Does it affect his No Claims Bonus

Does the culprit have to declare such accidents when he tries to renew his car insurance I wonder…..

Can you imagine the Emb 145 pilot’s description of events on his insurance claim claim form..”There I was, minding my own business when I felt a jolt, heard a loud bang and my tail fell off, as some ruddy great 747 comes out of nowhere and hits me up the jacksie..”

Paul F

Photography from LHR T4

Oasis 747,

If you get airside, then there is a coffee bar through the back of the “retail area” which allows a fairly good view of the apron and some gates for T4, and a good view across to the LHR central terminals.

Departures on runway 09R (i.e departures to the east from the southerly runway) can be viewed and photographed, with heavies rotating and lifting off in full view. Smaller types tend to be airborne and climbing so that they are too high for anything other than underside shots.

The coffee bar area also allows good shots of the aircraft movements to and from T4, though this may be dependant on runways in use etc.

Beware, the windows have a brown tint which can affect colour balance – use photo-editting software to rebalance colours. And watch out for the window frames when panning with the moving aircraft for photos! I used a multi-shot function so that I stood a better chance of getting some “frame-free” results!

Reflections from the terminal interior didn’t seem too bad, esp if you keep the cmaera clos e to the window, and distortion due to glass wasn’t too obvious, but watch out for “sticky fingermarks” on the windows, which can be a real problem – unless you’re prepared to wipe the window with a “Wet One” tissue or similar to clean it first.

I spent an hour or so taking photos from there with my trusty Fuji S5000 whilst waiting to board my BA flight to Bangalore in February, and got some photos which I was really pleased with.

I can post a few on the photo thread if anyone is interested, though they are now four months old….

Paul F

Looks a bit like a marionette convention. All those cables…

That’s it! I knew the “unusual” building design reminded me of something… it’s a Gerry Anderson production isn’t it?

So exactly when do International Rescue arrive at their new HQ in deepest Shropshire then! 😀

Or has Thunderbird 2 already been chopped up? :diablo:

Paul F

Labels can be deceptive

Heslop01,

Why haven’t you answered the point Grey Area raised – I.e. are you sure that none of the ingredients used by your beloved Body Shop (before they sold out to L’Oreal) were ever tested on animals?

As someone with some technical knowledge of many of the ingredients involved, by virtue of my background and employment, I can tell you that many of those ingredients used by B-S (and many other companies who still seem to claim their ingredients qnd products are not tested on animals) WERE indeed tested on animals, and as a result were confirmed as safe for human use, prior to a certain cut off-date which I cannot remember.

So, with use of clever wording of claims on labels, such as “None of our ingredients or products are tested on animals” it leads people to believe they are using ingredients and products which have never been rubbed into a rabbit’s eyes or skin. The clever bit is the use of the word “are” and “our products” in the statement.

No, none of the ingredients used have been tested since the cut-off date, or at the request of the company itself, but most of the ingredients were widely tested on animals before that date. Similarly, the specific ingredient lists and percentage weight/weight composition used by the company may not have been tested on animals, but there are onlya finite number of sensibel combinations of ingredeints that produce a practiacl sahmpoo (or moisturising cream, or whatever), and most sensible combinations probably have bene tetsed on animals, albeit for other brands and prior to the cut-off date.

Thus people are effectively being duped into thinking that the product they are using today has never been tested on animals, when in reality, it, or something very like it, or it’s ingredients, has been. Okay, it’s splitting hairs, but I think it’s a case of where the letter of the law is being applied by businesses in order to make them appear whiter than white, rather than the true “Spirit” of the law, which they would find hard to follow.

In a case where a company takes the moral high-ground, as did B-S, I think it should be careful to apply both the letter of the law and the Spirit of the law too.

– I also presume you never use a single medicinal product developed in the last twenty or thirty years, and that even if you are ever unlucky enough to be struck down with a serious illness than you will stick to your principles and not resort to using medication that has been tested on animals.

While I do not like to see animal suffer unnecessarily – i.e. smoking beagles (I never could get mine to stay alight 😀 ), I see no problem with testing medicines on animals so long as it is done as humanely as possible. I accept that animal testing is not a foolproof guide to safety or efficacy- witness the case of the blokes who sufferred an unexpected and near-fatal recation to anew mmedicinal compound here in UK a few month back, but at least the testing is being done to try to develop something with the aim of reducing human suffering. I personally think a human life is worth more than pretty much any animal life.

Testing of beauty products on animals is another matter, and I think that it is easier to argue that this is not a legitimate use of animals, as cosmetics do not reduce human suffering, but simply pander to the vanity of those with sufficent disposable income to afford them. However, as I have stated above, most of the widely used ingredients, and workable combinations of them have alreday been tested on animals, so it is not too difficult ofr the cosmetics industry to avoid future animal testing.

Well, that’s my two-penneth….

Paul F

Longest Runway?

Boscombe Down Perhaps?

Paul F

Oops

Sorry one and all, I wasn’t advocating watching from outside, merely trying to explain why some members of the public (i.e. non-enthusiasts) might feel it was an option for them. There is probably no real justification for anyone who sees themselves an aviation enusiast/anorak/buff freeloading, especially if a suitable price-concessions scheme is in place.

With the exception of Farnborough, where I have family living so close that I can watch the show from their back garden I have no intention of freeloading an airshow. And even at Farnborough only three or four times in thirty years have I freeloaded on public days without having bought an entry ticket on one of the other public days.

All I was saying is that 1) local people who feel they are inconvenienced by the added noise and traffic generated by a local airshow might see a “freebie” show as suitable recompense for their inconvenience, and that 2) As ticket prices rise, the general public might not be willing to pay as much as an enthusiast to come in, unless they feel the whole entertainment package they will get is worth the entry price.

I fully accept, and understand, that costs are rising due to things like ever spiraling liability insurance costs, and that airshows take a lot pf planning etc, but your average punter probably does not, nor will most of them be impressed by the same things that will attract most enthusiasts. That’s just a fact of life. As an enthusiast I take the view that even at £30 + a Legends ticket beats a premier football match in terms of value for money however you calculate it, and so I am happy(?) to pay to see the show from inside the fence. However, for a typical family of four, looking for a day out to suit Mum, Dad and the kids, an entry cost of ca £100 plus the inevitable add-ons for refreshments etc probably seems a lot of dosh, if they can see “most” of what they percieve as being on offer (i.e. the flying display itself ) for free then I guess they’ll do so. Of course, many of them would happily pay near on the same to take the family to eat pies and see 22 blokes kicking a pigs bladder around a field, which would bore me to tears – so it’s all about “horses for courses”.

I am in full agreement that anyone freeloading has no right whatsoever to complain about the show, nor to publish photos on the forum unless they clearly state they were outside the fence (and thus suffer the written wrath of those Forumites who paid to get in).

B. Max – Sorry to hear Sywell made a loss, if it was deemed a success by the general public, rather than the enthusiasts, then you do have a problem which needs to be explained to the general public. Maybe the local press need to be encouraged to explain your points in the run up to the next show, in hope of shaming more people into paying to come in. Had you thought of sending bucket wielding bodies out to ask for voluntary donations, and if those outside could hear the tannoy system you could have named and shamed them (as a group not as individuals) perhaps? No doubt those free-loaders would probably be among the first to moan if the air ambulance covering their area was scrapped.

Paul F – Definitely not advocating Freeloading!

Regularly see the same effect with heavies on approach or t/o here at LGW, and I often think “I must try and catch that on camera…”. However, its usually when skies are really grey, damp, and claggy, not blue and clear as in this photo!

Paul F