patham

What sort of mumbo-jumbo engineering & planning is this - you have let the side down seriously ! Everyone knows that the engineers houses are built and repaired with absolutely no forethought, just like the mechanics car is held together with baling wire and body-filla. Next you will tell us you read the manual for that fancy big screen TV. You are not beyond redemption though. That last picture shows a TV with a stand size X metres wide, balanced precariously on a table top, also of critical dimension X metres wide. No sneezing allowed!

Well, some people seem to be surprised that businesses are, well, businesses and not charities. https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/121391205/coronavirus-mackenzie-mayor-attacks-hotel-closures-and-tourism-job-cuts

In this one post, you bring back multiple memories: 1. Being a Bulawayo boy myself, I recall the Air Scouts and their Percival Provost, although the scouts themselves had pretty much folded by the time I was there. 2. Being a Zimbo and studying at Wits, there were many holiday road trips past Louis Trichardt. On one of them in the early 90's I remember seeing a Buccaneer doing an approach to that range at low level - pretty impressive. The action part of the range itself is not close to the road - so no flash bang stuff witnessed. 3. I also used to have a 30 mm cannon cartridge in my cool stuff collection as a youngster from my father (he was in the air force as fire & rescue at Gwelo). I also had a brass starter cartridge from the Avon engines (Hunter & Canberra). I assume you mean a cartridge, and not an entire shell ?

Yep, an interesting factoid was that one of them was the very first CN-235 prototype that was ever rolled out of the factory. I had never heard of prototypes being sold off commercially once the test program is complete, but I suppose it shows the maker has confidence in their product. That one has since been retired.

No matter how many times I proof-read my text before hitting post, some gremlin always flies by and inserts a duplicate word word, a speeling error or an incomplete train of . Every time ! I just accept them nowadays as a fact of life, and mostly everyone seems to get the gist of the message.

Correct. Inherited initially from when the homelands were integrated back into RSA. But quite decent little planes I gather. Just don't load all of your company executives into a single example (Sundance Resources learned that hard lesson).

This is one big reshuffle of the global (and local) deck of cards, and the odds of getting a good hand are pretty slim. And about buying local in NZ. Not too sure you can make cars or laptops out of milk, cheese, butter and salmon? And Aus is no better really either.

The real reason why Jacinda wants to have a special open borders relationship with fellow low count numbers Australia as soon as possible is that she hopes like hell every single Aussie will holiday in Queenstown, seeing as they can't head to Bali. Australia has a economy that is far from balanced, and quick googilism shows tourism is about 3% of GDP and 8% of export values. I see NZ gets about 6% of GDP from tourism and comprises a value of 20% of exports. So NZ needs Australia for tourists a lot more than the other way around. But either way, our balance of payments for both of us is messed up by this. Don't expect currency strengthening any time soon.

For the NZ'ers and Aussie contingent on ANZAC Day. A cross-post or two in the aviation thread. https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/180012-for-the-aviation-fans/page-198?do=findComment&comment=3649167

One more thing on the Anzac Day rememberances today. I cam across this poster someone made on my lockdown walk around the suburb. So here's a topic for a new discussion - who has or had relatives in Bomber Command in WW2? When I have a bit of time I will compose my own distant family history.

Today in Australia and New Zealand was Anzac Day, a localised rememberance day for servicemen and women, which is taken very seriously. Because of the various lockdown rules, the normal dawn services could not be held, but we did participate in a driveway dawn rememberance, when people would walk to there driveway to pay their respects. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-25/coronavirus-queenslanders-mark-anzac-day-in-wake-of-pandemic/12132618 Having an early morning walk just afterwards, I was lucky enough to see a bootleg flyover by a Spitfire and Mustang. Bootleg because the authorities did not want to see such flights go ahead. They were going pretty slow and relaxed, but the sound of those Merlin engines is so distinctive as compared to the normal general aviation piston engines. Goosebumps. Picture is from the article linked - I was nowhere no close enough. I could make out the Spitfire, buy could not ID the Mustang.

Page back 60 or a 100 pages in this thread (I'm just guessing - use the search function). I asked that exact question and got helpful feedback from the usual suspects.

The Mitsubishi Mu-2's pictured have such clean lines and the design just looks right - another favourite of mine from the looks perspective being a Beechcraft Duke. But yes, probably diamonds. A gazillion years back I did a few skydives at Carltonville (I think) and noticed that the security company engaged by the gold mines there used a ex SAAF Albatross to do the gold transport to Johannesburg.

I need a marketer ! Maybe I can say this on my CV after all: Awarded frontrunner status in the 2020 merit based accolades program of the IFCCA (international focussed communications community association).

Oppo-who ? Is that a cellphone make and model ? Never mind. I can hardly write "Deemed as second smartest person on internet forum, as voted by one other random forum member" on my CV.

Unfortunately, in the realm of twitter judging and public opinion, speaking out against the consensus herd can be damaging. This economist (story below) brought up the concept of the "cost of a statistical life", only to be mobbed. Luckily, the same did not happen to me when I brought that up a few weeks back on the Hub. I don't think she even made the point that it was the only way to look at things, but it is just a tool to help provide some insight. https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/coronavirus-australia-economist-gigi-foster-shares-blunt-lockdown-view-on-qa/news-story/e8fafd0e4c268c45cbb5133b767f0863

Really, I don't know how you can expect police to do their jobs without coffee and donuts. It's like PPE for their soul.

Don't bring logic onto my studio ! (obscure saffa reference). Its like over here in Queensland. You can only exercise with one other person. However, you can have two people visit your house. Hence, if your two visitors parked down the road, you could not walk back to the car with them, lest be accused of breaking the exercise rule.

The aspect that clouds matters is that politicians live for the day, not for the future decades. So minimising deaths today provides a better chance of good publicity and re-election than minimising the same or more number of deaths next year, and the economy is 10 years time is some-one else's issue to fix. Political NPV works on a very high discount factor !

Also - is a landing slot at Heathrow as valuable as what is was a few months ago? I gather Heathrow has shuttered one runway and two terminals, and traffic won't be picking up soon.

I fear the postage for a 6 m length of 2 by 4 , or a sheet of ply would make it impractical for me to send you the necessary supplies ! In a similar vein, we checked the Australian Post website recently. It is impossible to post anything to the sub-Sahara Africa at the moment due to border shutdowns and no flights. Who would have thought that society could regress 200 odd years in a month, as you could mail stuff back then. Surface mail is obviously no longer a "thing." Post to the first world is still possible, but they say to expect limited delivery spaces and unknown delays in the order of several weeks.

I was mailing a NZ based buddy and told him that your Level 3 is still worse than our (Aus) hodge-podge collection of make-it-up-as-we-go-along rules.

For the best story in that vein read this: where a SR-71 Blackbird at Mach 3 and 80 000 ft disintegrated around the pilot who was not able to eject. https://theaviationist.com/2015/03/17/sr-71-mid-air-disintegration/ Even better for Blackbird fans, read the book that is mentioned in the article - it's truly outstanding.

TMI ! Just be careful you don't get up to fetch your tea cup when you are on that company video call. But yes, I am working harder than ever, just at home. The library book stockpile is not even dented - no time for reading.

KSC is an awesome destination. On a road trip in the US I was hoping to get there in time to watch a Delta rocket launch, but the timing didn't succeed. Anyways, after doing the Florida coast, Keys and Disney we swung past to KSC on a random day (2001 - if you wanted internet access to do any research you needed to find a public library), and were lucky enough to be there, and on the runway grandstands, when one of the shuttles landed. Largest glider ever - so quite an eerie sight to see this thing come in silently. And the double sonic boom as it slows down (quite high up and far, far away) was also pretty cool.