Following on from other recent threads, I’ve had involvement with stuff going on both of these (and actually spent considerable time on board one) – and no that doesn’t make me as old as you might think
Anybody else had close involvement with anything interesting?
Nothing with wings I’m afraid but I’ve kept this going on a shoestring. Replacing both front springs, rebuilding the brakes, and fettling the fuel pumps.
My dad swapped his LWB Land Rover for this. He needed to do a bit of a Jack and the Beanstalk style explaining to my mum. It had a Rolls Royce petrol engine. An air raid style siren and almost an anti aircraft scale searchlight, oh and and a bell!
I figured I’d always regret not keeping my first Mini – so I restored it – thrashed it with a 1400cc engine – sold it to my brother – who promptly sold it for twice what he paid me.
I restored this, after my dad gave up on it in the ’50’s.
The Hummingbird FPSO. The circular hull negates the need for a £xx million rotating turret for the risers. The downside is that it doesn’t weathervane so the waves take a bigger toll than on a conventional hull design.
I rebuilt part of the Pegasus engine on one of these once:
When the engine had been put back in the Harrier, they tested them by chaining the plane down to a massive steel grid over a concrete pit, firing the engine up to full power and tested the strain of it. The noise was unbelievable, the plane bucking and straining against the pull of the massive steel chains and the retaining grid.
been on, in and under a couple of these – pulling bits off and trying to put them back. also spent a lot of time pushing them up and down the road.
unreliable money-pits. 🙂
used to work a 6 colour flexographic printing press for a year when i left school, was interesting setting the machine up, positioning plates, feeding the paper, setting the diecutter, mixing inks, uv varnish etc, boring as hell standing reeming off a run of 500,000 boxes/cartons type stuff.. mind you used to get a shot on the forks lifts too which was great!:D
marked one of these up with lots of little numbered stickers, ripped it to pieces with a mechanical digger, transported the bits 500 miles in three artic trucks, then blew the bits into smithereens with C4 explosives, det cord and something much, much more frightening. Meticulously gathered all the bits, transported it again, then pieced it all back together.
@ Samuri
Nope, it’s a real thing, called a ‘Bagger’. They holes they excavate are so huge that some baggers have been burried in them in the past when the lignite has been excavated. it was not deemed economic to remove and recycle the excavator. Common sight near a friends place, just outside of Cologne.
I’ve seen the big machine that makes all the frozen chips in the Findus factory in Kings Lynn.
At one point, all the chips are belting along, about 60 abreast like a giant scalextric, and they go over a jump – at which point an air jet blows any of them with black bits into the discard. Unless they’re doing the Aldi or Tesco Value ranges, when they leave the black ones (and little slivers) in.