The Telegraph article makes it seem that the photo of Churchill pretending to fly is some remarkable, just-unearthed artifact. It has, of course, been around for decades and is reproduced in any number of books.

I hope at least a few people who see the pic understand that I could put all four of our cats in that left seat and teach them to “fly”in about three minutes…

Yes, off in the S.S. Minnow….with a first mate named Gilligan.

John, I’d have thought you could do better than that. (As my then-grade-school daughter used to say, “You’re so funny I forgot to laugh.”) Please visit tighar.org, and you’ll see many photos of “SS Minnow.” The University of Hawaii’s research vessel, owned by the State, might surprise you.

Imagine a museum filled with dead-nuts accurate Picassos, Matisses and da Vincis. Who would care, who would go? Not me.

I’m told by people very experienced in aviation and maritime conservation that the freshwater bath won’t do nearly as much good as the Norwegian museum people seem to think. the salt simply won’t all leach out from lap joints and under fittings. The Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation (CMAC) at Texas A&M University has done a lot of research into this, and they feel that an aircraft that has undergone serious submersion in salt water needs to undergo electrolytic treatment in a citric sulfate bath. There is a lot of good science available on this, and I’ve let the museum people in Sola know but have yet to hear back from them. Obviously, they may well simply ignore me.

its not fuel injection as we would know it; its a very early form.

I doubt that anybody is assuming that it’s 3,000-psi direct injection controlled at the injector by piezioelectric microchips, or whatever they’re called on a 2012 Mercedes or Lexus…but the important thing about fuel injection, early form or late, is that it’s not a carburetor. I’ve driven racecars with some inarguably primitive forms of FI, but it was pretty effective nonetheless.