this is always a quick way to check if cheap “polarising” sunglasses on the local market stall are indeed polarised, hold two pairs up one in front of one another, and rotate one pair – at some point in the rotation the lenses should appear to go very dark. If they do not , then at least on set of the sunglasses is not actually polarised.

Here endeth the lesson….No doubt someone else can explain it properly, but it does prove that orientation of a polarising filter may change the effect it produces.

Paul F

Excellent as usual, Tom. Why does it seem to always be sunny in your bit of the country when all we have up in the grim north is cloud and rain?!

Paul

Being based in offices above South Terminal here at LGW I can assure you that it isn’t always as sunny down here as Tom’s photo’s suggest, he just seems to have the knack of picking good days to take photos ( or he’s a bit of a fair-weather photographer 😉 – only joking 😮 ). Some days I can’t see the stands from here, due to rain or fog, and they’re only about 200m away from my window.

Good selection as ever Tom, love the last shot of the My Travel A330, I should be winging my way to Florida on her (or one of her sisters) again for two weeks at Easter.

Paul F

G-ALUA

As G-ALUA she was based at Fairoaks Airport (their description, not mine), near Chobham, Surrey in the early/mid 1970’s, I saw her in the hangars there a number of times. She was painted an overall dark silver, with maroon lettering etc. She later left and went to Eire.

Paul F

I mean, did nobody in the production team of PH think to look at a book about the actual attack?? :rolleyes:

What, you mean they didn’t do any research to check whether they had got their facts right 😮 😮 Surely not! 😉

Whyever would they worry about letting the truth get in the way of a good(:rolleyes: ) story…..:diablo:

Paul F

Does said ‘mill have it staying at Duxford, or merely passing through? And will it be intact, or in crate(s)??

Looks like a Chrimbo outing to Dx may be in order….:)

Paul F